Here's Why Quitting Smoking Cold Turkey Could Be a HORRIBLE Choice

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Quit Smoking Today Podcast 6 min 1 speaker 6 chapters transcribed 1 month ago

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Why might quitting smoking cold turkey be a terrible choice for many people?

Certified Hypnotist & Cognitive Behavioral Coach 0:00

I know that you want to quit smoking. You want nothing more than finally becoming a non-smoker. And I know that you want to quit today and you never want to touch a cigarette again. And yes, quitting cold turkey might be the right choice for you. And now you might be saying, Huh? Sebastian, I just clicked on this episode because it said the cold turkey myth. Why cold turkey might be the wrong Now you're telling me that it's the right choice, I'm confused. Way. Well, please allow me to explain.

How can hypnosis help heavy smokers quit instantly without tapering?

Certified Hypnotist & Cognitive Behavioral Coach 0:32

For some people, the cold turkey method can work really well. I for example had coaching clients in my hypnosis coaching program who decided on the day of the first session that they would never touch a cigarette again and they were heavy smokers and after one hypnosis session they were completely smoke free. But I also So Had clients and now we come to an important point. Who decided that they wanted to quit cold turkey, but who put so much pressure on themselves that they felt all these negative emotions that are not good at all to feel if you want to quit smoking. And then this pressure led to stress, and this stress led to an even bigger desire to smoke a cigarette. And they then had way more success.

Certified Hypnotist & Cognitive Behavioral Coach 1:24

With a slower paced method. And in this case it usually happened that after the first hypnosis session, they went down, for example, from fifteen cigarettes a day to ten, then after the second they went down to seven, then after the third they went down to four, and then after the fourth they either went down to two and then one week later they were at zero, or they directly went down to zero.

What negative emotions and pressure can sabotage a cold‑turkey quit attempt?

Certified Hypnotist & Cognitive Behavioral Coach 1:47

So it depends on who you are. Are and it depends on how much pressure you put on yourself. I would personally say from my experience of having guided so many people from all over the world through this process of letting go of the old self of the smoker self and stepping into the new self of a non-smoker, I can confidently say that for people who see the cold turkey method as a motivation booster, who get excited about It, who feel happy when they think about it. For these type of people, quitting smoking with the cold turkey method might be exactly what they need. But if you, for example, think about quitting cold turkey, and you can already feel that you get stressed, you put pressure on yourself, you don't feel motivated, you don't feel inspired, you don't feel excited, but instead there's a cloud, a big dark cloud over your

Certified Hypnotist & Cognitive Behavioral Coach 2:39

Head and you're worried, oh, can I do this? Can I really quit? And one day, what if I smoke again? Oh, and you're in these negative emotions that have most likely either guided you towards cigarettes in the first place or that make it more likely for you to smoke.

How does gradual reduction compare to cold turkey in terms of withdrawal and stress?

Certified Hypnotist & Cognitive Behavioral Coach 2:54

Then I would say that the cold turkey method might not be the right choice for you. Because let's not sugarcoat it. There is research that. That proves that going cold turkey can result in more intense physical and psychological withdrawal symptoms than stepping down from the gas pedal step by step by, for example, going from 15 cigarettes to 10, then to 5 to 0. On top of that, it can be, as I just described, according to several scientific research papers, it can be an emotional overload. Just feel as I just described with this metaphor of the cloud over your head, where you feel anxious, you feel irritable, you put so much pressure on yourself that you are actually more likely to smoke. But again, I've also had clients who felt inspired, who felt motivated, who felt happy with the idea of going cold turkey.

Certified Hypnotist & Cognitive Behavioral Coach 3:49

It really depends on your emotional state. And this is something That I truly believe should be written about more and should be talked about more when it comes to the Cold Turkey method.

What does scientific research say about the intensity of cold‑turkey withdrawal symptoms?

Certified Hypnotist & Cognitive Behavioral Coach 4:02

Because people and also a lot of scientific research studies, they only focus on the withdrawal symptoms, that they can be higher. But in my experience, it really depends on your mental and emotional attitude towards this specific method of quitting. Not the idea of quitting Cold Turkey leads to positive emotions or negative emotions.