Wholeness Healing Center

Clean-Break: A Smoking Cessation Program Using Hypnosis

In 2005, 45.1 million adults in the United States were current smokers, with an estimated 70% who said they wanted to quit. As smoking harms nearly every organ of the body and causes many diseases, quitting helps the health of every smoker. In addition to immediate benefits, the improved health can lower one’s risk of heart disease. Because smoking and tobacco use is highly addictive, it often helps to use counseling to make the healthy choice a permanent one. By stopping, a person can reduce his chances of getting lung cancer by 80%, along with protecting those around him. Children who live with a smoker are known to have higher blood pressure, higher risk of asthma, and more respiratory diseases than those who reside with non-smokers. In fact, the “sidestream smoke” is more deadly to people than mainstream smoke, which includes hydrogen cyanide.

Many people have been led to think that smoking relaxes them, but actually the opposite is true. Since nicotine is a stimulant, the more a person smokes, the greater the anxiety created. Smoking restricts breathing which causes anxiety. Also nicotine destroys vitamins, especially Vitamin B, which is the stress-reduction vitamin. Smokers often believe they are smoking to relax, and the fact is that the only relaxation can come when they are taking a deep breath during the smoking, which is then filling their lungs with tar and nicotine.
Clean-Break, a smoking cessation program of four weekly classes, is a unique way to make a healthy change in life using hypnosis. The groups will utilize hypnosis to replace unhealthy tobacco habits as they first reduce and then eliminate the behavior. As people recognize their “triggers”, they can implement coping skills to deal with the cravings. The “tool box” makes quitting more manageable. Also, one session will focus on food, as weight gain is often a concern when people consider quitting.

Using hypnosis, the participants will become more aware of their habit of smoking, prompting them to embrace the opportunity to begin to enjoy the benefits of becoming smoke-free. Breathing will improve, taste will increase, and the habit will become less of a compulsion as the participant learns to take more control over the habit. The urge will first decrease and then vanish as the participant changes his routine, substitutes more healthy choices, and learns to relax through other means. In addition, a person will begin a more healthy lifestyle, implementing exercise, more healthy eating, improved sense of taste and smell, as well as decreasing the risk of cancer, heart disease, and emphysema. As health improves, finances increase, and people take back control of their lives. Dr. Thomas Mulvaney of Harvard Medical School said,
“Smoking is the single greatest preventable health hazard in the world”.

Clean Break offers a way to quit tobacco use and begin living in a more healthy way.
This group program will require purchase of a workbook and CD package which will aid in continuing the healthy changes, as well as tracking one’s progress.
If you are interested in joining a group in one of the offices, please call 308-382-5287, ext. 10 to express your interest. Groups will be scheduled on a first-come, first-served basis, with more groups added as needed. Groups will be scheduled in both the Grand Island and Broken Bow offices.
If you would prefer to participate in private hypnosis sessions, those are also available by appointment.

Tags: quit smoking, smoking cessation