What Makes People Start Smoking
The other day at Quit Smoking in 60 minutes I was going through my client records to see if I could pinpoint what makes people start smoking. It was very interesting in that, with very few exceptions, people start to smoke to fit in. The most common reason to fit in was that the person’s peers smoked.
This makes perfect sense if you consider the brain and how it operates. The brain is a magnificent organ but it has not caught up with the modern world, in fact, it is still quite primitive. One of the brain’s functions is to ensure that we have safety and survive. You will notice that no matter how old you are there is always an urge to fit in somewhere. If you are in danger and you are with a group of people the chances of survival are much higher. Thus the old saying: “safety in numbers”.
Need to Belong
When everyone around you is smoking, especially your peers you consciously or unconsciously, feel left out, which gives you the urge to have that first cigarette.
When you have that first cigarette the conscious mind says, “Hey, this is good, now we fit in”. Every time you have a cigarette after this “supports” this belief and makes us “feel safe and included”. The conscious mind then decides to “accept” that “smoking Protects us” and so allows this belief to create a “habit of smoking” into the unconscious mind. The process then becomes, because I fit in, I am in a group, by being part of a group my chances of survival are higher.
The unconscious mind now thinks by allowing you to smoke your chances of survival improve. This is why the habit of smoking can quickly become an extremely hard habit to break.
The best way to quit smoking and cigarettes is to change this thinking in the unconscious mind. Hypnosis is one of the best ways to make this change because hypnotic trance allows your therapist to ‘speak’ in the language of the unconscious mind.
The unconscious mind can assimilate and make changes very quickly and that is why you can quit smoking cigarettes in as little as 60 minutes.