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Smoking is an addictive and harmful habit that affects millions of people around the globe. Today, we are aware of the dangers of smoking, and smokers are encouraged to find ways to stop smoking for their own health. This is not an easy feat, as smokers begin at an extremely young age. The average age of a new smoker is thirteen years old.

A habit formed at that age is not easily broken. Nicotine affects many parts of the body and it is hard to break this addiction without assistance. There are many diseases associated with smoking. Most smokers require assistance on how to quit smoking and a variety of different methods exist for this very purpose.

There are many reasons why people begin smoking and develop a smoking habit. The main reason that people try smoking is peer pressure. Some young people believe smoking will make them appear more mature, and be popular with their peers. It also is forbidden which makes it all the more alluring to teenagers, hence the low starting age for many people. This young age makes quitting smoking more difficult in your later years.

Media can also have an impact on the decision to begin smoking. Smoking portrayed in movies or on television can lead you to believe that smoking is acceptable behavior. Parents can wield the biggest influence over their children by setting a good example and discussing smoking, its dangers, and expressing their desire for their children not to smoke. Mothers and fathers who smoke are much more likely to have children who smoke.

Smokers begin to crave nicotine, a drug within tobacco. Nicotine can affect your body and mind in many harmful ways. Nicotine, once inhaled into the lungs reaches the brain in a matter of just eight seconds. Once in your brain, nicotine affects your blood pressure and heart rate. Over time it can increase your bad cholesterol levels and narrow your arteries. Nicotine in concentrated doses is a lethal poison, so you can imagine the effects on your body. Nicotine is also addictive and one of the reasons many smokers cannot quit the habit.

Smoking can affect your health on many different levels. Low stamina is one side effect of smoking. More serious smoking related diseases include emphysema and cancer. Heart disease and stroke are also closely associated with cigarette smoking. A person who quits smoking will dramatically reduce their risk of developing these diseases for every year they go without smoking.

The outcome of these medical conditions caused by smoking is grim. Lung cancer is nearly always fatal unless detected very early and 80% of lung cancer cases are caused by smoking. Lung and heart disease can subtract years from your life unless you learn how to quit smoking. There is no cure for emphysema, only limited treatment options, plus the damage to your lungs cannot be repaired. Stop smoking benefits include a healthier, longer life and a better quality of life.

There are many different ways to quit smoking, and you must choose the right method for you as an individual. Nicotine patches and gums are made to help slowly release you from the nicotine addiction. These only work for about 10% of the people who use them. Going cold turkey is another option and this is effective for up to 11% of the smokers who choose this option. Other well known methods to quit smoking include an herbal kit that can guide you through quitting. It has a success rate similar to that of nicotine gums and patches.

Hypnosis is a very popular option for those who want to quit smoking without experiencing weight gain or withdrawal symptoms. Hypnotherapy has a high success rate with smokers who have decided to quit smoking. Hypnosis might sound like an extreme solution but it delivers solid results up to 70% of the time. This success rate is many times that of other methods.

The reason hypnotherapy is so effective is that it while the physical addiction to nicotine makes up only about 10% of the cigarette smoking addiction, the emotional and mental aspects of the habit make up about 90% of the cigarette smoking addiction. Hypnosis treats this aspect of the addiction.

Additionally, 45% of the smoking behavior is caused by stress, and hypnotherapy has proven to be a powerful tool that can help reprogram the mind to divert away from stressful thoughts, and towards relaxing, positive thoughts. In addition, the very essence of hypnosis is that it incorporates a state of deep relaxation.

And about 45% of the smoking behavior is prompted by conditioned responses. This is when smoking is associated with other situations at the unconscious level of mind. For example, if you smoke and simultaneously watch TV, your unconscious will associate the image of a cigarette in your hand with the image of the TV. Every time you see the TV, your unconscious flashes an image of the cigarette in your hand, and you experience an urge to smoke.

Stop smoking hypnotherapy is routinely used to "extinguish" the conditioned responses by disassociating the unconscious links between cigarettes and TV, coffee, driving, working on your computer, or any other situation where an unconscious association has been formed.

In summary: Although most smokers believe that their inability to quit smoking is due to their addiction to nicotine, in truth it is the psychological aspects of smoking that present the largest barriers. Hypnotherapy was accepted by the American Medical Association in 1958 as an effective tool. Hypnosis for quitting smoking is the second most common use of hypnotherapy today.

While hourly rates for hypnotherapists continue to skyrocket, there are effective self hypnosis programs available that can greatly reduce the cost of obtaining hypnosis treatment. Since everyone is unique, there are no specific "magic" words or post-hypnotic suggestions that will work for everyone. So when choosing hypnosis CDs, look for those that incorporate a broad variety of hypnotic and NLP techniques in a series of at least six or more sessions to enjoy the best possible results. In any case, the cost of the very best self hypnosis programs equates to much less than the amount that an average smoker spends each and every month on buying cigarettes.

Alan B. Densky, CH invented the Video Hypnosis stop smoking program that helps smokers easily quit the habit. He also created other ways to stop smoking with Ericksonian Hypnotherapy and NLP. Visit his Neuro-VISION self help hypnosis site for free hypnotherapy videos and downloads.