How you can stop smoking in one session of hypnosis

The most comprehensive study on the best ways to quit smoking reported in New Scientist Magazine (1) - found that, "Hypnotherapy enjoys a greater success rate than any other method in helping people stop smoking." 

But why does hypnosis work better than other smoking cessation programs and treatments? What is it about hypnosis that helps people to quit, often without cravings? And how is it that you can quit in just a single session of hypnosis when other methods can take weeks or even months?

In this article, we’ll explore how hypnosis gets to the heart of smoking addiction and explain why working with the subconscious mind is the secret to lasting freedom.

But just before we get into that, take a moment to consider the reasons why you’re interested in stopping smoking…

Why do you want to quit smoking?

You must be serious about quitting smoking or you wouldn’t be reading this. But what’s really motivating you? 

Are you worried about that hacking cough every morning? Or the feeling of breathlessness when going up the stairs? What about your heart and the extra 10,000 times it has to beat every day to force the blood through those congested arteries? 

Maybe you’re fed up feeling self-conscious about your stained teeth and fingers, bad breath, stinking hair and clothes? 

Or perhaps you want to stop smoking because of the cost? With the price of a packet of 20 cigarettes now standing at over £15 (2), are you comfortable spending in excess of £400 per month on the habit? It works out at almost £5500 per year. Does that strike you as a good deal? 

Whatever your reasons for quitting – health, looks, or financial – they deserve serious consideration. Indeed, one of the key aspects of any stop-smoking program should involve ways of ramping up your levels of motivation. Hypnosis can help you to do that. 

The positive intention driving your smoking habit

Up until now, of course, after years of repetition, your subconscious mind has been programmed to believe that smoking is a positive thing.

Smoking might have helped you:

• relieve stress, boredom or other uncomfortable emotions
• feel more confident in social situations and fit in with your friends
• concentrate, focus, and think more clearly
• control your weight (in other words, smoke instead of eat)
• feel more connected with your partner (if smoking is something you do together)

Relieving stress and all those other uncomfortable feelings by smoking must be a good thing, right? This is where part of the problem lies…

In time, your brain learned that smoking was the best way to deal with all emotions. Before long, you smoked on autopilot, triggered by certain people, places, times, situations and feelings. 

Indeed, your brain now expects a nicotine top-up every so often. And it feels very odd not to do it. That is, until your subconscious mind has been reprogrammed with new beliefs  - and feelings - about what the habit is really doing to you. 

Is smoking a physical addiction or a psychological habit?

Before we get to explaining how hypnosis can help you stop smoking, let’s just clear something up…

You already know that if you smoke 20 cigarettes a day, you probably only enjoy three or four of them. Perhaps it is the first one of the day with your cup of tea or coffee? Perhaps the one after a meal? How about that cigarette on the way home after a busy day at work? Or the last one in the evening when you finally get a moment to yourself?

The truth is that most cigarettes are smoked purely through habit or conditioned response to certain stimuli. You go onto autopilot and light up without really thinking because the habit has become an automatic response to certain triggers. Something happens and you instinctively reach for a cigarette, driven by subconscious expectation.

The bottom line is that smoking is a psychological habit triggered by certain stimuli, not a physical addiction to nicotine. When you adjust your psychology, the addiction loses its hold on you. 

How does hypnosis help you stop smoking?

So, how exactly does hypnosis help you to stop smoking more successfully than other methods? 

As well as helping boost your motivation to stop smoking – and stay stopped – hypnosis works directly with your subconscious mind. This is what might be termed the ‘control centre’ of all addictive habits.

It’s hard to quit smoking or break free from any addiction using just the conscious mind, no matter how strong your willpower. Sure, some people succeed this way, but for most, the old habit soon returns - unless things have changed on a deeper level. 

Hypnosis helps you access the REM state - nature's optimal learning state - and it is in this state that your subconscious, instinctive mind is more open to new ideas and suggestions. When your subconscious is reprogrammed, you don't have to try not to smoke; the urge is simply not there. 

In other words, through the use of hypnosis and the REM state, smoking is switched off at a subconscious level, meaning that cravings and temptations don’t even reach consciousness. 

Logic doesn’t stop you smoking – but your emotions can!

When your subconscious mind realises the truth about smoking, you’ll no longer want to smoke any more than you’d want to drink water with mustard in it. It’s not conscious will-power and logic that stops you from smoking, but revulsion, guilt, shame, disgust, pain, suffering and loss that might ensue – for you and your loved ones - if you continue to indulge. 

It is the felt experience of the emotional impact of addiction that helps you break free from the tyranny of smoking. In other words, it is not reason that stops you smoking, but your emotions. 

When you truly face and feel the reality of smoking, you won’t want to do it anymore. Your subconscious mind will then be on your side, supporting your health and wellbeing. Smoking is then consigned to history. It becomes something you used to do.

Client success stories

Three months after his session, L T said:

“I had been a smoker (25-30) a day for nearly 20 years. I had tried all manner of ways to give up, but never really got past the first few days. After one session with hypnotherapy, I haven’t touched a cigarette since; the craving for a smoke left the day I saw the hypnotherapist…

"I still feel so pleased that I am a non-smoker. Without a doubt, it is the best money I have ever spent in my life... I know I will never smoke again. It’s very strange, but I cannot remember what it was like to smoke, let alone crave a cigarette.”

And L W reported:

“It has been seven months now since I came for a hypnotherapy session to help with giving up smoking, and I can report that I have not had one single cigarette in that time, despite working with and socialising with smokers! I have smoked on and off (mostly on) for nearly 30 years and although I have stopped smoking three times, I always went back to it and never really believed that I could kick the habit completely...

"I tried most forms of NRT – gum, patches and tablets and although they helped with the physical cravings, it was the emotional side that I needed help with – I needed my brain to be 'programmed' to forget that I smoke and that is exactly how I felt after my hypnotherapy session.”

References:

(1) New Scientist Magazine: vol 136 issue 1845 - 31 October 1992

(2) According to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (January 2025), a packet of 20 cigarettes now costs over £15