Quit Smoking
Helpful suggestions for planning to quit smoking.
• Support Person - The decision to stop smoking can elicit uncomfortable emotions. Ask someone available to you in the next few weeks to act as a sounding board and encourage you when needed.
• Affirmation - An affirmation is a positive statement repeated often to create desired changes in your life. Repeating the affirmation helps not only to remind you why you are no longer smoking but imprint a new image of health so that the body can then produce health. Examples: "I am a non-smoker. I make healthy choices in my life."
• Setting Boundaries - Set up contracts with other smokers to refrain from smoking in your presence. This includes spouses. When possible stay away from smokers until you feel more confident with your non-smoking health status.
• Drink Water - Research shows that dryness causes cravings. Sip water frequently throughout the day.
Refrain from drinking coffee - Research shows that coffee causes cravings and dehydrates the body.
• Avoid sweets as they upset blood sugar levels, which can aggravate smoking-withdrawal symptoms. Sugar substitutes such as NutraSweet are sweeter than sugar and cause further sugar cravings.
• Managing Cravings - Cravings feel like they will last forever but fade in two minutes. Plan what you will do during a craving. Examples: Take your herbs; repeat your affirmation; breathe deeply; walk to another place; sing a song; dance; call your support person.
• Exercise More - Getting moving is a great way to remind yourself why you shouldn't smoke. Exercise can reduce your stress and help you relax far better than cigarettes.
• Chinese Herbs - A tailored formula to rid the body of the toxicity of nicotine.
• Lobelia Tea or Green Tea - Sipped daily during the detox period to keep tissues flooded with elements that discourage nicotine cravings. Lobelia is traditionally used to rid the body of a strong toxin such as a snake bite.
• Deep Breathing Exercises - increase body oxygen and keep calm.
• Supplements – Vitamins C and Zinc are leached from the body due to smoking.
Schedule your Acupuncture treatment.
How Does Acupuncture Help Break the Cigarette Habit?
Acupuncture is successful with smoking cessation and has turned a growing number of cigarette smokers into permanent ex-smokers. Treatments take all of your symptoms into account and aim at balancing the energy within the body to optimize health.
The acupuncture treatments focus on jitters, cravings, irritability and restlessness; all symptoms that people commonly complain about when they quit. It also aids in relaxation and detoxification.
“In one study conducted at the University of Oslo, Norway, acupuncture was found to significantly reduce the desire to smoke up to five years after the initial treatment. Subjects of the study also reported that cigarettes tasted worse than before treatment and that the treatments had effectively reduced their taste for tobacco.“
Preventive Medicine. Volume 33, Issue 5, November 2001, Pages 364-372
The acupuncture needles used are hair-thin. They are superficially inserted into various points in the ears and body to assist with smoking cessation. In between treatments, small pellets are often taped to the acupuncture points on the ear. When a cigarette craving hits, gently pressing on the pellets stimulates the acupuncture points to calm the mind and eliminate the craving.
Acupuncture is not a panacea or a magic cure in the treatment of any addiction, including smoking. But, acupuncture is effective in making it easier to quit and remain smoke-free for good.
How does Treatment at Utopia differ from the rest?
At Utopia, we will determine to identify your constitutional element, which will allow us to go beyond treating you on a physical level (cravings) and support your emotional and spiritual well-being. If you have the desire to quit, we can strengthen your resolve, help eliminate negative thought patterns, and dramatically reduce stress levels.