My Quit Smoking Blog.com

Subliminal messaging, its effectiveness and its use has always been a disputed and controversial topic. I do not know what your opinion on subliminal messages are but I hope this article will convince you that they do in fact work.

For starters what is subliminal messaging?

A quick google search on subliminal messages returns the following definition:

Subliminal Messages: Words or messages communicated at a level below the conscious mind’s ability to perceive. Allegedly, messages can enter directly into the subconscious mind, thus by-passing the rational/logical center of the individual’s brain.

Notice I highlighted and underlined the word allegedly. The reason being this word leaves doubt as to whether these subliminal messages work or not. I personally believe they do, but recently I have come to learn that subliminal images are even more effective than subliminal text messages.

Basically subliminal messages work in this way:

Lets say you are a smoker, and I tell you, from this point on you are now a non smoker. Naturally since you are probably holding a cigarette, your room smells of smoke or maybe there is an ashtray right next to you with fresh cigarette butts all pointing out and indicating that this is a lie you won’t believe it and you will carry on smoking that next cigarette. Essentially your conscious mind acts as filter and filters this messages as false.

Subliminal messages are devised in such a way that your conscious mind does not pick up on them and therefore cannot do its job in acting like a filter. They enter directly into the subconscious part of the brain and are acted upon by it, mainly because the subconscious relies on the conscious part of the brain to relay to it only useful information and filter any information that it considers as false.

Now for a real world example: Have you watched the movie Fight Club? I can easily say that that movie is one of my all time favorites in fact if I didn’t like it so much I wouldn’t have watched it again and I wouldn’t even be writing this article.

If you watched that movie remember how macho Brad Pitt looks in that movie, especially with a cigarette in his mouth? I think this was blatantly promoted and even scarier, for some reason there are several hidden subliminal messages planted in that movie!

Ever remember seeing this scene?:

Check what Brad Pitt is doing?

If you watch the movie keep a sharp eye out for this scene. I was lucky enough to catch a glimpse of something flash by while this scene played on my PC. It might have been my computer just slowed down that moment to read the DVD, nevertheless I was lucky enough to pick up on something. I paused it and re winded it frame by frame and what do you know!!!

If that is no subliminal message then why is it included in the movie? Why go through the trouble of adding such a covert frame in the midst of the movie? Trust me finding this took an agonizing long time rewinding frame by frame.

By the way this isn’t the only one, there are several in this movie alone and the character in the movie even mentions something about it himself. If you haven’t watched it then you should, just so you know what I’m talking about here.

I myself seriously don’t have the patience for searching frame by frame to spot these things, this may have well been a fluke but if you do happen to take the time and find other subliminal messages in any movie that is meant to get you smoking then you know our address give us a shout and we’ll be glad to publish it.

By the way if it is of any importance to you this is supposed to be an R rated movie, meaning children of the age 17 and under can watch it but, they have to be accompanied by their parents. Lets face the reality of things, first of all kids these days can get their hands on anything they want to watch and secondly how is a parent watching this movie with their child going to shelter them from the above subliminal message?

This leaves me with two questions for you the reader, which brings me back to the initial purpose of this article.

Do subliminal messages work?

My personal opinion, if the tobacco companies are finding no other way of advertising their product since every medium is being blocked out then what are they going to do with all that money left untouched? Hey why not what a great idea we’ll pay these millions we have on one great subliminal ad to the next popular blockbuster movie that is going to be a big hit and voila sales go up!

The other question is do you seriously still want to support these guys if that’s where your cigarette money is going?

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Do you know a close friend, a relative, perhaps even your partner who you would like to help quit smoking?

Does it seem like sometimes you are more concerned about their health than they are?

Perhaps even you are someone who is struggling to quit and are too afraid to ask for help!

If you fall into any of the above categories then read in this article it may actually prove interesting….

As Im writing this the TV in the living room is playing a quit smoking hypnosis audio tape! Its a little experiment I began yesterday on my room mate who has been coming home for the past few days extremely worn out from some hard partying! Hey its summer holidays here in the southern hemishpere

My room mate is the type of person who wants to quit but won’t admit it. He keeps denying it everytime I offer to help, yet I know deep down he wants to quit….and BADLY!! The reason I say this is because he always complains about how its eating up his budget. Keeping up with a pack of smokes these days is getting more and more expensive where ever you go. I have a friend in Ireland who was telling me a box of cigarettes there now costs you 10 Euros. Wow a hefty some if you multiply that by 30!

So what is this ethical yet unethical approach to helping my room mate here quit smoking?

Like I mentioned my room mate has been coming back home lately in a state where he cant even make it to his bed, and passes out on the couch as soon as he lands on it. (LOL it is a comfy couch!!)

Having seen this yesterday, I decided hey why not pop this quit smoking hypnosis cd into the DVD player and play it on the big screen, while hes in this deep state of sleep! What could the end result be?….

Im eager to find out myself

Interesting experiment if thats what you want to call it! The question that I pose to you now is this an ethical thing to do? Hypnotizing him without his consent while he is asleep!

As far as Im concerned I think its the right thing to do. In this panic stricken economy I think saving him a $150 -$200 a month would do him greatly instead otherwise having to go on smokes.

I hope he can find it in him to forgive me (Sorry man!), and not for hypnotizing him out of his smoking habit, but for blogging about this whole thing and using him as a social experiment LOL!!!!!!!

To conclude I just hope we all will learn and benfit with something in the end from this little experiment!

By the way this is day two I did two sessions on him yesterday and I think three should be good enough for today. Until then stay tuned and have a great day.

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This service is simply excellent! (Its quite amazing where we have reached with technology today, don’t you agree?)

The ‘main problem’ with people just like you and me who quit smoking is we quickly get depressed when we quit.

This is where these inspirational positive messages/thoughts come in.  When you subscribe to these text messages, everyday you will receive one inspirational/motivational quote or thought for the day.

The best way to utilize this service is to plan a quit date, and preferably do it with someone else you know who wants to also quit, perhaps a spouse, friend, your neighbor etc. Then on that date subscribe to this service.

Everyday you get your message, think about it and let it sink in. Discuss it with your spouse, friend, neighbor or who ever it may be. Live it! This way you will be setting yourself up to really succeed in quitting smoking.

Every time you feel the urge to smoke, remember the inspiration you received for that day, for example if the text message you received quoted this phrase:

“There is no failure except in no longer trying.”….Elbert Hubbard

This will push you to fight that urge and could mean you last an extra day longer. This is essentially how you should take it, one day at a time, allowing your confidence to grow every time you turn down a cigarette or release yourself from the urge of wanting to smoke.

This also keeps your mind focused on more positive thoughts. This is essential to beat the depression that sets in when the Nicotine is leaving your system.

Put yourself in this scenario, you quit for a week and you can’t take it anymore so you start smoking again. You never know when you are going to quit again.

But these messages you have been receiving have been plenty to think about. Then one day you get the message that strikes a chord in you it could be something like this:

“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is to always try just one more time”…..Thomas Edison

Suddenly you have a complete change in heart, and you decide you going to quit again, so you throw away your cigarettes and what do you you’re back on track.

Hey what do you know this little text message saved the day! Just when you thought you were ready to give up.

I suggest you quit for a day, and with the money you would have spent on cigarettes, instead invest it on this and try it out for a whole month and like I said it will cost you about the same price as a box of cigarettes would for one day:

Receive Daily Inspirational Text Messages

You got nothing to lose Your health and well being is on the line!

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“How do you not think of smoking when hanging around smokers and you when you even blog about smoking?”

This was a question that a friend asked me recently who saw how I had struggled at the beginning when I came to quit. He was amazed at the fact that when I finally made up my mind to quit smoking, despite several failed attempts, I have seriously quit even though I hang out with a lot of friends who smoke and tempt me all the time to smoke, and I run a quit smoking blog

So how do I not “Think” about smoking?’

Not such an easy question to answer, I couldn’t really give him a direct answer and have resolved to posting it up on this blog? I hope you like it Michael!

From my experience when I think about why I struggled in my latter days to quit and how I came about to finally quit smoking, it comes down to a few things I did differently and here they are, I just hope they help and encourage you to quit and stay quit or at least motivate you to attempt your next quit.

1. I quit and quit and quit and quit. I hope you get the idea here! I tried over and over again. I failed and failed and failed. My quits ranged from a couple of weeks, to sometimes months and I even had a relapse after a long six months off the cigarettes, but I got back to quitting in no time, sometimes a relapse would be just one cigarette but nevertheless it is considered smoking.

The lesson: to be learned here is never give up, NEVER. If it doesn’t happen today it will happen tomorrow when your body and mind are both ready.

2. As for not thinking about cigarettes I began by keeping myself occupied. When I decided to quit, I took up a new sport, being the extreme person that I am I decided on rock climbing. To say the least it’s one very stressing activity yet very fulfilling and had me coughing up all the toxins within days.

Let me mention this, I hadn’t done ANY sports in four years, so when I went for my first rock climbing session, not only did I come back home short of breath and worn out with stiff muscles, I came back home with a super great sense of well being. A concept that had become lost in my life was soon ignited. I came to realize that by climbing that 25 meter stretch of wall, the same endorphins that were activated by nicotine were active on an even greater intensity in my brain! I could feel it and I just couldn’t stop smiling and actually laughed all the way home. WOW what a high that was!

Lesson here: Take up a sport, it does not have to be something so extreme but something you will enjoy. The trick here is to let this sport activity take over from the cigarettes in it’s role of keeping your endorphins kicking.

3. Finally I have engaged on a personal goal of daily learning. Everyday I have to improve myself in some way or another. Any learning material I can get my hands on I make use of it. Even though I know there is no way I would get back to smoking, I still read every material I can about quitting smoking. The reason being, there is a gold nugget in every learning program that is available. Now don’t get me wrong when I say learning I do not mean just about quitting smoking I mean any subject that gets me going.

This learning and all the new knowledge I have acquired has conditioned my mind in a way to realize what is ultimately useful in my life and what is not and has helped me advance in ways I could never imagine. Oh and you guessed it, for sure I came to realize that smoking was a useless habit. The idea of continuing it just does not appeal to me anymore. I have to mention hypnosis did help me reinforce the idea of staying quit during the early stages, it helped me greatly, and not just for quitting smoking I have used it in other ways to improve my life and change a couple of habits, its an awesome natural remedy for curing yourself.

Lesson here: Preoccupy your thoughts with new and interesting material/knowledge that will engange you and help you develop your brain and mind it could take your life to a whole new level.

Finally to sum up I think I can confidently say, find ways to keep your Mind, Body and Soul occupied with fulfilling activities and whatever it is you want will come to you with ease.

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Yesterday I posted research on smoking, the following is some research and facts on smokers trying to quit again this article is from the book “10 Steps To A Smoke Free Life” By Randy A. Gilchrist, Psy. D. courtesy of  www.hypnosisnetwork.com:

+ Of those who attempt to quit on their own (without any additional help or support), only 2-5% are successful after 12 months, with most failing within the first 2-3 weeks (Fiske, 2003; Sherman,1994).

+ Of the 2-5% who do successfully quit on their own, it takes an average of 3-6 attempts over an extended period of time before finally being successful (Sherman, 1994). Fortunately, research based approaches to quitting dramatically increase success rates.

+ Those attempting to quit through behavior modification, nicotine replacement (like “the patch”), or Zyban” (an anti-depressant medication) all average about a 25% success rate. These success rates can increase to as high as 50% when these approaches are used in some combination with each other after a 12-month period (Fisher & Goldfarb, 1998; Fiske, 2003; Psychology Today, 2004; Sherman, 1994).

+ Research studies show that having a single session of hypnosis to stop smoking also produces about a 25% success rate like the other approaches. However, this success rate increases dramatically when additional, complementary hypnosis sessions are added. The success rate of using hypnosis to quit smoking jumps all the way up to 66% when at least 4-5 sessions of hypnosis are used in a 6-12 month period (Hammond, 1990, p. 407).

+ A study presented October 22, 2007 at the annual meeting of the American College of Chest Physicians found that hypnosis was more than twice as effective as quitting “cold turkey,” and over three times as effective as nicotine replacement therapy. The study compared four smoking cessation programs used by former hospital patients who were motivated to quit. 50% of patients using hypnosis quit successfully after only one hypnosis session with recorded sessions for followup, while only 15.78% of those using nicotine replacement quit successfully. Success rates were measured at 26 weeks. Dr. Faysal Hasan, one of the authors of the study, said, “Our results showed that hypnotherapy resulted in higher quit rates compared with NRT alone. Hypnotherapy appears to be quite effective and a good modality to incorporate into a smoking cessation program after hospital discharge.”

NOTE: Beware of stop smoking programs that claim huge success rates like 85-95% – whether or not they include hypnosis. These figures are rarely (if ever) based on legitimate research. In fact, most of these claims are based on no research whatsoever.

The most trustworthy research is objective, statistical, and shows the results over a period of time (as necessary). Furthermore, quality, reliable research is published through a major university and/or appears in a legitimate, peer-reviewed scientific journal. The research cited in this article is based on legitimate research as outlined above. References are listed on the last page of the book “10 Steps To A Smoke Free Life” By Randy A. Gilchrist which can be found as a free download at:

www.hypnosisnetwork.com/hypnosis/quit_smoking

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Here is some sobering research about smoking that illustrates the need for a strong, comprehensive program to help smokers quit:

• About 26% of adults in the United States smoke cigarettes (Fisher and Goldfarb, 1998, p. v-vi), totaling well over 60 million users today (DHHS, 2002).

• About 90% of active smokers would like to quit and wish they’d never started. (Fisher and Goldfarb, 1998, p. 213)

• As many as 90% of smokers are clinically “addicted” to smoking, making it one of the most addictive drugs in existence (Sherman, 1994). Conversely, most people who drink alcohol are not addicted to it and can drink socially in only moderation.

• Estimates of those making a serious attempt to quit smoking each year is about 50% (between 33% to 66%) for all active smokers (Psychology Today, 2004; Sherman, 1994).

• Quitting usually requires complete abstinence. Once a person has a single puff after quitting, they go back to full-time smoking 80-85% of the time (Sherman, 1994).

• 70% of relapses occur after an upsetting or stressful event triggers a negative mood (Sherman,1994). Therefore, to be effective, smoking cessation programs should include a component to help smokers better handle the difficult emotions that may arise, such as stress, anxiety, anger, and boredom.

• Over 50% of relapses occur within the first 5 weeks of stopping, which is how long it takes the body to get through the physical withdrawal symptoms of ending nicotine. Most of the other 50% of relapses occur within the first 6 months when the cravings remain the strongest (Sherman, 1994).

These facts are from the book “10 Steps To A Smoke Free Life” By Randy A. Gilchrist, Psy. D. courtesy of  www.hypnosisnetwork.com

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