Smoking Beliefs
As a personal trainer, I often meet people who smoke, want to give up but haven’t yet found a way to kick the habit for good. For the determined few that finally do give up, I find they admit to having spent a long time in denial about the harmful effects of smoking, even though they knew in the back of their minds they had to finally face it in the end. I’m not saying it’s easy to quit, you can be a stong person and still be a smoker, but my advice for anyone who is smoking right now is - DON’T STAY IN DENIAL. If you smoke 20 a day, you have a 1 in 2 chance of dying from a smoking related illness. Just a social smoker? 1-4 cigarettes a day increases this risk by 3 x more than a non smoker.
An effective way to give up smoking is to start doing regular cardiovascular exercise. This focuses your attention into how your lungs feel when you are out of breath whilst running, jogging, cycling, hill walking and the need to be able to breath deeply and clearly. Try setting a goal of not smoking on the days you exercise and gradually you’ll find as the exercise increases, the amount you smoke will decrease. I’ve seen this work many times, after all ,when you feel fit you are less likely to want to go and spoil it by having a fag!
Here are some common beliefs and arguments, extracted from a smoking hypnotherapy article:
- It’s not the smoking that’s giving me this cough
No, of course not – nothing to do with how much nicotine is clogging up your lungs then - Smokers are more interesting/creative/exciting/cool/bohemian/etc – Smoking is part of my identity!
Where are we – high school? Was no one interesting, cool etc before tobacco was introduced? - I’ll give up when I choose to. I just haven’t chosen to.
Yeah, yeah! Just do it. - I could be run over by a bus tomorrow
One in 14,000 people are run over; one in two 20-a-day smokers are killed by their cigarettes. - It’s my friend/companion/’secret vice’. It ‘looks after me’ when I’m stressed/upset/disappointed/bored
Yeah, weakening your gums, destroying your serotonin so you get more depression and pain, slowing blood flow into your penis (if you’re a man) and shrivelling your ovaries (if you’re a woman), dimming your vision, and making you look 10 years older. If a person did this to me I wouldn’t be sending them Christmas cards. - I only smoke one to four cigarettes a day. Where’s the harm?
Compared with those who have never smoked, men and women who smoke between one and four cigarettes a day are almost three times as likely to die of coronary artery disease. - My Uncle Fred smoked every day of his life and ran marathons until he was 110!
Good! Was he insane? The average smoker pays seven years of life for their habit. - If I didn’t smoke, what would I do with my hands?
Go and look at some non-smokers or people who haven’t started yet - I use smoking to relax, concentrate etc.
So which is it – relaxation or stimulation? It can’t do both. Do non-smokers never relax/concentrate? That’s your reason for sacrificing yourself for the tobacco company? - I’m completely physically addicted and there’s nothing I can do.
Ah – so smokers never go on long haul flights or sleep eight hours without waking up to smoke? Conditioned association to certain times and activities is not physical addiction.
Source: http://www.uncommon-knowledge.co.uk/articles/quit-smoking.html
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