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How Can Acupuncture Help Me to stop smoking?
Acupuncture Aid to Quit Smoking
Let's say that you don't believe that hypnotherapy would work for you but that you still want to stop but just aren't willing or able to go through all the agony of withdrawal.
Is there anything else you can do to make the painful and difficult process of quitting smoking a little easier on yourself?
There are a number of remedies that you can try. For example, many people swear by nicotine patches or chewing gum.
It is certainly true that nicotine patches or chewing gum will help you to stop smoking by maintaining the presence of nicotine derivative chemicals in your bloodstream.
But where's the advantage in that?
All you are doing is delaying your withdrawal symptoms until a later stage, and enduring a long period of relatively minor unpleasantness rather than a short period of fierce misery.
A more effective plan is to prevent the withdrawal symptoms from occurring in the first place.
The most effective method of preventing withdrawal symptoms from coming into being has been shown to be hypnotherapy, when it works. That method works really well for some people. But there are other people who just don't get any good out of it at all.
If you're one of those for whom it doesn't work what's the alternative?
Have you thought of acupuncture?
Lots of people swear by acupuncture treatments as the simplest and least disruptive way of giving up the tobacco habit.
What is acupuncture?
This method of quitting smoking is a modern application of an ancient Chinese technique. Acupuncture is a mainstay of Chinese medicine, where the Chinese doctor -- who will have medical qualifications at least as high as those of his Western counterparts, which is to say, as your family doctor's surgery -- attempts to cure a disease by sticking tiny needles into the sufferer's body.
That sounds awful!
It also sounds as if it couldn't possibly work.
However, it is a fact that acupuncture works from many people.
Quit Smoking Ace About UsABOUT US Quit Smoking Ace is the Brainchild of Toni Franchez, who was born and raised in Glasgow, Scotland - a hard-drinking, chain-smoking .....
I haven't tried acupuncture as a cure for smoking, because I had stopped smoking before acupuncture became widely available, but I was given acupuncture which successfully treated a digestive problem which had been bothering me for many years.
But as more and more Westerners experiment with acupuncture and its cousin acupressure - which often seems more acceptable to the Western mind - we are receiving reports from many smokers who say that acupuncture has helped them.
The reports we receive, show that acupuncture tends to lead to a diminished craving for a cigarette, in much the same way as those lucky smokers who have been successful in their attempts to stamp on tobacco report that hypnotherapy has helped them.
The Chinese theory is that acupuncture, or acupressure, works because the body is holistic conglomeration of many different organs and parts.
When the lungs, airways passages, and the mouth are adversely affected by smoke, this destructive effect can be lessened by the use of the acupuncture techniques, or so Chinese medical practitioners believe.
Many former smokers agree with them!
Some studies have shown that smokers attempting to give up cigarettes who consistently used acupuncture treatments had fewer of the residual tobacco derivative chemicals in their bloodstream than smokers who were also trying to give up, but who had not received acupuncture treatments.
This scientific finding supports the reports by former smokers that their craving for tobacco was lessened, since it is the continuing presence of these tobacco derivatives in the blood which leads to the phenomenon of craving and to many other unpleasant withdrawal symptoms.
"That's all very well, Toni but I can't stand the thought of having needles stuck into me" I hear you saying. It honestly isn't all that bad. It's not remotely like being given an injection, more like being pricked with a little pin. But if you can stand the thought anyway, there's no need for the actual needles.
Although Chinese doctors believe it could be less effective, acupressure also works as an aid to giving up smoking, just more slowly.
With acupressure, the same parts of the body are treated as with acupuncture, however instead of tiny needles being inserted, pressure is applied to that part of your body by the practitioner's hands.
In many ways, this treatment feels more similar massage than to acupuncture, but it is a completely different technique which has completely different effects.
Massage has also been reported to us as a treatment which is sometimes helpful in coping with the effects of giving up cigarettes, so if the whole idea of acupuncture or acupressure turns you right off you could always try massage.
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