Time to stop smoking?  You have got to say yes, get rid of the poisons and toxins and lethal carbon monoxide levels in your blood and enhance your quality of life.  Contact me today and lets put a programme of life changing sessions together and help you kick the habit.

Here at Hull Hypnotherapy we aim to not only make you into a non smoker but to also remove the mentality you have become accustomed to while being a smoker. 

Smokers are coming under increasing pressure to quit.

Earlier this month the Institute of Actuaries published the results of a study it commissioned which showed that the mortality rate for smokers is twice as high as for non-smokers, and that on average a smoker dies 6 years earlier than a non-smoker. Surveys suggest that three in four smokers would like to give up, according to the anti-smoking campaign Action on Smoking and Health (ASH).

To find the most effective way to give up smoking, frank Schmidt and research student Chockalingam Viswesvaran of the University of Iowa carried out a meta-analysis, statistically combining the results of more than 600 studies covering almost 72,000 people from North America, Scandinavia and elsewhere in Europe. By combining the results from so many separate studies, the meta-analysis enables the real effectiveness of each technique to be picked out from the statistical 'noise' that often blights studies involving smaller numbers of subjects.

The results, published in the current issue of the journal, show that the average success rate for all methods was 25%: that is, only about two in five smokers is likely to succeed using methods covered by the study. Patients told they had serious cardiac disorders, and so a clear incentive to stop immediately, had the highest quitting rate, at 36 per cent. But for most smokers the most effective technique was hypnosis, which included 48 studies covering over 6000 smokers, gave an average success rate of 80 per cent for this method. 'Combination' techniques, combining, for example, exercise and breathing therapy came second with a success rate of 29 per cent. Smoke aversion, in which smokers have their own warm, stale cigarette smoke blown back into their faces, achieved a 25 per cent success rate, followed by acupuncture at 24 per cent.

David Pollock, director of ASH, said he was surprised by the success of hypnosis, which anecdotal evidence had suggested was not very effective. One organization not surprised by the results is the British Society of Medical and Dental Hypnosis. Christopher Pattinson, the society's academic chairman, said that current hypnosis techniques are a far cry from their popular image of music hall tricks involving swinging fob watches.

The latest relaxation techniques achieve success rates of up to 80 per cent from a single session, he said. Richard Doll, the epidemiologist who carried out the pioneering studies of the risk of smoking, said that the apparent success of hypnosis and the high quitting rate of patients with heart disease backed his own observations. He added, however, that he was somewhat surprised by the low success rate of those who resorted to willpower alone: 'The majority of people find it too difficult to give up, he said. 'The only way to succeed is to want to do it enough.'

Article taken from New Scientist vol 136 issue 1845-31 October 92

Please contact Hull Hypnotherapy for more information on smoking cessation sessions.