Stop Smoking

Trying to give up smoking on one’s own is never easy. Anyone who has tried it will know that it’s an uphill struggle from the start, battling against physical withdrawal symptoms, emotional stress and above all the compelling urge to give into the desire to smoke. No wonder only 5% of people using will-power alone actually succeed in giving up. And that’s also the reason why more and more people are turning to alternative therapies to help them give up once and for all.

If you are looking to give up smoking with the help of a therapy, then ideally what you need is a technique which will help you on the physical, emotional and psychological levels all at once. A technique that supports your body through the difficult withdrawal period and a treatment which focuses your mind and emotions on becoming a non-smoker. Hypnopuncture does all this, and more, by combining the ancient powerful body-wisdom of acupuncture with the modern cutting-edge techniques of hypnotherapy.

Hypnopuncture and withdrawal symptoms

When you give up smoking your body immediately goes into withdrawal and begins to detoxify, causing you to experience headaches, nausea tiredness and irritability - but not with hypnopuncture. The technique is designed to help eli minate all the physical symptoms of withdrawal by using acupuncture points which trigger the body’s natural support systems and utilizing hypnosis to engage the minds’ powerful healing abilities. With Hypnopuncture you can be sure that you will experience none of the unpleasant symptoms of giving up smoking.

Hypnopuncture helps beat the addiction

The addiction to smoking can basically be broken down into two components. There is the physical and psychological dependency on the chemicals which nicotine triggers the release of, and there are the emotional and sub-conscious associations which form around the pseudo “feel good factor” which these chemicals induce. So what happens is you inhale on a cigarette, the nicotine triggers your brain to release endorphins, you experience pleasant feelings which your sub-conscious associates with whatever you are doing at the time. So to give up, you need a treatment which addresses both sides of the addiction – the physical and the emotional – and Hypnopuncture does just that.

Hypnopuncture and acupuncture

Acupuncture points stimulated in the ears, (auricular acupuncture), are known to promote the release of chemicals such as beta-endorphins. These chemicals are the same ones that cause a smoker to experience a “high” when smoking and all smokers form a strong physical and psychological craving for them. During a hypnopuncture treatment these acupuncture points are stimulated with needles to allow the body to release such chemicals naturally without the need for nicotine. After the treatment, small acupressure seeds are placed on these points in your outer ear, enabling you to stimulate the release of these chemicals naturally, between treatments. This technique rapidly re-educates your brain to function effectively without nicotine.

Hypnopuncture and the desire to smoke

All smokers over time develop sub-conscious associations and habitual responses connected to the act of smoking. A common one is the association of food with smoking, and most smokers will “enjoy” a cigarette after a meal. Other common associations with smoking are: drinking (tea, coffee, alcohol), socialising (chatting to friends and colleagues), anxiety (as a reward for coming through a stressful situation) and sex (the post-coital fag). If you’re a smoker, your sub-conscious will have developed some or all of these associations with smoking and most likely others as well. This makes giving up very difficult because each time you encounter one of these situations your powerful sub-conscious will automatically and habitually cause you to desire a cigarette. And so begins your battle with yourself – on one side your conscious decision to give up smoking pitched against your sub-conscious habitual responses to everyday situations. But with hypnopuncture there is no battle, only a harmonious re-alignment of your conscious and sub-conscious. How is this done?

Hypnopuncture and hypnosis

Hypnosis is a technique whereby a person is brought into an extremely relaxed state of consciousness. Psychologists call this the “alpha state” after the type of brainwaves that are produced when this occurs. This state is often described as very much like the period between waking and sleeping, when we are just drifting off at night or just beginning to rouse in the morning. Hypnotherapists have discovered that during the alpha state, the mind becomes very suggestible and open to change. During a hypnopuncture treatment your sub-conscious will be reprogrammed using a mixture of powerful visualisations and positive suggestion. All of your subconscious associations linking smoking to everyday activities will be resolved leaving you to enjoy life without even thinking about cigarettes.