Hypno Journal

In her 3/9/10 article in the The Independent: “Clean Break: ‘How my habit went up in smoke,’” Charlotte Philby describes the hypnotherapy session that  helped her quit.

Here’s an excerpt:

To start us off, Shore wants me to tell her what it is I like about smoking, which is rather an extensive list. In fact, apart from having to stand outside pubs in the rain, I can’t think of one thing I don’t like – and in any case, I have an umbrella so I don’t even mind that bit too much. I don’t even resent the cost – which at £6.20 a packet, a minimum of one packet (20 fags) a day, and significantly more at weekends, amounts to a fair portion of my disposable income – because I genuinely believe that they make my life a little bit better. Read the whole article here.

Here is the opening paragraph of Joanne Silberner’s 4/19/09 NPR article, “Test May Determine Smokers’ Lung Cancer Risk.”

A new urine test appears to distinguish which smokers are likely to get lung cancer and which are not, by detecting whether smokers have a particular chemical in their urine that’s been linked to lung cancer.

The article points out that this does not mean it is safe for those who are at low risk to smoke:

Researchers say this test is no license to smoke; tobacco causes other health problems, such as emphysema, heart disease and other types of cancer.

But the test could be used as a signal that people with high levels of NNAL should be screened more frequently for lung cancer, says Tyler Jacks, the incoming head of the American Association for Cancer Research and a lung cancer researcher with MIT. That way, cancers can be detected early, when they’re more treatable.

See “Kicking the Habit for Your Pet,” by Tara Parker-Pope, a New York Times blog writer, to learn about an interesting study conducted at Tufts College of Veterinary Medicine.

Here’s the nut graph:

Nearly one in three smokers said the health of a pet would motivate them to try to kick the habit.

Did you know that cats who live with smokers lick and ingest the carcinogenic compounds that settle on their fur? Click here to read Parker-Pope’s article and learn more about how smoking effects pets.

Lately I have had a number of clients who have come to me for smoking cessation. At the beginning of a session, I ask them what is motivating their desire to be a non-smoker, what they will be giving up, and what they will gain.

Many folks mention with a chuckle that they will save money. I went online in search of statistics regarding how much smokers spend on cigarettes and found a handy calculator at the American Cancer Society’s website. It calculates an individual smoker’s cost per day, per week, per month, and per year.

They also have another calculator that helps an individual smoker see how many cigarettes he or she is smoking over a given period of time. Multiply that by the number of minutes it takes to smoke a cigarette.

While time and money may not be primary motivating factors to quit, they’re a nice bonus.

For a 2007 study on the efficacy of hypnotherapy for smoking cessation, see this article in Science News. Here’s an excerpt:

Hypnotherapy For Smoking Cessation Sees Strong Results

ScienceDaily (Oct. 24, 2007) — Hospitalized patients who smoke may be more likely to quit smoking through the use of hypnotherapy than patients using other smoking cessation methods. A new study*  shows that smoking patients who participated in one hypnotherapy session were more likely to be nonsmokers at 6 months compared with patients using nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) alone or patients who quit “cold turkey”.