Preparing Yourself With The Psychology For Quitting Cigarettes

The first thing you should know is that most smokers quit unsuccessfully several times before they quit for good. You will most likely not be successful your first time around – but you must keep trying! Each time you attempt to quit you come closer to finally quitting for good.

During or before you have your last cigarette, start to visualise yourself as a non-smoker. Visualisation is a very effective psychological technique not only for quitting cigarettes but for many other things as well.

There have been many scientific research studies to show how powerful visualisation can be. One that I recall, was a study done where athletes were wired to a machine used to measure muscle activity and asked to visualise themselves in the act of doing their event, say a 100 meter sprint. Then, those same athletes were studied while physically doing the 100 meter sprint. You know what they found? They found that the exact same muscles were active and firing whether they were sitting in a chair visualising themselves doing the sprint, or whether they were actually doing the sprint physically.

So what does this show?

It shows that your brain can’t tell the difference between your body physically DOING something, or your mind simply visualising it. The implications of this are huge. So if you start to visualise yourself as a non-smoker, your brain will begin to release certain chemicals associated with that visualisation. Just by thinking of yourself as a non-smoker your body will begin to make subtle changes that will assist your body to experience this for real!

So just think about doing your everyday activities without a cigarette break and feel OK about that. Think about all of the reasons that you want to quit smoking in the first place, and do this as often as possible. Because at the end of the day, if you have no worthwhile reasons to quit, why should you? Chances are you won’t quit. Think of as many reasons as you can, perhaps write them down. Fully inform yourself about the health benefits of quitting, not just for yourself but the people around you as well, such as your children or other members of your family that are exposed to your cigarette smoke.

If money is a motivating reason for you, calculate the amount of money you’ll save when you quit. Then think of something you’ll use that money for, really picture yourself using that money in a different way; it’s the power of visualisation once again. Also keep in mind, when calculating how much money you’re spending, make sure to consider the tax that you’ve already paid on that money.

Often people forget this. So be sure to add whatever tax you pay on your income and this will give you a much more accurate figure. This figure would be the equivalent to getting a pay rise from your boss just for quitting cigarettes.

It’s essential to get into the right mindset for quitting, especially when studies show that trying to quit is 20% physical and 80% psychological. What does this mean? It means that getting the right “psychology” around quitting is 80% of the battle won!

Once you’ve gained the right mindset. It’s then time to plan having your last cigarette. So you have an idea of what will happen, understand that the human body is incredibly resilient, and that your health begins to improve from the very moment you stop smoking, by establishing a concrete and achievable plan to quit smoking you’ll increase your chances of success. It is very important to understand that being in the right frame of mind will affect your chances of success. Being fully aware of why you are quitting and believing in yourself, in your attempt to quit, is also essential. Once you’ve stopped and had your last cigarette consider yourself a non-smoker, and to help, remind yourself of the health benefits you will be experiencing immediately after putting out that last cigarette.

I’m always amazed at the human body, how it works and how it has this innate ability to heal itself. You easily see examples of this all the time. If you accidentally cut yourself, you don’t have to ‘think’ about healing it just happens automatically.

If you are able to facilitate a good environment for the body and give it what it needs through good nutrition and hydration, it will naturally repair itself. The same goes for quitting cigarettes. Once you stop introducing the 4,000 toxic chemicals into your body, it will immediately begin to find its own balance of health and wellbeing. But be prepared that as it finds its balance again, you may ‘feel’ this process. Some will not, we’re all different. But a little later on in this report I’ll share with you some valuable information that will assist to minimise these effects.