If you are now ready to make up your mind to rid yourself, once and forever, of the cigarette habit then consider using smoking self hypnosis but here's just one word of warning: Don't start today even if you are using smoking self hypnosis!
This may seem contrary to advice you've received before. You're always told "to strike while the iron is hot" … that the time to undertake something new is while you're enthusiastic. But you can't get rid of tobacco craving with a spur-of-the-moment decision. You didn't form the habit overnight, and you aren't going to get rid of it overnight.
We are going to conquer this everlasting routine of lighting up yet another cigarette by applying both a psychological principle and the techniques of smoking self hypnosis. When you are versed in both of these, you'll be able to face the prospect of cigarette-less days calmly and confidently. But not until then.
When you are ready, there will be no anger and no sudden decision-merely a calm knowledge that you can do it and that you'll make a thorough and competent job of it.
When You're Ready, You'll Be Anxious to Start
It's going to take time to establish deep, subconscious dissatisfaction with the habit of smoking; but when we succeed, you'll gain a feeling of thorough pleasure from not smoking.
It will also take some time to learn the trick of relaxing, using the "visual imagery" principles of smoking self hypnosis.
How long? That depends upon how diligently you put yourself to these tasks. It may be a day or two, or it might be a week or more. The maximum should be ten days. During the learning period, in any event, your enthusiasm will grow. You will be anxious to get started. You're anxious now, of course, but wait until you are sure you are ready … and able.
When you have actually smoked the cigarette that, you've decided, will be your last cigarette, you will know positively that it will be your last cigarette. You will have no doubts. You will know beyond any question that you have freed yourself permanently from the bondage of smoking.
The use of suggestion to break the cigarette habit is scarcely a new development. The fact is that hundreds of people who couldn't stop smoking even when they had to-victims of Buerger's disease, for example- have been helped by trained hypnotists.
If you don't mind spending the money and time, and if there is a qualified hypnotist available to you, he can help you end your smoking.
On the other hand, if you yourself learn to use these safe, simple techniques on your own, you'll find that they benefit you in other ways. You can whip a siege of insomnia, for example; and you'll become able to relax so effectively that everyday tensions won't wear you out.
Fair Enough, You Say-But Why Use Hypnosis?
"But isn't self-hypnosis a drastic measure?" you ask. "I'm sure that I can now convince myself that I've got to quit smoking. With what I know about taking a concentration break, and with what I've learned about arguing with advertisers, it should be easy to quit."
A good question. Let's examine it.
The big fact about hypnosis is "heightened suggestibility." The suggestion gets through to the subconscious, and becomes a permanent part of the subconscious, because hypnosis makes powerful suggestion possible.
Self-suggestion (or "autosuggestion"), on the other hand, is confined to the conscious level.
Is there a difference?
There's a great deal of difference.
It amounts to the difference between going to a dentist, who practices with hypnosis, and having your aching tooth extracted painlessly without chemical anesthesia-or sitting in the same chair and having the dentist simply tell you, "This isn't going to hurt."
In self-suggestion or autosuggestion, the conscious mind attempts to influence itself. In smoking self hypnosis, the suggestions are made directly to the subconscious mind.
During autosuggestion the conscious mind is concentrated upon the suggestion. Therefore the conscious mind challenges the suggestions, raises questions, and applies logic and experience and critical evaluation.
Self-suggestion or autosuggestion, without hypnosis, isn't much different from arguing with yourself.
It Isn’t Effective if It's Watered Down with Self-Doubt
With autosuggestion you say to yourself: "I'm going to quit smoking. It would be stupid to risk lung cancer or heart disease for a lousy cigarette. Besides, I'm tired of smoking."
Your conscious attention is upon the resolve to quit. Your conscious begins raising doubts. You begin to think about the consequences of breaking the cigarette habit. You wonder about the jitters and whether it's worth it or not. You begin to rationalize, weighing the "good" and the "bad" and naturally favoring that which you believe to be the most pleasurable. Your resolution is subjected to scrutiny by logic and past experience. In the light of past failures, the conscious mind is forced to admit: "I should quit smoking, but I wonder if I can."
The autosuggestion has been watered down with self-doubt. It becomes, "I hope I can give up the cigarette habit." With more rationalizing and more self-doubt, it eventually becomes, "Oh, what's the use.
When You Argue with Yourself, You Defeat the Purpose
You make the suggestion stronger. "I am definitely going to quit," you tell yourself determinedly. "I'm not going to fool around this time. I'll use every bit of will power I've got to lick it. I know the medical researchers are giving me the facts."
In arguing with itself, the conscious mind must accept the information offered by the subconscious memory. Whether it wants to admit them or not, there are the statements from the tobacco industry advertising, the advice from friends who have told you not to worry about smoking (they don't), plus your previous doubts about the harmful effects of the cigarette habit and your ability to cope with it.
The autosuggestion is therefore watered down even further. It becomes, "It may be harmful to my health to smoke, but I'm not quite sure. And while I know it wouldn't do any harm to quit, I'm not quite sure that I can quit. In fact, I probably can't. So why try again anyway?"
There Can’t Be Any "Flaws" in the Playback
To be effective, suggestions must be received under hypnosis without critical evaluation. There must be no doubt or challenge when they are given to the subconscious mind.
Lacking the power to reason, the subconscious must then accept them exactly as they are received. And when recalled from the subconscious memory, the suggestions are "played back" exactly and are used to form new logic.
This is the suggestive force of hypnotism. And it cannot be stressed too strongly that the suggestions must be received without critical evaluation.
If you have ever witnessed a demonstration of hypnotism, you may have seen the power of a post-hypnotic suggestion. Frequently, for example, the hypnotist tells his subject that when he is awakened, he will see a $10 bill on the floor-but that he will be unable to pick it up. The hypnotist then awakens the subject and informs him that he can have the money, if he can pick it up.
Because of the post-hypnotic suggestion, the person finds that he is literally unable to lift the $10 bill from the floor.
Can you appreciate now why I have insisted that you do not set the target date for ending your cigarette habit until at least a week or ten days after you have read this book and begun the practice of self-hypnosis? The target date will be established as a post-hypnotic suggestion. If you establish it in the right way, it will become easy to stop (possibly it would be better to say that it will be difficult NOT to stop).
You Could Stop in A Minute (if It Didn’t Make You Nervous)
The smoking habit can be stopped instantly with hetero-hypnosis and a post-hypnotic suggestion that a cigarette will taste so bad that the subject will refuse to continue smoking it. The subject is told, while in the hypnotic trance, that when he awakens the cigar-rettes he smokes will taste like "burning rubber."
In his awakened state, the subject often reasons that someone has tampered with his cigarettes. But the same taste of "burning rubber" is in a new pack and will persist until the post-hypnotic suggestion is removed or wears away.
But this is absolutely no way to assist a person to rid himself of the cigarette habit permanently. The habit isn't removed-it's only inhibited. The desire to smoke remains. The frustration of the desire to smoke can create serious nervous tension.
However, this same powerful suggestive force of post-hypnotic suggestion can be employed positively during self-hypnosis to change subconscious feelings toward the smoking habit. With a change of attitude, the desire is gone and the habit is whipped.
If You Believe You Can, Then It's Easy
It is the failure to recognize the tremendously effective force of the post-hypnotic suggestion-and a tendency to confuse self-hypnosis with autosuggestion -that make it difficult for some people to appreciate the powerful influence a person may wield upon himself, to direct his own efforts, through smoking self hypnosis.
Just how powerful a force hypnotic suggestion can be was recently reported in the Journal of the British Society of Medical Hypnotists. During an experiment in London, a number of soldiers were given tests measuring the strength of their hand grips. A dynomometer was used to register the pressure they exerted.
The average grip in the normal awakened state was 101 pounds. The soldiers were then hypnotized and told that they were "very weak." Returned to the awakened state, but under the influence of the post-hypnotic suggestion, they averaged only 69 pounds. Re-hypnotized and told they were very strong, they averaged 140 pounds.
The belief that they were strong had raised their strength 40 percent above normal, while the belief that they were weak reduced it to 30 percent below normal.
Dr. Theodore Xenophon Barber, formerly with the psychology department of the American University in Washington and now with the laboratory of social relations at Harvard, commented on the suggestive force of hypnotism in the following words: "The phenomenon of hypnosis has always seemed mysterious because it has always been difficult to understand how belief can bring about such unusual behavior. It seems as if there must be something more, some unfathomable force or power at work.
"However, the plain truth is that when a subject is convinced that he is deaf he behaves as if he is deaf, when convinced he is insensitive to pain, he can undergo surgery without anesthesia. The 'mysterious force or power' does not exist."
It's Hard to Believe Nothing Happens During Hypnosis
The difficulty most persons have in accepting and practicing the powerful suggestive force available to them for self-help with self-hypnosis arises from the fact that during self-hypnosis "nothing happens."
They seem to be disappointed, even puzzled. If such power is available from self-hypnosis, they say, why don't they feel "knocked out" or "blacked out"? Why don't they "at least have a funny feeling"?
Hypnosis is a natural phenomenon, not a major operation.
Professor Griffith W. Williams of Rutgers University, says in "Hypnosis in Perspective": "What happens regularly and frequently often remains unobserved or unrecognized, so that the trance states in daily life, especially light ones, occur, pass unnoticed and remain unrecorded.
"When a man is fishing, for example, there is little to distract him. The river washes over the rocks with a relaxing music. Gradually the water seems to swell and creep up, while vision becomes slightly blurred. Often at this point, he will be seen to make a slight jerky motion of the head and to change his stance. While such an experience is frequently mentioned, it is seldom recognized that the antecedent conditions are ideal for mild self-hypnosis."
Don't be disturbed or disappointed if the induction of self-hypnosis appears to be "almost too easy."
You Form a Mental Picture of Yourself
In the deliberate employment of smoking self hypnosis for self-help, the most effective method is that of visual imagery. You use your conscious mind to form mental pictures of what you wish to accomplish.
These mental pictures are more easily transferred to the subconscious memory than are words. They are also more effective in the "play back" from the memory.
Motivation-which is how you act, feel and express your attitude toward things-is based on the sum total of experiences recorded in the memory. By giving yourself a new, clear, undistorted picture, free of self-doubt, showing how you wish to feel and act, you replace under self-hypnosis the old picture you have concerning yourself with the better one.
Dr. Edward W. Arluck and Dr. Benjamin Galinsky, both New York City psychologists, reported on an experiment involving hypnosis and visual imagery in which the subjects were told to picture themselves as being "more intelligent and more emotionally stable/' The doctors declared that every person taking part in the experiment responded by becoming more optimistic and more self-confident.
They All Claim It's Visual Imagery That Does the Trick
"Psycho-Cybernetics," a recent book by Dr. Maxwell Matz, is devoted almost entirely to the theory of developing a new personality by the employment of mental pictures. He says: "The 'self-image' is the key to human personality and human behavior. Change the self-image and you change the personality and the behavior."
J. Louis Orton, the noted British authority on hypnotism, states: "Self-hypnosis consists of the deliberate employment of mental pictures to influence oneself."
Writing on visual imagery, Dr. S. J. Van Pelt, president of the British Society of Medical Hypnotists, says: "This writer has found the visual technique to be one of great value. The patient is instructed, while under only light hypnosis, to picture himself acting and looking the way he wants to act and look. In the normal state, he retains the memory and performs the role."
Dr. Ralph Stolzheise of the University of Washington, with his associates Dr. Arthur W. Fridlinger and Dr. Edward G. Goodrich, have toured the United States conducting symposiums for other physicians on the technique of hypnotism. They report that one of their most successful experiments has been with instructing overweight persons in the use of self-hypnosis to picture themselves as slender.
The patients are taught the methods of self-hypnosis, and then told to change their attitude toward their eating habits by telling themselves: "I wish to become strong and slender. I am dissatisfied with myself because of my appearance. Because I wish to become strong and slender, I will enjoy eating lean meat and leafy vegetables."
Paint the Picture of What You Want to Look Like
It is this type of visual imagery under self-hypnosis that can rid you, permanently and painlessly, of the cigarette habit.
You will see yourself physically stronger because you do not smoke.
You will see yourself with a keener sense of taste and smell because you do not smoke.
You will see yourself with better vision because you do not smoke.
You will see yourself living longer because you do not smoke.
Place these new images and new attitudes in your subconscious mind through smoking self hypnosis, and you will experience no difficulty in breaking the cigarette habit. This is true because smoking self hypnosis is the only means of reaching the subconscious with direct suggestions.
Do you remember Freud's theory-"Psychologically, every human being lives on the basis of the pursuit of happiness―The only pleasure one can derive from displeasure is to subconsciously make that displeasure a pleasure"?
That's exactly what you're now doing. You're changing your attitude about what is pleasure and displeasure in smoking, at the source-where attitudes are formed. In the subconscious.
You are not telling yourself lies; you are not deceiving yourself; there is no self-deception here. Experience and experiments show that well-being is almost invariably increased considerably when the cigarette habit is licked. You will feel better physically. Your taste will be keener. Your eyes will not be adversely affected by cigarettes. Your chances of living longer are bettered, according to almost every shred of medical evidence we can find. Your chances of avoiding cancer are going to be enhanced. Your chances of avoiding coronary artery disease are going to be improved.
Prescott Lecky, writing on the self-image, says: "The subconscious mind acts like an 'electronic brain,” It comes up with the answers from the data that is fed into it. Feed it negative information and you'll get negative answers. Feed it positive information and the answers will be positive."
Give your subconscious mind the positive information that you are finished with the tobacco habit forever. Post-hypnotic suggestion will take over, and you will discover that all your previous fears, doubts, and uncertainties about the cigarette habit will have vanished, this is one of the main advantages of smoking self hypnosis.
Are You Ready To Move Onto The Next
Lesson? Click Here….