States throughout the country have prohibited smoking in public areas. Numerous professional companies have mandated smoking cessation, and are penalizing workers when they smoke while working. Persons who smoke brave bad weather and rain, sleet or snow, and smoke away as hurriedly as they are able in order to go back to work.

In some communities, smoking has become as controversial as drug dependence. Since people are aware of stop smoking benefits, many people are working to try to identify ways to quit smoking.

The addiction of smoking is made up of three components:

1. People smoke for relaxation and pleasure. This makes up about 45% of the smoking habit.

2. People also smoke because they unconsciously associate agreeable environments or behaviors with cigarettes. Then, every time they get into that environment, they get a craving. For example, if a person associates watching television with smoking, they will become conditioned to smoke while watching TV. Then, every time that individual watches television, he or she will want a cigarette.. This component is responsible for nearly 45 percent of the smoking habit.

3. Nicotine actually creates a physical addiction. This element is approximately 10 percent of the smoking habit. Within about three days of quitting smoking, all of the Nicotine has been cleaned from a person's system!

Several methods can be used to assist individuals find ways to stop smoking. Probably the cheapest way to quit smoking, covered by the majority of insurance companies, is the nicotine patch. These products, which are simple to apply, are worn for 24 hours and can be secreted underneath the wearer's clothing. The problem with these patches, however, is that patches are not very useful. Because nicotine patches only treat the physical addiction, which results in merely one-tenth of the reason for which people continue to smoke, only about seven percent of the people who use this method will succeed.

An identical level of success is experienced by persons who use nicotine gum or lozenges. Fewer than one-tenth of the people who try these methods is able to these methods to stop smoking for at least six months. Furthermore, these items have side effects. Nicotine gum or lozenges, may be bothersome to the mouth tissue as well as the lips, and many people experience skin rashes under the patch. Remember,, these products treat only the physical addiction, which only comprises approximately one-tenth of the habit.

A different alternative is the use of counseling and smoking cessation sessions. Such programs include behavior modification techniques as well as extensive instruction regarding the adverse effects of smoking. These programs are three times as beneficial as nicotine replacement therapies; nearly one-fourth of smokers will quit for at least six months.

several smokers have utilized laser treatment programs to help stop smoking. This treatment is in some cases reimbursed by insurance, although it is new. Clinical studies held by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), however, have found that the laser treatments are no more effective than placebo. (Placebo is the effect that occurs when individuals believe they are taking a treatment, but in reality are not.)

One of the ways to stop smoking appears to be a little more successful than these previous methods. During one research study, smokers were given shots to assist them quit smoking by removing the pleasurable effects of the nicotine rush. This method, in the preliminary stages of testing for success, thus far seems to be helpful for 15% of the patients who used it.

Hypnotherapy is an alternative method of coaching people to quit smoking. Hypnotherapy deals with teaching the unconscious mind to instantly substitute other activities to provide comfort and peace, in place of the cigarette habit. It also can be employed to eliminate or "extinguish" behavioral conditioning like the connection outlined between smoking and activities in the above example, so the smoker loses the need to smoke when in the places that formerly trigger it.

Male clients appear to respond better to stop smoking hypnosis than women do. One benefit offered by self hypnosis stop smoking, however, is that, as opposed to people utilize nicotine replacement as ways to quit smoking, there are no adverse side effects.

Another helpful characteristic of hypnosis is that it addresses the 90% part of the problem that is psychological, as opposed to the other approaches that merely work against the one-tenth component of the problem that is physical. This is why hypnosis offers a noticeably greater success rate than the previously mentioned approaches to smoke cessation. Conventional hypnotherapy methods can yield a 35 percent effectiveness rate, while Ericksonian hypnosis can deliver a 50% or higher success rate.

A more recent, innovative, and significantly better alternative that assists clients to obliterate a cigarette habit is Neuro-Linguistic Programming, or NLP. This technique is far more effective than established forms of quit smoking hypnosis because it does not require users to rely on post-hypnotic suggestions at all. The majority of clients, especially people whose thoughts are critical thinkers, resist post-hypnotic suggestions. Through the use of NLP, the person's unconscious mind is trained to concentrate on the identical cognitive processes that cause the psychological dependence on smoking, to treat it!

A well thought out NLP stop smoking program organized by a trained NLP professional can offer an effectiveness rate of as high as 70% and higher.

Summary: The majority of smoking cessation methods try to use nicotine replacement products as ways to quit smoking. Other strategies, like smoking cessation and cognitive or behavioral treatment programs, try to coach the mind find ways to stop smoking.

Although hypnotherapy is more effective than other methods, particularly with male patients, it is not rated as the most useful way to quit smoking. NLP, which deals with the mental elements of nicotine dependency, actually coaches clients to change their thought processes and assist them quit most successfully.

Because 90% of a person's struggle with addiction to smoking is psychological, these methods are significantly more successful than simply replacing the nicotine and coping with the one-tenth part of the addiction that is physiological.

Conclusion: Several smoking cessation courses, such as nicotine replacement products and counseling exist. These programs usually are often successful for less than one-fifth of those who attempt them. In comparison, hypnosis yields a much higher rate of success. NLP is even more beneficial in aiding clients to successfully fight against the psychological nature of their dependency and find immeasurably more success in their struggle to become smoke-free.