San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) — Smokers typically use nicotine replacement or they “go cold turkey” to quit smoking. They also typically fail. In fact the US FDA reports that 70% of smokers want to quit, but more than 84% of them are unsuccessful in their attempts. Gary Craig, Stanford trained scientist and founder of Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) explains that, “conventional smoking cessation systems don’t work because they do not address the real reason that people smoke which is to tranquilize emotional issues like anxiety or low self esteem.”
Craig initially developed Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) as a self-help tool for people with emotional difficulties but soon received reports from smokers who said that their craving for cigarettes subsided or disappeared while performing EFT for their emotional issues. These results didn’t surprise Craig who maintains that, “smokers are tranquilizing their emotions with tobacco and will find quitting enormously difficult until those emotional issues are resolved.
The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) reports that people suffering from nicotine withdrawal have increased aggression, anxiety, hostility, and anger. However, Craig doesn’t attribute these emotional responses to nicotine withdrawal. He says, “smokers become anxious and irritable when they try to quit smoking because the unresolved emotions they had been trying to suppress with cigarettes come bubbling to the surface as nicotine exits their system.”
Craig maintains that using EFT to resolve these emotions will help smokers to conquer this life threatening addiction permanently. “If emotional issues aren’t properly resolved, the smoker feels overwhelmed and eventually turns back to cigarettes to pacify the emotional pain.”
EFT is a simple technique that combines focused thought with gentle fingertip tapping on key acupressure points. Craig says, “The main cause of all negative emotions is not where psychologists have been looking. Instead, it involves the disruption of the energy pathways in the body. Once these pathways are balanced, the emotional drivers behind smoking and other addictions start to fade.”
Dr. Carol Look is a Clinical Hypnotherapist and EFT Practitioner who has helped many clients quit smoking. Dr. Look reports, “While I used hypnosis successfully for many smokers, I found that treatment using EFT gave the client more control, empowerment, and an active tool they could pull out and use whenever they wanted.”
Pat Farrell is another Clinical Hypnotherapist who prefers to use EFT for smoking cessation. One woman came to Farrell because she had quit smoking many times but had recently resumed smoking around the occasion of her wedding anniversary; a painful time since her husband had left her three years previously for a younger woman.
With EFT, Farrell helped her client collapse feelings of overwhelming sadness and betrayal as well as her immediate physical cravings for cigarettes. Farrell also addressed the woman’s habitual craving for cigarettes with her morning coffee. They worked together for about an hour and only spent three minutes on the actual cigarette craving. The rest of the time they addressed the emotional drivers fueling the woman’s need for cigarettes.
Two weeks after treatment, Farrell’s client still had no desire for a cigarette. She accomplished this without psychotherapy or nicotine replacement.
Anybody can learn to use EFT to eliminate cigarette cravings and even to quit smoking entirely. Gary Craig explains, “smokers generally expect to fail when they set out to quit. But when they use EFT, most experience an instant reduction in their cigarette craving. Their level of hope increases as their cravings decrease. If they persistently use EFT to address the emotional component of their addiction, they are likely to have a high success rate.”
If smoking cessation programs incorporated the proper use of EFT, Craig predicts that their success rate would be about between 50 and 80 percent – instead of the current 84% failure rate.
We can help you quit with our Smoking Cessation Program which uses EFT as the core tool. Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) is simply the quickest and most effective way to deal with doubts, obstacles, triggers, cravings, concerns, and emotions that most people who are quitting smoking have to deal with. Not only does EFT help make the transition to non-smoker easier, it better equips ex-smokers to deal with any stressful situations that may cause a relapse.
(more…)