How to stop smoking and stay smoke-free for life – 3 keys to lasting success.
So you want to know how to stop smoking and stay smoke-free for life. You have quit before, only to find that you were smoking again after only a few months, a year, even 5 or 10 years. If those two statements describe you, then perhaps you didn’t have the right keys to unlock your lasting success. Knowing how to stop smoking and stay smoke-free is as simple as knowing the 3 keys described below. These are not gimmicks, they don’t cost any money, and according to many of our 10,000+ clients, they work.
1. How to stop smoking: Your target – make it to 6 weeks.
When running a race, there are 2 very important pieces of information to know: the starting line, and the finish line. Over the past 17 years of teaching people how to stop smoking, it’s very obvious that most everyone knows where the starting line is. The starting line, of course, is the chosen quit date. There are 2 finish lines. We’ll deal with the first one in this post. The first finish line to cross is beating the physical addiction to nicotine.
Though your brain does not need nicotine, it makes an adjustment to accommodate nicotine. In other words, the brain gets used to it. Similarly, when you take away nicotine, your brain must get used to it not being there. These neurochemical balances are changing all the time, when we make changes to the foods we eat, and the drugs or chemicals we take in. Among these are nicotine, caffeine, alcohol, antidepressants, opiates/opioids, sugar, fat, etc.
Together, a large body of formal and informal research, and the experiential averages gained from our client feedback, points to a period of between 2-6 weeks of adjusting to life without nicotine. After that, the brain should be completely over nicotine. Physical cravings and withdrawal symptoms should have entirely subsided by this point. Thoughts or memories may continue, sometimes for months over even years. These should not be confused with a physical addiction, or “dependency” on nicotine.
To err on the side of caution, it is advisable for anyone quitting smoking to set a date in their calendar 6 weeks from their quit date. At this point, they are truly free from the physical hold of nicotine. They are no longer powerless, no longer a victim, no longer an addict. This also means that staying smoke-free long term is a mental process. Success after 6 weeks is about continually making decisions that support staying smoke-free. Basically, setting a 6 week target on your calendar not only gives you a goal to aim for, it also lets you know when you are free.
2. How to stop smoking: “Take a deep breath” to beat stress.
How many times as a child did we all hear grown-ups around us say, “Calm down! Take a deep breath!”? It turns out this is a critical element of how to stop smoking. This is one of the keys of how to stay smoke-free. Over 17 years of seeing over 10,000 clients for smoking cessation has presented some pretty clear patterns. One of which is that stress is the number one trigger that causes people to reach for a cigarette again. That is, unless they understand why, and what they could do instead of smoking.
On its face, smoking seems to be relaxing. This is ironic, since nicotine is a stimulant, working to stimulate your body’s sympathetic or “fight or flight” nervous response. So why is it relaxing? Why does it cut through anxiety? The most powerful contributors to that result are worth getting to know. The two B’s, “Breathing” and “Break” are critical to cutting through stress, anxiety, and frustration that build up throughout the day. A cigarette provides the perfectly timed Breaks throughout the day, and it is impossible to do without the Breathing. In a nutshell, smoking makes people take breaks, during which they are forced to breathe diaphragmatically. If you’re wondering just how effective this deep breathing really is, take a look at this Harvard article for more information. Check out this article from the National Institutes of Health, which explains the effect of nasal breathing on blood pressure.
Finding stress relief resources is a critical part of how to stop smoking, and how to stay smoke-free. Deep breathing, yoga, meditation, and prayer are all effective methods to step out of the moment, and regroup.
3. How to stop smoking for good? There is no such thing as just one.
Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. This is a timeless quote worth tattooing on your brain. If 17 years of helping people figure out how to stop smoking, one pattern is more prominent than any other. It goes something like this:
Stop Smoking Therapist: You were smoke-free for (X months/years)…what happened?
Client: I thought I could have just one
Smoking is no different than riding a bike, playing card games, driving a car, talking, walking, etc. It is a behaviour that, once learned, is permanently stored in “the cloud”. Our behavioural memories are “unconscious” or “subconscious” behaviours. They are patterns that we spent a great deal of conscious energy to learn, which over time no longer required conscious effort. Hence the term unconscious behaviour. If we throw one leg over the crossbar of a bike, sit out butt down on the seat, and grab the handlebars, something magical happens when we lift the other foot. Remarkably, it finds the other pedal, and away we go.
The unconscious mind is our helper – our assistant. When we stop smoking, it puts the manual that we have written on smoking back in the library. There it sits, all of its’ pages of instructions on how to smoke perfectly intact, beside the manual on riding bikes. This holds true no matter how long a person has been smoke-free since their last cigarette. All a person need do is signal the unconscious to retrieve the book, and it willfully does so. The unconscious mind is faithful to a fault.
The signal that the unconscious should go get the manual on smoking couldn’t be more obvious. When a person lights a cigarette, they send signal to the unconscious to resume the behaviour. The bottom line: There is no such thing as just one! Anyone who is entertaining “just one” needs to ask the question, “How well did that work out last time?”
If you would like help setting a quit date and getting to the finish line, perhaps the LaserSTOP treatment is right for you.
