Acupuncture and Hypnotherapy Can Help You Kick the Habit
Smoking is possibly THE most addictive drug known. And, if you are a smoker, it is slowly killing you.
By combining acupuncture and hypnotherapy to stop smoking, lasting results come faster!
Acupuncture helps people quit smoking by addressing the physical, emotional, and psychological components of nicotine addiction. Hypnotherapy aligns the subconscious mind, where change actually happens, with the conscious mind to allow you to stop smoking easily.
Let’s be honest, stopping smoking is hard for most people. It’s highly addictive. I’ve helped people quit heroin and cocaine and they keep smoking because it’s harder to give up. But, it’s not actually harder to give up. I know, that sounds confusing. Hear me out … the reason people can quit heroin and cocaine before quitting smoking is because heroin and cocaine are more immediately destructive. Smoking is long term destructive. Most people need a big enough “why” to quit an addiction which is why most people need to hit “rock bottom” to give up alcohol, drugs, sex, shopping or gambling addictions. When an addition is obviously wreaking havoc in your life, there’s more motivation to overcome it. Smoking is less immediately destructive, but the truth is, it’s ultimately more damaging to health. in other words, the long term damage of smoking is harder to overcome. The sooner it’s given up the more likely you will be to recover your full health potential.
Why Willpower Isn’t Enough:
Most people try to quit smoking by sheer willpower, but they often fail because they’re fighting their own mind. Hypnotherapy helps you align your conscious desire to quit with your subconscious mind, where the real change happens. Acupuncture helps overcome the physical withdrawal, cravings, and irritability associated with stopping smoking.
In Hypnotherapy we go deep into the subconscious mind and imagine “what will life be like if you keep smoking”? and “what will become possible if you stop”? In the trance state we create a big enough “why” to stop smoking. We then use Acupuncture to reinforce that with ear points that have been proven to help end addictions by easing the withdrawal, cravings, and irritability. The combination is powerful. We also do work in hypnotherapy on the real reason you started and kept smoking in the first place and replace that need with a more healthful coping mechanism. Your subconscious mind holds all the answers it needs. You know on some level that you want to stop smoking and that, in fact, you can. You simply let that more powerful, mature, healthy part of you take over. We can help.
How Hypnotherapy Helps You Quit Smoking
Smoking is more than a habit—it’s a deeply ingrained pattern in your subconscious mind. Hypnotherapy works by guiding you into a relaxed, focused state where your subconscious is open to positive suggestions. This allows us to rewire the mental associations that fuel your cravings, making it easier to quit without struggle.
Success Stories:
-
“I smoked for 20 years and quit after just two sessions. I couldn’t believe it!”
-
“Hypnosis made it so much easier than I expected. The cravings are gone!”
Dr. David Spiegel on The Neuroscience of Hypnosis for Addiction, Trauma and Pain Management
How acupuncture helps you stop smoking:
1. Reduces Cravings
Specific acupuncture points—especially on the ear (known as auricular acupuncture)—are used to regulate the nervous system and decrease the brain’s craving for nicotine. These points help calm the reward centers that are activated by smoking.
2. Eases Withdrawal Symptoms
Acupuncture can alleviate common withdrawal symptoms such as:
- Irritability
- Anxiety
- Restlessness
- Insomnia
- Headaches
- Increased appetite
By restoring balance to the body’s energy systems (Qi), acupuncture reduces the intensity of these symptoms and helps people stay on track.
3. Regulates Stress & Mood
Smoking is often a coping mechanism for stress or emotional discomfort. Acupuncture promotes relaxation by stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system and reducing cortisol (stress hormone) levels, making it easier to resist urges.
4. Rewires Habit Loops
Acupuncture supports the formation of new, healthier patterns by creating a shift in how the brain and body respond to stress or habit triggers. This helps break the association between smoking and certain emotional or situational cues.
5. Supports Detoxification
Acupuncture enhances liver and lung function, helping the body detox more efficiently from nicotine and other chemicals in cigarettes. This makes the physical recovery process faster and smoother.
We also use ear seeds or small tacks on the ear that patients can press between treatments to reduce cravings in real time.
If you’re ready to stop smoking, book an appointment now.
Need more motivation? There are many reasons to stop smoking:
- With each inhalation of a cigarette, you breath in over 4,000 chemicals, including but certainly not limited to arsenic, ammonia, acetone, ammonium bromide, benzene, carbon monoxide, cadmium, cyanide, DDT, formaldehyde, lead, mercury, nickel, hydrogen cyanide, and hydrogen sulfide, in addition to at least 50 cancer-causing agents.
- According to the Centers for Disease Control, cigarette smoking causes death: nearly 443,000 deaths per year (1 in 5 deaths) to be exact. This is more than HIV, illegal drug use, alcohol use, motor vehicle injuries, suicides and murders combined.
- Smoking increases the risk of coronary artery disease, stroke, lung cancer, chronic obstructive lung disease, abdominal aortic aneurysm, infertility, premature delivery, stillbirth, low birth weight, and sudden infant death syndrome.
- Cigarettes cause cancer: acute myeloid leukemia, bladder, cervical, esophageal, kidney, larynx, lung, oral (mouth), and stomach cancers.
- Cigarette smoking is associated with lower bone density in postmenopausal women, and increases the risk of hip fractures in women.
Despite all the facts regarding the ill effects of smoking, people continue to smoke because of the addictive nature of nicotine, the primary chemical in tobacco. Within 10 to 20 seconds of inhaling a cigarette, nicotine will reach your brain, causing a huge surge of dopamine to be released. Dopamine is one of several “feel good” chemicals your brain produces to make you feel pleasure. Nicotine is such a potent drug that one drop of pure nicotine can cause you to go into respiratory failure (stop breathing), paralysis and death.
What can acupuncture do to assist in stopping smoking? Acupuncturists are trained to address addictions, especially nicotine addiction, following the principles of Traditional Chinese Medicine. We assess the addiction from several perspectives, inclusive of the physical, mental and emotional addiction. There are many acupuncturists who utilize a technique where fine needles are inserted into a set of five acupuncture points on the ear (auricular acupuncture), as promoted by The National Acupuncture Detoxification Association (NADA), a not-for-profit organization who teaches and endorses this acupuncture detoxification protocol. You may even be sent home with small beads placed on the ear using adhesive tape, that when stimulated, can continue to help curb withdrawal symptoms (an application of auricular acupressure). In general, expect frequency of visits to be several times per week for the first week or two (recommendations vary per acupuncturist and patient’s condition). Our goal in the treatment plan is to support patients through the acute phase of withdrawal, improving your success at kicking the nicotine habit. Commonly, patients experience a decrease in cravings, changes in sensory perception as the taste and smell of cigarettes becomes intolerable, and an increased state of calm and relaxation.
If you have ever attempted to quit, you know there are multiple withdrawal symptoms that one can experience, including: insomnia, fatigue, feeling jittering, cough, tightness in the chest, dry mouth, constipation, irritability, depression, anxiousness and lack of concentration. As an acupuncturist, I routinely address these issues independently, and improvements in such symptoms are commonly experienced as side benefits by patients. In the scientific community, there have been insightful findings on acupuncture’s complex mechanism of action, offering explanations to why this ancient treatment works. Research supports acupuncture’s role in influencing the various aspects of the nervous system, thereby modulating things like your gastrointestinal system, heart rate, stress response and mood.
The sooner you start treatment, the sooner you can be smoke free. You may be stopping for yourself, a loved one, or maybe just to get cheaper insurance rates. Whatever your reason for stopping is, you owe it to yourself to come in and find out if acupuncture can help you stop.