Thinking about stopping smoking?

Thinking about quitting smoking for your New Year’s resolution? Here are a five helpful tips to prepare yourself for stopping when the time is right for you.

• Change your routine - While some would argue that smoking is an addiction, you don’t need more and more of it to sustain the same feeling it gives as in other addictions. Whether it is or isn’t to you it most certainly is a habit. You may find that you have a certain routine every day on waking. To prepare yourself to stop, start altering your daily routine. For example, if you get up every day and have a cigarette before breakfast, try having it after breakfast. Start challenging that automatic thinking and ask yourself if you are smoking because you want it or because it's your routine.

• Motivation – Why are you thinking of stopping? Is it because of health reasons? Or is It to please someone else? We have to stop for ourselves and no one else for the results to be lasting. Write down the reasons why you want to stop and go into as much detail as you can. As much as we care for someone in our lives, if we quit for them we are more likely to go back to smoking.

• Relaxation – Start looking at how you relax. Do you have that time for you to exactly what makes you happy? Even if it's five minutes a day away from the clamour and clatter of the world. Whatever you like to dom whether it's exercise or read a book, keep those stress levels down by making time for you to unwind. We all need to reduce the stress in our lives it’ll make it easier to stop completely.

• Timing – New Year’s day is one of the most common times for people to stop smoking, timing is everything and planning is the key to success. The best time to change any behaviour is when motivation on a scale of one to 10 (one being the least motivated), must be an eight or over if it’s not then success will be limited. It makes no difference what day of the week it is, just simply stop when you feel that your motivation rises. This is when to choose your method of quitting - either cold turkey, patches, gum, hypnotherapy or any of the alternative ways to help support you. Choose the right one for you.

• Reward - Start to plan and think about what you would like to do with the money you’ll save from not smoking. Really plan ahead and reward yourself at two weeks, one month, two months, six months and a year. Set clear rewards for each milestone and make it something that you want and to keep the motivation high.

These are a few things that are worth thinking about in preparation for stopping smoking, the best time for stopping smoking is when you are ready and if that’s now then why wait? If you would like a completely natural way to stop smoking then why not try hypnotherapy - in just two sessions you could be completely smoke free.