Well, there you have it.
The rest is up to you, now it's time to set your quit smoking day . You now know how to change your attitude toward smoking. And you know how to substitute the habit of relaxation for the habit of smoking. And that's all you need to know.
You can now set a quit smoking day or date. Give yourself a week or ten days in which to practice the principles of self-hypnosis -and practice, please. Just reading the material isn't enough. You can't repair something simply by reading the directions-you have to carry them out.
Learn how to take a "three-second breathing break," and try it frequently.
But Do Not Stop Smoking Until Target Date / Your Quit Smoking Day
Don't even cut down. For reasons that we've examined and understood, most methods of breaking the cigarette habit do not work and cannot work because they do not and cannot get to that level of your mind where patterns of habit operate automatically. If you try to stop two minutes from now, you're almost certain to fail again. Failure breeds failure. You’ll make it just that much harder ever to break the tobacco habit.
Set the date-and make it an ordinary day. Not a special holiday, not a day when there'll be parties and whoop-de-do.
Don't discuss your plans or your quit smoking day with anyone else. If you do, they'll be coming at you from all sides. They haven't been able to shake the habit, and unconsciously they won't want you to beat it either.
Your target date and quit smoking day is a private affair, and if you are not sure that you've mastered the techniques of self-suggestion, you ought to be able to delay "target day" for another day or two (but no more than that!).
Between now and target date, "talk back" to the advertisers. Don't read hastily or listen carelessly; examine their claims and promises and slogans intently. Finish their sentences for them. Quote statistics back to the copywriters and the announcers. If they tell you that the smoke of their cigarette is as icy as a mint frappe, test their claim. Hot smoke is hot smoke, and not even the finest photography and advertising copy can change that fact. Don't let a false claim slip by you. You're fighting a deadly important fight against deadly diseases.
You'll probably begin to lose your taste for cigarettes before the target date or your quit smoking day . You'll begin to realize that there are very few cigarettes each day that afford you very much pleasure. You'll begin to look forward to stopping. Instead of worrying about what's going to happen when you stop on your quit smoking day , you'll grow impatient for target date to come.
You won't have the jitters. If anything, you're going to be a far more relaxed and relaxing person once you stop.
You won't start to gobble up sweets and other food substitutes. You'll have a good new habit that doesn't add weight-just ease.
If the urge ever returns, you can eradicate it quickly and easily with self-suggestion. If you "slip" and do happen to smoke a cigarette or two, that need not be the signal to start burning them up again at the rate of a pack or two a day. All it means is that you'll want to spend a few minutes a night for the next few nights reinforcing the sound decision you did make and did successfully carry out for a while.
But the odds are that you won't slip.
You're going to enjoy your new self. And the nicest thing is this: when you give up smoking, you are no longer committing suicide on die installment plan, set that quit smoking day today.
THE END