Quitting Smoking and Mental Health: You MUST Know THIS!

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Quit Smoking Today Podcast 10 min 1 speaker 6 chapters transcribed 1 month ago

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Why does quitting smoking trigger an emotional roller‑coaster and how can you prepare for it?

Certified Hypnotist & Cognitive Behavioral Coach 0:00

Today, I want to talk about the emotional roller coaster that you might experience on your journey towards a smoke-free life. And this episode should not necessarily be seen as a big warning. Oh my god, you will experience this roller coaster, but instead, I want to provide you with ideas, insights, and tips how you can manage this roller coaster. or right efficiently and how you can manage it in a way that you experience less intense emotional downs. Because the more stable you are emotionally and the better your mental health on this journey towards a smoke-free life, the easier it will be for you to finally kick cigarettes in the butt and to let them flow out of your life. So that you no longer smoke and you no longer

Certified Hypnotist & Cognitive Behavioral Coach 0:50

Longer have the desire to smoke. And yes, quitting smoking can lead to significant mood swings because your body and your mind have to adjust to the absence of nicotine, to the feeling of no longer having your anchor, your lifeline, your lifeline that you used in order to regulate your cortisol level. And this is an experience that so many of my clients Made is that it's not necessarily the addiction to nicotine that stopped them from quitting smoking, but it is the conditioning. I mean, remember, your subconscious mind is more powerful than you can possibly imagine. It's the conditioning of associating smoking a cigarette with a reduction of stress. In other words, the moment that you put a cigarette in your mouth and you

How does subconscious conditioning link cigarettes to stress relief?

Certified Hypnotist & Cognitive Behavioral Coach 1:40

You light it up and you smoke it, you most likely change your breathing pattern. You get more relaxed, your cortisol level goes down, but this has nothing to do with the nicotine itself, or let me say it like this, often it has nothing to do with the nicotine itself. It can of course be that there is a certain level of addiction to nicotine and that your body is craving it, which then results in you experiencing. Withdrawal symptoms that can definitely be. However, so many of my clients have experienced that once they reprogrammed their subconscious mind in a way where this connection of cigarettes and stress reduction is no longer there, it's no longer a part of their paradigm. Then suddenly it was quite easy for them to quit smoking, even though before, even though before they

Certified Hypnotist & Cognitive Behavioral Coach 2:30

They experienced fear and sometimes even panic because of this alleged addiction to nicotine that they believed would make it almost impossible for them to quit, or would lead to extreme withdrawal symptoms. And then in the end it turned out that what really happened was that their minds associated stress reduction with cigarettes, and that's why they were craving cigarettes. over and over again. And that's why it's so important, not just with hypnosis, in case you decide to work with me in the four-week hypnosis coaching program for smoking cessation, but also by becoming mindful of your thoughts, by using positive affirmations, by meditating on a regular basis, that you learn to calm your mind in a way where these mood swings don't come up in the first place because you're more

Certified Hypnotist & Cognitive Behavioral Coach 3:20

Balanced, you're more relaxed, you're no longer in panic mode, you're no longer in the survival emotions of stress. And on top of that, in case there is a mood swing, in case you experienced tightened anxiety, by you practicing every single day to calm your mind with meditation, with affirmations, with deep breathing exercises, with visualization. Yeah.

What mental‑reprogramming techniques (hypnosis, affirmations, meditation) reduce mood swings?

Certified Hypnotist & Cognitive Behavioral Coach 3:45

Where you, for example, visualize your future, you visualize your life as a non-smoker, and you visualize this beautiful state of just being at peace and living this peaceful existence as a non-smoker, if you continue to do that, then it's very likely that this feeling of heightened anxiety can simply flow out of your experience. And what can also happen? Which can lead to a lot of emotional rollercoaster writing, so to speak, it can lead to a lot of ups and downs. Is that when you quit smoking, you let go of a coping mechanism, as I already described, a coping mechanism, for example, for stress, but also a coping mechanism for emotional turmoil, for relationship issues, basically for