It's Not Your Fault That You Can't Stop Smoking

Are you still smoking and feeling bad about it? Are you blaming yourself and feeling undisciplined?

It really isn’t your fault that you can’t stop smoking cold turkey. And I want to explain to you why that is, and how your brain works when it comes to stopping smoking, especially stopping smoking cold turkey. Then you’ll be able to understand why it isn’t your fault, and you can come from a place of power when you do stop smoking.

The Decision to Stop Smoking Comes From Your Conscious Mind

When it comes to quitting smoking, most of that decision to stop smoking comes from your conscious mind. Your conscious mind is the logical part of the brain. And that part of the mind makes up only 12%. That’s not a very big percentage of your mind. Which isn’t a good thing, because this is the part of the mind that knows smoking is bad for you, you shouldn’t be doing it, and that you should really stop smoking cold turkey today. But it’s only 12%.

The other 88% is your subconscious mind. And that’s the part of your mind that wants you to keep right on smoking. And that is the part of your mind that is your belief system. When you smoke, you see yourself as a smoker, and that part of your brain sees that as your identity. So when you’re trying not to smoke, it’s like you are going against your identity. That part of the brain also keeps you believing that smoking is a friend, it comforts you, helps you drive, helps you drink your coffee and manage your stress. There’s a lot of belief in our subconscious mind that smoking is good for us.

The Habit of Smoking and the Patterns Your Brain Creates

We also have the habit of smoking. The mind works in patterns and wants those patterns repeated. So if it expects ten cigarettes a day, it demands that the pattern be repeated. You might notice that if your mind expects that a cigarette should be happening, it’ll bug you for it until you have it. Most of what drives the smoking isn’t so much the withdrawal from nicotine, it’s the brain saying it’s time to smoke and it expects a cigarette.

But there’s a deeper part of the mind. This part protects us, it contains the fight or flight response. So when you try not to smoke, that part of the brain perceives that you’re taking away something that you need to be able to live, and will kick into that fight or flight response. That can lead to a panicky feeling and a visceral reaction to stopping smoking. The actual physiological withdrawal from nicotine isn’t that big of a deal. It’s actually the brain and the mental panic that makes it seem physical.

Understanding Your Mind and What You're Up Against

So when you go to quit smoking cold turkey, 88% of your mind is against you, and only 12% is for you. You can probably tell who is going to win. So when you make a decision to become a non-smoker, it has to come from the inside out. There’s certain things that you can do to help with that.

What hypnosis is, is a mind tool that relaxes that critical filter between the conscious and unconscious mind. From birth, your brain has been developing that filter. What hypnosis does is it relaxes that filter so that we can give suggestions to the subconscious mind that it doesn’t normally hear. The whole point of hypnosis for smoking cessation is to get the entire mind aligned with the decision to become a non-smoker. Because once you have that 88% of your brain on board with becoming a non-smoker, that’s when you become successful.

As you can see, it isn’t really your fault. Even if you desperately want to quit and have tried many different methods in the past to stop, but haven’t been successful. Other methods don’t address the part of your brain that is working against you. That’s why stop smoking hypnotherapy and hypnosis is so successful with helping people to stop. If you’re interested in learning more about how hypnosis can help you stop or how it works, simply click here and check out my free stop smoking tools.