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Daniel Pedley

Skeptical about Stoptober?

Some quick tips and tricks to tell vaping and smoking to 'sod off'


If others react to your habits like this, then this may be just the article for you.



How's it going?

As we're now approaching the halfway mark of October, and with the 'Stoptober' movement in full swing, whether you have already began to quit smoking or are merely considering it, there has never been a better time to toss the tobacco, or make that vape vanish. Now is exactly when you should be evaluating where you are at with your own habits, and given that the days are getting darker, there's progressively less reason to pop outside. With so many people taking up the challenge to make themselves smoke free specifically at this time of year, you'll know that you certainly won't be doing it alone, as the Stoptober movement continues to gain traction and raise anti-smoking awareness by helping people to quit for good.



It can be really beneficial to check in with yourself and keep track of how often you're smoking.




How can I do it?

Back in January of 2023, I published a more in depth blog post entitled "Getting Quizzical about Quitting?" in which I spoke about some of the complexities of ditching smoking with fully referenced suggestions backed by science, and you can check that out HERE. I would really encourage anybody who is serious about quitting to check it out, because it goes into depth on the process itself as well as different ways in which you'll be able to quit. If you want to become a non-smoker or know someone who does, it could be extremely beneficial to provide you with some ideas.


The long and short of it is that there are several things you can do, from reducing your intake on a daily basis, through to going 'cold turkey' entirely. A personal favourite of mine is restricting where you can smoke or vape. This is because many people describe themselves as social smokers, or those who only smoke when they drink alcohol. By limiting where they can smoke, and instead setting boundaries such as only smoking alone, only smoking when sober or smoking in a different place than usual, including when it's raining outside, it can be easier than you'd expect to realise how little you might actually need the nicotine given that it's the association with it and other acitivities or places that you feel you require. Since smokers are also more stressed in general due to their percieved need for nicotine, it can also be beneficial to find a way to reduce your general stress levels which in turn may kick the need for nicotine as a supposed stress relief.



Don't forget that this advice all applies to vaping, too.




How can therapy help?

Now, stopping smoking is one of the first things people often ask me about when I mention that I am a clinical hypnotherapist, often with the question "So you can hypnotise me to quit?". But that isn't entirely how it works; hypnosis does not control you like some kind of meat-puppet. What I can do however, is employ a plethora of hypnosis-based and clinical therapeutic techniques to help ease cravings, see yourself in a different light, elevate your willpower, improve goal setting to help reach those milestones, and most of all provide a sense of accountability and success. By working with me or another hypnotherapist, you will find yourself better supported and with more manageable goals to reach compared to doing it alone, with sessions that empower you, energise you, give you the confidence to be able to ditch a bad habit for good, and even give you a bloody good laugh if that's what you need. Given that the scope of hypnotherapy is so large, and that it's my job to work around you as well as to provide you with a toolkit to tackle a nicotine addiction, as well as teach you self-hypnosis so that when our sessions conclude, you will be equipped with transferrable skills to tackle what life can throw at you. Therapy with me at Piper Therapy Services is not a simply one time gig, since our aim is to provide therapy that's as bespoke to each individual as possible with the aim of making you a powerhouse in whatever you want to accomplish. So what are you waiting for? Contact us today, and see what I can do for you.


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