Quit Smoking Tips

In the quit smoking world there are hundreds, if not thousands of tools available which claim to assist you. These range from chemicals to mind tools to herbal remedies, and everything in between. Below is an overview of the 6 most common types of smoking cessation tools.

Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) comes in many forms including gum, inhalers, lozenges, lolipops, nasal spray, patches, and more. With NRT, it is said that your chances of quitting are doubled - especially if you smoke soon after waking. The basic premise to NRT is that you have a nicotine addiction which you slowly wean off of. You take gradually smaller doses of the NRT replacement until you no longer have an addiction.

The biggest failure which occurs with NRT is when your nicotine cravings exceed the amount you are getting, and you either smoke a cigarette or increase your NRT dosage.

Smoking cessation medications like nicoderm, Zyban, and Chantix work by regulating the transmitters associated with nicotine uptake. To some extent their exact method remains a mystery, but they tend to have a cumulative effect of reducing or eliminating nicotine cravings. Unfortunately, they also have many side effects. Some of the more common ones include nausea, dizziness, dry mouth, and in some cases depressive illness. Like NRT, relapse is still possible, though the rates tend to be lower.

An increasingly popular quit smoking tool is acupuncture, and its technologically advanced equivalent - low level laser therapy. Both of these treatments work approximately by regulating chemicals in the body such as endorphins. By balancing these chemicals, they are able to break the cycle of addiction which caused excessive endorphins to be released during smoking. The idea behind low level laser is that the common acupuncture points can be controlled more precisely.

Rather than targeting your body's hormones and chemicals, Hypnosis and its close cousin NLP attempt to work by targeting the subconscious desires and the conditioning of those desires in your mind. Unlike both NRP and drugs, they have no side effects. They also have a surprisingly high success rate depending on how they are administered. The main difference between the two is that you stay fully conscious with NLP whereas hypnotherapy is more of a trance state.

There are a multitude of natural herbs and plants which target your neuro-chemical system in a manner similar to prescription drugs or NRT, but without as many side effects. These include Lobelia, Passion Flower, Vitamin B12, 5-htp, Valerian, and many others. Many communities exist on the Internet (forums) in which you can find guidance from other people who are currently or have previously used these successfully. A word of caution - While they're almost always cheaper, sometimes herbs can be more dangerous than medication.

Perhaps the most common method of all is probably least expected - quitting outright. It's said that your mind takes an average of 7 tries before you can successfully quit smoking - but each time it learns and becomes better for the next. Quitting cold turkey means you smoke one day and put them down the next - forever. While it seems like that would take a lot of willpower, it can actually be easier in some ways. For one, you are not extending the addiction cycle for weeks on end like with NRT. Also, you are not reinforcing your triggers by smoking at a reduced rate. That being said, however, it does take a lot of willpower all at once.

Always remember that out of the great many 'tools' available to quit smoking - they will all fail in the face of your desire. That is - you have to want to quit badly enough that it outweighs your desire to smoke again. Achieving that is at least half the battle.