Smoking is an addictive and harmful habit that affects the lives of 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 easy to do, as smokers start at an early age. The average age of a new smoker is thirteen years old.

A habit formed at that age is not easily broken. Nicotine affects the body in many ways and it is hard to break this addiction without help. There are many different diseases which can be caused by smoking. Most smokers require assistance to quit smoking and many different methods exist for this very purpose.

There are many factors that contribute to why people start smoking and continue to smoke. The main reason that people try smoking is peer pressure. It is deemed cool to be able to smoke. It also is forbidden which makes it all the more attractive to rebellious teenagers, hence the low starting age for many people. This young age makes ceasing smoking more challenging in your later years.

Media can also influence the decision to start smoking. Smoking in movies or on television can lead someone to think that smoking is acceptable behavior. Parents can wield the biggest influence over their children by setting a good example and not smoking, or quitting smoking. Mothers and fathers who smoke are much more likely to have children who start to smoke.

Nicotine is the drug within tobacco that smokers crave. Nicotine can affect your body and mind in many different ways. Nicotine, once inhaled into the lungs reaches the brain in a mere eight seconds. Once in your brain, nicotine affects your heart rate and blood pressure. Over time it can increase your bad cholesterol levels and cause the narrowing of 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 cannot quit smoking.

Smoking can impact your health on a variety of levels. Getting winded playing a game 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 greatly reduce their chances for 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. Heart and lung disease can subtract years from your life unless you are able to quit smoking. There is no cure for emphysema, only limited treatment options, plus the damage to your lungs cannot be repaired. The benefits of quitting smoking include a longer life span and a better quality of life.

There are several different methods to quit smoking, and you must pick the right method for you as an individual. Nicotine patches and gums are designed to help you slowly withdraw from the nicotine addiction. These only work for about 10% of the people who use them. Going cold turkey is another option and this works for up to 11% of the smokers who try to quit this way. Other well known methods to quit smoking include an herbal kit that can show you how to quit smoking. It has a success rate similar to that of nicotine gums and patches.

Hypnotherapy for smoking cessation is a very popular and highly successful option for those who want to quit smoking without withdrawal or weight gain. Hypnotherapy has a high success rate with smokers who are trying to quit smoking. Hypnosis might sound like an extreme solution but it delivers positive results up to 70% of the time. This success rate is far greater that of other methods.

The reason hypnosis is so effective is that it while the physical addiction to nicotine makes up only about 10% of the smoking addiction, the psychological aspects of the habit make up a full 90% of the cigarette smoking addiction. Hypnotherapy treats this aspect of the addiction.

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

Another 45% of the smoking behavior is caused by conditioned responses. This is where smoking becomes associated with other stimuli at the unconscious level of mind. For example, if you smoke and simultaneously watch television, your unconscious will associate the image of a cigarette in your hand with the image of the TV. Each time you watch TV, your unconscious flashes an image of the cigarette in your hand, and you experience the compulsion to smoke.

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

In summary: Although most smokers think that their inability to quit smoking is based on their addiction to nicotine, in truth it's the mental aspects of smoking that present the largest barriers. Hypnotherapy was accepted by the American Medical Association in 1958 as an effective tool for quitting smoking. 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 on the market that can greatly reduce its cost. Since everyone is different, 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 outcome. In any event, the cost of the best self hypnosis CD and DVD sets equates to much less than the amount that an average smoker wastes each and every month on buying cigarettes.