QUIT SMOKING ONLINE CAMPAIGN BY BHARATHEEYAM UAE
With cigarettes so cheap and smoking allowed in many public areas, it’s no wonder so many people in the UAE stay hooked on the habit. But with a little help from the experts, you can ditch ‘the cancer sticks’. Andrea Anastasiou rounds up the services and products to help you quit for good
By Andrea Anastasiou, Aquarius magazine
October 1, 2012
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), someone in the world dies every six seconds from tobacco use, while estimations suggest that one in every two smokers will die from their habit. In fact, it’s predicted that tobacco will kill more than eight million people worldwide annually by 2030. Cigarettes are killers. “More than 50 of the 4,000 chemicals found in tobacco smoke are known to cause cancer and around 200 are poisonous,” says Dr Seema Anand, specialist physician of internal medicine at Dubai’s Welcare Hospital. These toxins create a number of health hazards for women, which include the risk of reduced fertility, cervical cancer and premature aging.
“Women who smoke are three times more likely to take more than a year to conceive,” she says. “Smoking is also associated with five per cent of infant deaths, ten per cent of preterm babies and 30 per cent of underweight babies.”
Of course, we all know that cigarettes are bad for us, but did you know that if you give up smoking before the age of 35 you could have practically the same life expectancy as a non-smoker? That’s a real incentive, if you were in need of one, to kick that bad habit to the curb once and for all.
NEURO-LINGUISTIC PROGRAMMING
HOW IT WORKS
Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is a very precise form of hypnosis, which can help you trigger the release of feel-good chemicals from the brain when you need them, simply by using your mind, so you no longer need cigarettes for that buzz, says Tony Barlow, The Learning Coach. “This is easier than it sounds,” explains Barlow. “Sit back and think for a moment of the most relaxing experience of your life. Spend a couple of minutes thinking about the sights, sounds and feelings of that experience as if you are reliving it right now. When you have finished doing this, notice how you feel. With NLP you can set things up in your mind so the body chemistry is created automatically at the moments you need it – such as the times when you would normally want to smoke. This dramatically reduces withdrawal symptoms and makes quitting easier,” he says.
WHAT HAPPENS
In your first session, there’s a lot of information gathering, Barlow explains. “I will find out how many cigarettes you smoke a day and where you smoke, for example. I also offer you the opportunity to practise how to use your mind to get some instant relief from cravings. Typically, we will go through some visualisation-type exercises, and I will demonstrate to you in the first session how much control you actually have over your body chemistry just by using your mind,” says Barlow. Three one-hour sessions are recommended over a one to two week period. Barlow also asks his clients to send a daily email report for the first two weeks to ensure they are using the mental techniques he has taught them.
HOW EFFECTIVE IS IT?
According to Barlow, quitting smoking is primarily the ability to change an ingrained mental habit. He says that consciously trying to stop smoking without any help is an almost impossible task unless your motivation level is very high. NLP changes the subconscious habit directly so that you automatically don’t feel like smoking. An alternative to this is NLP and Time Line Therapy, which uses a combination of the above and Time Line, where you imagine an internal timeline floating above you that helps you let go of negative emotions and limiting beliefs. Wendy Shaw from Matrix Training Solutions explains how the combined technique can offer quick and lasting results. “We work at a deeper level with the client’s subconscious mind, exploring the client’s beliefs around smoking, which often leads to the identification of an internal conflict. Part of them wants to stop yet a part of them doesn’t, which ultimately sabotages their success. When we deal with the lower level issues, it allows change to happen.”
By Andrea Anastasiou, Aquarius magazine
October 1, 2012
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), someone in the world dies every six seconds from tobacco use, while estimations suggest that one in every two smokers will die from their habit. In fact, it’s predicted that tobacco will kill more than eight million people worldwide annually by 2030. Cigarettes are killers. “More than 50 of the 4,000 chemicals found in tobacco smoke are known to cause cancer and around 200 are poisonous,” says Dr Seema Anand, specialist physician of internal medicine at Dubai’s Welcare Hospital. These toxins create a number of health hazards for women, which include the risk of reduced fertility, cervical cancer and premature aging.
“Women who smoke are three times more likely to take more than a year to conceive,” she says. “Smoking is also associated with five per cent of infant deaths, ten per cent of preterm babies and 30 per cent of underweight babies.”
Of course, we all know that cigarettes are bad for us, but did you know that if you give up smoking before the age of 35 you could have practically the same life expectancy as a non-smoker? That’s a real incentive, if you were in need of one, to kick that bad habit to the curb once and for all.
NEURO-LINGUISTIC PROGRAMMING
HOW IT WORKS
Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is a very precise form of hypnosis, which can help you trigger the release of feel-good chemicals from the brain when you need them, simply by using your mind, so you no longer need cigarettes for that buzz, says Tony Barlow, The Learning Coach. “This is easier than it sounds,” explains Barlow. “Sit back and think for a moment of the most relaxing experience of your life. Spend a couple of minutes thinking about the sights, sounds and feelings of that experience as if you are reliving it right now. When you have finished doing this, notice how you feel. With NLP you can set things up in your mind so the body chemistry is created automatically at the moments you need it – such as the times when you would normally want to smoke. This dramatically reduces withdrawal symptoms and makes quitting easier,” he says.
WHAT HAPPENS
In your first session, there’s a lot of information gathering, Barlow explains. “I will find out how many cigarettes you smoke a day and where you smoke, for example. I also offer you the opportunity to practise how to use your mind to get some instant relief from cravings. Typically, we will go through some visualisation-type exercises, and I will demonstrate to you in the first session how much control you actually have over your body chemistry just by using your mind,” says Barlow. Three one-hour sessions are recommended over a one to two week period. Barlow also asks his clients to send a daily email report for the first two weeks to ensure they are using the mental techniques he has taught them.
HOW EFFECTIVE IS IT?
According to Barlow, quitting smoking is primarily the ability to change an ingrained mental habit. He says that consciously trying to stop smoking without any help is an almost impossible task unless your motivation level is very high. NLP changes the subconscious habit directly so that you automatically don’t feel like smoking. An alternative to this is NLP and Time Line Therapy, which uses a combination of the above and Time Line, where you imagine an internal timeline floating above you that helps you let go of negative emotions and limiting beliefs. Wendy Shaw from Matrix Training Solutions explains how the combined technique can offer quick and lasting results. “We work at a deeper level with the client’s subconscious mind, exploring the client’s beliefs around smoking, which often leads to the identification of an internal conflict. Part of them wants to stop yet a part of them doesn’t, which ultimately sabotages their success. When we deal with the lower level issues, it allows change to happen.”
