SMOKING AND / OR VAPING
Some therapy will specifically target the problem of Smoking / Vaping rather than the causes of your problem (even some Hypnotherapy is known to do this). How many times have you heard people say ‘I don’t want to give up smoking as I’ll put on weight?’. As a result of focusing on the smoking / vaping it is typically replaced with other issues such as behavioural eating concerns, drinking, gambling, other drugs and even pornography. As a Strategic Hypnotherapist, I will target the causes which underlie your smoking / vaping concern. Ensuring you don’t replace one problem with another.
Interesting facts
The effects of quitting are almost immediate.
After 12 hours, almost all nicotine will be out of your system.
After 24 hours, the level of carbon monoxide in your blood will drop dramatically and you will have more oxygen in your bloodstream.
Within 1 month, your blood pressure returns to its normal level and your immune system begins to show signs of recovery.
After 2 months, your lungs will no longer be producing extra phlegm caused by smoking.
After 1 year, your risk of dying of heart diseases is half of what it would have been if you kept smoking.
How Clinical Hypnotherapy and Strategic Psychotherapy can help me
Interestingly, smoking or vaping behaviour often gets started as a self-medication for Anxiety. Generally, reaching for the smoke or vape is a way to break the pattern of anxiety and ‘take the edge off’ overwhelming or difficult thoughts or feelings. By reaching for your smoke or vape you are attempting to try to minimise the harm and to cope with the anxiety. It is also important to acknowledge the dependency comes from a good place.
However the cause of smoking or vaping use (which typically leads to smoking or vaping abuse) may not always be around anxiety, but may be as a result of your family history, peer pressure, curiosity, performance enhancement and even boredom. These may contribute to the reason why you undertake this behaviour.
With Strategic Psychotherapy I am more interested in how you are doing smoking or vaping, - not why.
How questions may include:
How you identify what factors contribute to your smoking or vaping i.e., what you control and what you don’t
How you run black or white (all or nothing) thinking i.e., I have an dependent personality - however I am not dependent on going for a 10 km run every morning
How you run your reality when you are smoking or vaping. How do you assess your behaviour referencing of your own internal thoughts and feelings to make their actions appear normal (to yourself).
How you run the uncertainty which comes from the withdrawal from smoking or vaping. How do you catastrophise stopping smoking or vaping in this space
As well as a number of other ‘How’ questions. The answers you provide are then permissively used to challenge your internal processes in your Clinical Hypnotherapy session
For you to get maximum benefits from your Smoking and / or Vaping Clinical Hypnotherapy sessions, typically allow for between 2 - 5 Sessions depending on the severity of your Smoking and / or Vaping and the underlying mental health concerns
The benefits of quitting
There are immediate benefits to quitting smoking at any age, with the largest reduction in health risks in those who quit the earliest. There are even health benefits to quitting if you have already been diagnosed with a smoking or vaping related disease. Stopping smoking / vaping decreases the risk of lung and other cancers, heart attack, stroke and chronic disease. Here are some more incentives:
You will prolong your life and feel better.
You will protect your loved ones from second-hand smoke. People who breathe in second-hand smoke are at risk of the same diseases as smokers. Second-hand smoke is particularly dangerous to babies and children as they breathe more rapidly and their lungs are not yet fully formed.
If you have an existing lung condition, the best thing you can do is quit smoking or vaping. Quitting will help you with your symptoms and potentially stop your condition getting worse. It will also improve your quality of life.
You will save money.
How Dependency Works
The following provides a general understanding of how the dependent behaviour of smoking / vaping affects your functioning:
The dependency or the dependent behaviour causes a rush of the hormone dopamine in your brain, which triggers feelings of pleasure. Your brain remembers these feelings and wants them repeated.
When you become dependent, the dependency or dependent behaviour takes on the same significance as other survival behaviours, such as eating and drinking.
Changes in your brain interfere with your ability to think clearly, exercise good judgement, control your behaviour, and feel normal without the dependency or undertaking the dependent behaviour.
No matter what you are dependent to, or what dependency behaviour you undertake, the uncontrollable craving to use grows more important than even your own health and happiness.
The urge of the dependency is so strong that your mind finds many ways to deny or rationalise the dependency. You may drastically underestimate the quantity of the smoking / vaping you’re taking, or how often you undertake it, how much it impacts your life, and the level of control you have over your smoking / vaping.
Signs of Smoking / Vaping Dependency
Signs to look out for which may indicate you need assistance with your smoking or vaping behaviour are:
The smoking or vaping behaviour may start as a way to socially connect. People often try smoking or vaping for the first time in social situations with friends and acquaintances. A strong desire to fit into the group can make it feel like smoking or vaping with them is the only option i.e social networking.
Problems can sometimes sneak up on you, as your smoking or vaping behaviour gradually increases over time. Having a smoke or vape with friends over the weekend, at a rave, or as a distraction i.e. when we are stressed, for example, can change from using smoking or vaping a couple of days a week to using them every day. As does the smoking or vaping behaviour from undertaking that behaviour once a day to undertaking that behaviour 24 hours a day - 7 days a week. Gradually, getting and using smoking or vaping behaviour becomes more and more important to you.
As the smoking or vaping behaviour takes hold, it may affect work or school, social or family responsibilities. Your ability to stop smoking or vaping is eventually compromised. What began as a voluntary choice has turned into a physical and psychological need.
Eventually, the dependent smoking or vaping behaviour can integrate itself as a critical component of your life and how you identify yourself. Critical comments about your smoking or vaping behaviour are interpreted as a comment against you personally. This only reinforces your feelings of isolation.
Contact Us
Dependency to smoking or vaping is a complex problem that affects every aspect of your life. Overcoming this dependency requires reaching out for support and making changes to the way you live, deal with problems, and relate to others.