Smoking cessation and weight loss hypnosis: How it works

There are two reasons why there is a correlation between stopping smoking and weight loss. The first is that nicotine speeds up the body’s metabolism slightly. Therefore, you burn more calories without having to do anything other than smoke a cigarette. The second is the hand-to-mouth action that happens with both smoking and eating. When you stop smoking, your hand wants to continue this action, so picking at food becomes an easy way to combat the urge. If you do this, the extra food causes you to put on small amounts of weight.

Smoking cessation therapy and weight loss therapy do not usually coincide. However, the two can work similarly, and your hypnotherapist can help you with both. When you use hypnosis to stop smoking, you can ask your hypnotherapist to help you maintain your current weight at the same time.

Hypnosis for smoking cessation: How it works

One of the most held beliefs is that hypnosis is a tool used to quit smoking. There is little evidence to support this. Hypnosis cannot help you quit smoking unless your hypnotherapist helps you therapeutically. Therapy is a two-way process, the therapist – hypnotherapist or not – is not doing something to you. It is a combined effort, two people working together to achieve a specified outcome.

When you pay for smoking cessation sessions with a hypnotherapist, it is a demonstration of your commitment to quitting smoking. Commitment is what helps us achieve things in life. Sometimes it feels hard to commit to something without the support of someone else. For some people, booking and paying for the smoking cessation session is enough to stick to their own commitment to stop.

When I work with someone to quit smoking, we spend the first session talking to work out the reasons you want to quit smoking, the reasons you smoke, and of course, acknowledging some nasty truths about smoking. In this session, we do not use any hypnosis but speak about lifestyle changes you can make to help break the habitual part of smoking addiction.

I ask you to commit to smoking behaviour rules during the break between the first and second sessions. When you come for the second session, we speak about the things you found difficult, what lifestyle changes helped, and what didn’t. We finish the session with hypnosis.

When you use hypnosis, you learn how to take control of your own thoughts. You have the focus and the power to cement the decisions that you make. If you continue practising hypnosis mindfully, you will have the power every day to say no to smoking. Although hypnosis alone will not help you stop smoking, when you work with a hypnotherapist with experience helping people in this way, they will give you the tools to stop the smoking habit for good.

Hypnosis for weight loss: How it works

Hypnosis for weight loss is sometimes like hypnosis for smoking cessation. Both overeating and smoking are patterns that some people create. Whether it is continuously picking at food or smoking at every opportunity. Both have the same body movement and involve putting something in your mouth. Sometimes both actions alleviate boredom, and often neither is necessary.

When you see a hypnotherapist to help you lose weight, like smoking cessation, your hypnotherapist will spend some time getting to know you and your habitual patterns. You will work on setting a realistic goal and discuss what you need to change to achieve this. In some situations, your hypnotherapist will recommend deeper therapeutic work. This makes the process a little longer than the smoking protocol.

Weight loss hypnosis helps you learn how to take control of your thoughts and actions. You will work together on interoception and mindfulness, so you can first think about whether you feel hungry or need something else. Mindfulness will help you remain in control and choose an action that meets your actual need, rather than eating food to suppress it.

Smoking cessation and weight loss combined

Your hypnotherapist is unlikely to work with you to help you quit smoking and lose weight in the same sessions. However, they can help you not replace the smoking habit with food. Many people feel like they’ll lose something when they stop smoking, often the breaks in the day. Your therapist will help you find ways to gain from stopping smoking, rather than losing out. In addition, your therapist will help you find things to do instead that do not involve food, so you are less likely to gain weight when you stop smoking.