Thursday, January 1, 2009

The Makings of a Tobacco Habit

By Sara Mendez

Let's pretend you wanted form a habit. And not just some wimpy habit, but a major, mind controlling, and life changing habit behavior. Where do you start to make it a really strong habit that will feel impossible to break? There are three basic ways we learn habits; emotions, authority figures, and repetition.

Let's use an example.

Now, let's pick a person for our example. How about you when you were 10-14 years old. And for this example, let's use the habit of smoking.

So when you were around that age I think we can safely assume you were learning about life and how you fit into it. If you were like most kids, you weren't as confident about yourself as you would be later in life.

Kids that age sometimes feel self-conscious, dependent on others, powerless, not good enough, or??. We'll call this feeling "bad". This is not saying you felt miserable, but maybe didn't feel "good" as you thought you should feel? Did you feel as "good" as you thought other people felt?

Feeling like that would lead you to wanting to feel better, or, as good as everyone else. What ways does your mind see to do this?? That matters upon what learning situations you've been exposed to.

How does a person learn things like that? Emotions, authority figures and repetition. You probably saw authority figures smoking - parents, family, friends, role models, and of course, advertisements. Smoking is perceived as tough, strong, independent, self-assured, and unique. All the "good" feelings you were feeling a lack of.

This would start a feeling in your mind, the beginning of a craving. A part of you that believes smoking is what your life needs to fix the bad feeling. Not just in a "knowing" way, but a "feeling" way. This concept will make the most sense to someone whom has tried to quit any strong habit, you know your "feelings" are stronger than your "knowing" any day.

Eventually you smoked your first cigarette, and DID feel better, sort of. You weren't too good at smoking the first time. You had to practice to get good at it. And you did.

Life goes on and you continue practicing your smoking habit. Reinforcing the existing cravings and creating new ones. Like branches on the tree of the first craving.

A lot of people working to quit smoking have thought of these things. A lot have not. But, all of the people that have tried to quit smoking have used a lot of time thinking and analyzing their habit. Trying to argue themselves into quitting. But, you didn't learn this habit by thinking and analyzing. Why would trying to quit smoking that way work?

It is a lot easier to quit smoking with the same methods you started smoking with. A "hypnotized" state of mind combined with emotions, authority figures and repetition. Often called modern hypnosis.

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