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Why the Nicotine Patch Just Doesn’t Work to Quit Smoking

  • Posted on July 2, 2009 at 11:47 am

You see it advertised all the time. All of your happy cigarette-free friends want you to buy them, and you see them next to the cigarettes almost anywhere you can buy them. They’re a giant rip-off, though, and don’t actually work to quit smoking.

Why? They treat smoking as a disease, just like the common cold. Everybody wants some kind of “magic pill” that will cure their addiction to smoking, because all of the other ways just seem unbearable. Let’s take a look at the main one for a second here:

Cold Turkey? Most people connect quitting cold turkey with months of misery as your body detoxes itself of nicotine. You’ve heard the horror stories of people quitting smoking cold turkey and being awful company for weeks.

Back to the nicotine patch. It seems like the perfect cure: You slap one on in the morning, and don’t feel any cravings for cigarettes. Repeat for a few weeks, and you’re cured.

The problem comes in when you, like every smoker does, happen upon one of your smoking friends. You’ll rip the nicotine patch off, stuff it in your pocket, and light up a cigarette. Why? Because the nicotine patch doesn’t make you not want to smoke, it just makes you not want nicotine.

Your mental ties with smoking (seeing your friends, getting off of work, etc.) are still there. The tiny little success rate from nicotine patches comes from people who manage to (very much like cold turkey quitters) push through all of those triggers for long enough. That doesn’t sound much better than quitting without the patch, does it?

Before you try to quit smoking, you need to understand exactly how a smoking addiction works. You can learn all about it with this article: How Smoking Addictions Work

Why doesn’t the nicotine patch work?

Article Source: Why the Nicotine Patch Just Doesn’t Work to Quit Smoking

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Why is Quitting Smoking So Hard? (It Isn’t the Cigarettes)

  • Posted on July 2, 2009 at 9:37 am

The hardest part about quitting smoking isn’t actually quitting smoking, it’s the bizarre stigma that everybody (even non-smokers) have created about how hard smoking is supposed to be. The ironic thing is that it doesn’t have to be that hard!

When most people quit smoking, they don’t actually become non-smokers. They become smokers who, depending on their success, are just not smoking at the time. Whichever method they’re using, be it nicotine replacement, pills, or cold turkey, in their minds they are still smokers.

The problem is that people try to treat smoking as a physical addiction, when it’s a mental addiction. You’ll notice that you can easily go for hours without a cigarette, as long as you know that you’ll get to smoke eventually. If it was a purely physical addiction, this wouldn’t be possible.

You’re only as addicted to smoking as your mind wants you to be. You have connections in your mind between certain events (getting off of work, being on the phone, working on a term paper) and smoking that trigger your urge to smoke. In order to truly become a non-smoker, you have to unravel these connections and realize that cigarettes won’t actually help you do anything.

It all breaks down to identifying when you want to smoke and why. If you figure out what causes you to want to smoke (and anticipating the way it affects you) you can easily break free from your supposed need to smoke, since you’ll reduce it to something as simple as, for example, biting your nails or chewing on toothpicks.

Want to quit smoking, but don’t want to waste money and time with nicotine replacements? Take a look at my EasyQuit System Review and learn how you to quit smoking the right way!

I originally posted this article here: Why Is Quitting Smoking So Hard?

Article Source: Why is Quitting Smoking So Hard? (It Isn’t the Cigarettes)

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Smoking – It’s All in Your Mind (Or – Why the Patch Doesn’t Work)

  • Posted on July 1, 2009 at 7:57 pm

Your want to smoke isn’t caused by the decrease of nicotine levels in your blood, despite what many people want you to believe. It’s because your mind is trained to desire cigarettes at various points during the day.

There’s a very simple example to demonstrate this. Do you smoke every, say, hour? No, you smoke when you’re on the phone, when you’re in the car, or right after you’ve had a fight with your wife. Your smoke to relieve stress, not to satisfy your craving for nicotine.

You don’t hear yourself say “wow, I could sure go for some nicotine right now.” Instead, you say “huh, let’s take a break and have a smoke.” There’s a key difference there, and it’s something that few people who want to quit realize.

Just as smoking is something your mind desires, quitting has to be done by dealing with your desires directly. You have to figure out what your mental triggers are and how they work in order to stop your urges for cigarettes. The nicotine patch, gum, and the like don’t work because they treat your physical addiction to nicotine.

You’ve probably heard of a ton of people who are on the patch yet still want a cigarette. If cigarette addictions were physical addictions, that would never happen because their want for nicotine would be resolved by their replacement therapy, but it’s not.

Again, smoking addiction is caused by your mind and its want for cigarettes, not from any sort of physical conditions.

Now that you understand how smoking works, you’re ready to learn how to quit smoking and kick your habit.

Smoking – It’s All in Your Mind

Article Source: Smoking – It’s All in Your Mind (Or – Why the Patch Doesn’t Work)

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Methods of Quitting Smoking

  • Posted on July 1, 2009 at 7:56 pm

Methods of Quitting Smoking can be many and varied. It is easier to say this than achieve itNeverthelesss it can be accomplished The one thing that has to be remembered in all of this is what it is exactly that is being given up

Smoking cessation (or quitting smoking) is the action leading towards the discontinuation of the consumption of a smoked substance, mainly tobacco, but it may encompass cannabis and other substances as well.

As has been mentioned there are a number of methods that have been used to help smokers give up but in all cases there has to be a deep desire to actually give up before to be brutally frank there is much likelihood of any success. OK so having got that out of the way, what exactly are the range of methods available to help the smoker give up this habit?

Methods of quitting smoking include straight withdrawal with all the expected and anticipated side effects such as “Cold Turkey” which funnily is the method by which at least 80-90% of all smokers use to give up. A wide variety of other methods are used to help smokers give up and these range from various aspects of spiritualism to antidepressants and rug therapy.

If it is at all possible then let’s try and put together some sort of compiled list of methods and techniques used to help Smokers kick their habit.

We start with the most obvious and that is the one that was discussed earlier and that is just stopping straight.

Alongside this is the usage of “Cold Turkey” but with the additional bonus of some counselling support. After this we have the usage of nicotine support patches for perhaps a periods of up to eight weeks to enable a more gradual withdrawal of side effects to take place. Next we find the usage of limited antidepressants such as bupropion. Alongside this is the usage of the nicotine receptor agonist varenicline (chantix) which is a prescription drug that can be used to alleviate some of the withdrawal symptoms. After this we have noticed an increase in the use of injection therapy whereby the user is given an injection which primes the immune system to produce antibodies which attach themselves to the nicotine and thereby prevent it from reaching the brain. There has also been a rise though not necessarily a successful one of the usage of Hypnotherapy.

Alongside the rise in the more mainstream medical treatments there has also been a considerable uptake in the usage of more fringe therapies such as self help and “spiritual influences”. Do any of them work? Yes and no has to be the honest answer but the real clincher in all of this possibly has to be the will power of the person or persons involved. If they want it to happen then there is an increased chance that the therapy or treatment will be successful.

Please read carefully. As with all things medical, consider your options carefully.

It is essential to remind the reader of this. You should always check advice independently. Your professional advisor should be contacted and his or her advice sought.

The reason for our recommendation to seek independent advice is as follows. With matters like these it is always prudent, in these litigious times, to get independent advice that should confirm your initial belief.

Steve Morgan regularly writes about Health issues and more on the above can be found at Methods of Quitting Smoking or http://methodsofquittingsmoking.com

Article Source: Methods of Quitting Smoking

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