Smoking
If you are a smoker, there is nothing better you can to do improve your health and the quality of your life than to stop smoking. It has been found that nicotine addiction is not the main barrier to stopping smoking, it is the psychological habit of being a smoker. This habit is located in the subconscious mind and is responsible for the nagging desire to smoke.
Why quit?
Smoking is one of the biggest causes of death and illness in the UK. Smoking increases your risk of developing more than 50 serious health conditions. Some of these conditions can be fatal, and others can cause irreversible long-term damage to your health. A few of the substances inhaled when you light a cigarette include tar – a sticky residue that coats the lungs and has over 50 cancer-causing carcinogens, and carbon monoxide, which reduces the amount of oxygen in the body and causes shortness of breath and heart disease.
Here are some more facts that you need to know:
• Smoking causes at least 15 different kinds of cancer
• 50% of all long-term smokers die a tobacco-related death
• Smoking during pregnancy can cause low birth weight babies, infant death and premature deliveries
• Research suggests a person’s life is reduced by five and a half minutes for each cigarette smoked
• Tobacco is the largest preventable cause of cancer and death in the UK
Smoking health risks
• Coronary heart disease
• Stroke
• Heart attack
• Peripheral vascular disease
• Pneumonia
Health risks of passive smoking
Secondhand smoke comes from the tip of a lit cigarette and the smoke that the smoker breathes out. Risks of second-hand smoke include:
• Increases your risk of getting the same health conditions as the smoker such as lung cancer
• Chest infections
• Meningitis
• A persistent cough
What happens when you quit?
The sooner you quit smoking, the sooner you will notice changes to your body.
After 20 minutes – Your pulse rate will already be starting to return to normal.
After 8 hours – Your oxygen levels are recovering, and the harmful carbon monoxide level in your blood will have been reduced by half.
After 48 hours – All carbon monoxide is flushed out. Your lungs are clearing out mucus and your sense of smell/taste are improving.
After 2-12 weeks – Your blood will be pumping through to your heart and muscles much better due to your circulation improving.
After 3 to 9 months – Any breathing problems will be improving as your lung function increases by up to 10%.
After 1 year – Your risk of heart attack will have halved compared with a smoker’s.
How can we help?
Hypnotherapy helps you break the psychological habit of smoking and replace it with the habit of being a non-smoker. As long as you have a genuine desire to quit, you can leave the session as a non-smoker, often with no cravings. The smoking cessation is the only thing that we don’t need an initial consultation, it is completed in one session of 90 to 120 minutes.
For further help and support surrounding stopping smoking, these links may be useful:
https://www.nhs.uk/common-health-questions/lifestyle/what-are-the-health-risks-of-smoking/
