Smokeless Tobacco - Break The Habit

By: Alan B. Densky, CH

If you think smokeless tobacco is "up to snuff" and not dangerous, think again. Whatever you like to call it - spitting, dipping or chewing - it is every bit as harmful as smoking. A lot of medical professionals believe more so because users are less aware of the risks. Cancers of the mouth, lips, tongue and throat can rapidly progress in people who use smokeless tobacco and cause debilitating and grotesque - even deadly - results.

Even with the painful and dangerous consequences of smokeless tobacco, quitting with usual ways is extremely difficult. A lot of people think the reason lies in nicotine, a natural, super toxic element found in tobacco that is the plant's defense to prevent being eaten by bugs. Looking at equal quantities, nicotine is more deadly than strychnine or snake venom, and three times more lethal than arsenic.

When dipping, the nicotine makes its way to the brain in under 10 seconds, where it creates a flood of dopamine, resulting in a soothing sensation. Nicotine also accelerates adrenaline production, so it both energizes and calms. However, the psychological part of smokeless tobacco addiction is much stronger and leads to far more obstacles to quitting smokeless tobacco than nicotine.

A lot of users took their first dip as young as nine years old. In just a few months, using smokeless tobacco becomes an ingrained habit that delivers reliable stress relief. In addition to the psychological conditioning, a social conditioning occurs, as images of many athletes dipping also attract young users.

Understanding that there are individual emotional and physical reasons that contribute to a chewing habit makes it easier to develop a plan to overcome smokeless tobacco addiction. Let's examine each element separately and look at effective methods to curb them.

Dipping for Relaxation and Pleasure: Just like using a pacifier to soothe an anxious infant, over the course of time, people who use tobacco products start to associate putting something in their mouths with satisfaction and relaxation. Curbing the effects of tobacco usage means addressing all facets of the addiction.

Tobacco Dipping is a Conditioned Response: The classic case in point of a conditioned response relates to Pavlov and his dogs, which were trained to anticipate food - and thus began salivating - when a bell was rung. In accordance, if, for example, you always use chewing tobacco after each meal, you will consequently acquire a desire to chew when you are done eating.

In your mind, the images of pushing the plate away and laying down your napkin may be connected to using snuff, even though you are not conscious of it. Developing awareness of the situations or trigger images can help you overcome cravings.

The Physical Addiction to Nicotine, But … : In spite of the powerful addiction, medical professionals say that the physical part of nicotine addiction is eliminated after people quit using tobacco for a week. It's my firm belief that nicotine addiction comprises a mere 10 percent of smokeless tobacco dependency. Therefore, 90 percent of the battle to quit dipping involves overcoming the mental and emotional components. So what does this mean for people like you who wish to quit?

Quitting becomes much easier if you can:

A. Address and eliminate the anxiety and tension that compels you to use smokeless tobacco
B. Cancel the conditioned responses to chew in certain situations

But how does a person surmount those issues?

Self-hypnosis offers a way to address the emotional and psychological elements of the addiction while eliminating difficulties, which will eliminate the symptoms of withdrawal. When we comprehend how self-hypnosis works, it makes the decision to quit dipping much easier to take on.

When people dip for relaxation and pleasure, it's to soothe anxious feelings. People often play the same images over in their heads, like a bad film, which leaves them feeling anxious and tense. Using self-hypnosis and various Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) techniques, you retrain your brain to immediately and automatically stop stress-inducing images and trade them with soothing pictures and mental movies. This produces satisfaction and relaxation while eradicating cravings and oral compulsions. You elude the urge to put the chew in your mouth, and you won't get any desire to substitute food in its place. This controls weight gain.

In order to combat the conditioned response of dipping smokeless tobacco, the NLP Flash technique erases the associations of dipping during certain activities or situations. This means your subconscious won't trigger the craving. Further, the Flash can even be used to create a compulsion to reject smokeless tobacco.

Using specific and strategic NLP methods makes the decision to quit dipping smokeless effortless and painless by circumventing symptoms of withdrawal, cravings and weight gain. The process is dependent on retraining the unconscious mind to abide by the same thought patterns that produce your mental addiction to smokeless tobacco in the first place, to eliminate the compulsion.

Your brain is a powerful instrument—far more powerful than an addiction. With dedication and the help of self-hypnosis and NLP, you can quit smokeless tobacco forever.

Article Source: http://appliedhealtharticles.com

Alan B. Densky, CH is a pioneer in the use of hypnotherapy stop smoking techniques. He offers an effective Quit Smokeless Tobacco program based on the same techniques. Learn more at his Neuro-VISION hypnotherapy site where you can use Free hypnotherapy videos and articles.

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