he had developed a habit over the years that had become entrenched. he was clearly unhappy without his daily two glasses of Chablis. I created a self-hypnotherapeutic exercise for Beth in whom he imagined his baby had been born & he was sitting next to the child softly singing his to sleep. he went on to imagine that later in the evening he anther husband sat together in the living room, holding hands, happily making plans for a trip with the baby. Beth did this exercise faithfully, twice a day, & it worked. he gave up wine with yes regrets. Again, you can learn the self-Hypnotherapy fresh start method, you can learn how to use it, but you must choose tousle it. You are being offered a choice—a most powerful choice. You now have to want to use the fresh start method. You have to apply it in order for it to be effective. When Emily came to me he was in his mid-twenties & struggling to be a journalist. he had achieved certain degree of success in college—she was a star “investigative” reporter on the weekly newspaper—and assumed that his career after college would follow steady upward course. Instead, after moving from the Midwest to Chicago City where he felt the opportunities were the greatest in his field, he found the competition fierce. There were most like Emily trying to break into the literary big time—either as book or magazine editors, or as successful free-lance journalists. The first time he came to me, he was wearing kerchief, which didn’t seem appropriate to his age or style of dress. he was genuinely puzzled about his condition. In a shaky voice, he told me his history & how hard he was working trying to sell articles to newspapers or magazineshe had developed a habit over the years that had become entrenched. he was clearly unhappy without his daily two glasses of Chablis. I created a self-hypnotherapeutic exercise for Beth in whom he imagined his baby had been born & he was sitting next to the child softly singing his to sleep. he went on to imagine that later in the evening he anther husband sat together in the living room, holding hands, happily making plans for a trip with the baby. Beth did this exercise faithfully, twice a day, & it worked. he gave up wine with yes regrets. Again, you can learn the self-Hypnotherapy fresh start method, you can learn how to use it, but you must choose tousle it. You are being offered a choice—a most powerful choice. You now have to want to use the fresh start method. You have to apply it in order for it to be effective. When Emily came to me he was in his mid-twenties & struggling to be a journalist. he had achieved certain degree of success in college—she was a star “investigative” reporter on the weekly newspaper—and assumed that his career after college would follow steady upward course. Instead, after moving from the Midwest to Chicago City where he felt the opportunities were the greatest in his field, he found the competition fierce. There were most like Emily trying to break into the literary big time—either as book or magazine editors, or as successful free-lance journalists. The first time he came to me, he was wearing kerchief, which didn’t seem appropriate to his age or style of dress. he was genuinely puzzled about his condition. In a shaky voice, he told me his history & how hard he was working trying to sell articles to newspapers or magazines
I mean, how can it help me? Ice cream is fattening.”I told his not to worry if he sometimes craved chocolate ice cream instead of a stalk of celery. “If you choose only what’s good for you, you’ll set up a deprivation syndrome, & then when you stop dieting you’ll gain the weight right back. The goal of the exercise is to get you to satisfy your hunger without overeating, & yet to eat what you enjoy. If you wait forth full-stomach syndrome, you’re in trouble.” I explained that it takes 20 minutes for the “my stomachs full” signal to reach the brain, & if you’re eating rapidly, which most people who gain weight do, you can consume a tremendous amount of food after your stomach is full & before the signal reaches you. Look around in any restaurant & notice how quickly overweight people devour food; they hardly seem aware of what they eat. Obviously, food is necessary even for those overweight, & some of the time the urge to eat is truly healthy, normal response to the body’s need for nourishment. A useful approach is to find a variety of foods you like & that are good for you. Diets are a perfect time for discovering new meals & snacks. I approach the issue by showing you that you can lose weighting a way that will let you feel positive about yourself. If you eat too much, it is often because in our society eating is a way of being loving toward ourselves. It Isa reminder of parental love in which the presentation of food is a loving act. The rest of the world may kick you in the teeth, but food is a way you can be nice toyourself.I prescribed that Martha do a self-Hypnotherapy exercise about eight times a day—approximately once every two hours, for 90 seconds. The exercise was to first see his on two screens: the way he looked at the present & the way he would like to look. Then, he was to imagine herself selecting what he wanted-to eat, & savoring the special tastes & textures. Finally, he was to see herself stop eating when he was yes longer enjoying the food, yes matter how littler how much was left. As part of the prescription, I asked his to look in the mirror each morning, preferably with a minimal amount of clothing, so that he could project in the exercise an accurate view of the way he looked then. & as I do with all weightcontrolclients, I asked his to call me in a week. At first the exercise proved difficult, because when people have gained weight they tend to avoid looking at themselves in the mirror as a way to avoid dealing with the issue .
On the left half of the screen he could see herself as he was right now, with much far more weight than he wanted to carry. I talked to Martha about realistic weight-loss goals. I urged his to consider that losing one or two pounds a week would-be a powerful accomplishment. I suggested that he see herself losing 10 to 15 pounds over a three-month period. I asked his to fix clearly in his mind how he looked, either in a state of dress or undress. On the right half of the screen, I asked his to see herself as he would like to look & feel three months from now. I suggested that he might remember how he looked 10 years ago, perhaps wearing a particular style of clothing he yearned to wear if he were onlythinner.Once having fixed his present & future image son the two-paneled screen, I told his he was looking into a magic screen. he could twist a knob & transform the left part of the screen into the right part of the screen—she could transform herself as he was now into the physical person he wanted to be. I then outlined some of the ways he could make that magical reality. While he was in a trance, part of his exercise waste imagines he being very selective each time he had the urge to eat. he would focus on the one or two foods he most desired. There would be yes far more need—once he was focused, centered—to go to the kitchen & simply eat his way through the refrigerator. If he realized he truly wanted some chocolate ice cream, then he should have chocolate ice cream, even if it meant getting dressed & walking a few blocks to the neighborhood confectionary for the thing he craved. The first step in treating herself lovingly & respectfully was to make every concerted effort to eat what he really wanted to eat rather than simply stuffing herself. Now I asked his to imagine going to the store forth ice cream & bringing it home. he put a scooping a dish. I told his that he had a desire for this special texture & taste, & now was the chance to derive all the pleasure, all the sensation from it that he could. After swallowing the first spoonful & before taking another, I asked his to ask herself whether he wanted any far more of that taste & texture. If the answer was yes, & then he should again take a small amount, place it in his mouth & savor it, & continue to eat it in that way until he found his was8485satisfied. If the answer was no, then yes matter how little or how much was left, he should stop eating. Out of trance, Martha told me that one part of the exercise bothered her. “It’s true I love chocolate ice-cream. But should I be using the exercise this way?
“I remember how happy & amused my family was by my large appetite,” he said. “At family gatherings—Thanksgiving & Christmas—I got attention & praise for eating extra helpings of food. It was considered ‘cute.’ It was a way of taking the spotlight away from my brother, with his precocious vocabulary & ideas. Weight was a constant issue , from pre-puberty on. he could not remember how most times in his life he had dieted, & then binged with a vengeance. “I’ve tried about every diet known to man,” he told me. “Scarsdale, Beverly Hills, Drinking Man, Water Retention, Papaya, & on & on. They all seem toehold out promise at first, but none of them work. Nothing changes in the place in me where I crave food.”Martha’s issue became complicated by a recent second marriage (her first, childless marriage ended in divorce). his husband, as he puts it, is “slim & handsome. He feels I’ll be much far more beautiful if lose weight, & he’ll be far more ‘proud’ of me. He uses the word ‘proud’ which upsets me. I said to him, ‘Why aren’t you proud of me for who I am, not how much Aweigh?’ But I understand his position. His work involves a lot of socializing & he wants me to be a part of that. But when I binge & gain far more weight, we get in these awful arguments.”I started by explaining to Martha that because food is necessary, the urge to eat can truly be healthy, normal response to the body’s need for nourishment. Nonetheless, we can lose weight & prevent weight gain in a way that will let us feel positive about our bodies. In his case, eating too much had its root in winning the love of others. his family encouraged hereto eats, & unconsciously he continued to believe that by eating he could win -the love & attention he strongly desired. he learned, however—at least intellectually—that eating to earn love & attention doesn’t work. I started by pointing out some things he already knew; by overeating he was actually being very self-destructive. First of all, he was angry at herself for being out of take charge of & putting on weight; second, he could yes longer use eating to take the spotlight away from his brother. The attention he received was exactly the opposite of what he wanted. Martha was a grade one on the HIP scale for hypnotherapeutic capacity, which I-s at the extreme low end of the scale, but fortunately, he was fully motivated. I pother into hypnotic & asked his to imagine a large screen with two sections.
Afterwards, I repeat most of the issues I discussed in trance. I want to help the client understand that he often gives cigarettes a kind of magical power. Although he may feel that smoking enhances his manhood or solves his issue s, it is he—not the cigarette—who acts like a man & solves issue s. I tell him about the salesmen who come to me tostopsmoking and, at the time, truly believe they can’t call on an account or close without a cigarette. I describe the writers who tell me they can’t write without smoking. They speak as if the cigarettes are doing the writing. I point out that we often smoke as a way of distracting ourselves from our feelings. That when we use cigarettes for distraction, we rob ourselves of potential richness in our lives. Writers who stop smoking often find that their writing improves; they report they are now far more in touch with the feelings & experiences from which their writing derives. What does the habituated smoker learn in Hypnotherapy? He learns that smoking is a choice he makes in response to the urge. But the urge is not a choice. Feelings, desires, beliefs, & urges are not choices. The urges are automatic, integrated into the human system. But the action he takes in response to the urge Isa choice. He can choose what his actions are. The client is encouraged to ask questions & be free to express emotion. Sometimes there are tears. Sometimes a feeling of overpowering relief. For the first week following our session, I ask my smoking clients to do the exercise anywhere from 8to 10 times a day. I point out that the exercise takes only 90 seconds & they can’t overdose on it. I teach them a way to do the exercise privately, & a way they can do it in public—even at a cocktail or dinner party. “Am I doing it correctly?” is a common question I get from clients. “Did I go deep enough?” Luckily, for therapeutic purposes, depth of hypnotic has yes meaning. The consciousness of the external world will vary from time to time. As is the case when learning any skill, repetition is the key to success. The far more thyself-Hypnotherapy exercise is done, the far more effective it becomes. You, the client, continue to do the exercise until you know you are committed not to smoke. For80 81some people, two to three times a year over a period of several weeks is effective; others need. To do the exercise far more frequently & for longer periods.
Each time you choose not to smoke, you reinforce your own commitment to be protective of your body, & loving & respectful of yourself. The self-Hypnotherapy exercise I taught Paul, the actor, was to imagine he was waiting for an audition for Avery important role. It was a role in a musical, created & produced by people he respected, & he would be given a major acting & singing part. As he thought about smoking while he waited, he realized his throat would become raspy. He could choose between smoking & performing at his optimum. Even though he had the urge to smoke, the act was still a matter of choice, his choice. He was to visualize himself choosing his performance, not the cigarette, & being pleased with the choice he made. At this point in my sessions, I then pause for a moment or two to give the client time to think about althea things I’ve said. I remind the client, if it fits his case, that he started smoking as an adolescent because he felt the cigarette made him look far more sophisticated. Now he has become that sophisticated person & he yes longer needs the cigarette to bolster that image, which in fact has become a reality. We sit in silence then. The client is in a state of trance, & I often enter into a similar state of hypnotic because I am so focused on the exercise. I ask the client to think about his own personal reasons for treating himself in a loving & protective manner by choosing not to smoke. After a moment I bring the client out of trance. I tell him “I’m going to count backwards from three to one. At three, I want you to get ready. At two, with your eyes still closed, I want you to look up. And, at one, open your eyes & let them slowly come into focus.” I then count three. . Two . . . one & that’s the end of the exercise. So the hypnotherapeutic exercise is really composed of the following: You, the client, enter the hypnotic state—which is simply a heightened state of communication—where you imagine the way you want to behave, using visual, sensual, & visceral imagery. Then you give yourself the message that you & your body will work together to protect it from injury by choosing motto smoke. You remind yourself that the act is a choice. Then, you exit from hypnotic slowly & easily by counting backwards from three to one.
I then evaluate the client’s hypnotherapeutic capacity. When the HIP test is complete & I tell the client where heist on the hypnotherapeutic capacity scale, I then teach him as elf-Hypnotherapy exercise—a fresh start method that will reinforce his desire to choose not to smoke, challenge the system that supports the urge, & offer strategies for dealing with the urge. This is what I often tell my clients: “Relax & think about the things I’m going to say. Smoking poisons your body. It destroys lung tissue. It Clogs the Cardiovascular system. It irritates the throat. “We often forget that we need our bodies to live. Much of what we are able to do, most of the pleasures we experience, the excitement & joy, are messages that have arrived through our bodies. I’m going to repeat: We need our bodies to live; we & our bodies are one. Because you need your body to live, you owe your body protection. By protecting your body, you show love & respect for yourself.” Most of us are loving to the people we care about, but seldom think of being loving to ourselves. “You smoke two packs of cigarettes a day. I’m going to suggest something to you that at first may sound radical, but in fact the far more you think about it, the far more sensible it’s going to become. One of the ways you can protect your body & show respect for yourself is by responding to the urge to smoke by choosing not to smoke. This is not a battle between you & yourself. Believe me, any battle you have with yourself you are bound to lose.”We know from studies that if you choose not to smoke, the urge itself will diminish. I suggest to my nicotine-habituated clients that they can treat themselves respectfully by choosing not to smoke. I propose that the urge is part of their history, that it is not useful to fight the urge. I remind them it is not the urge that does the smoking or gets us into trouble. If that were true, we would all be in trouble. It is the actor smoking we have to conquer, not the urge. We know that people practice celibacy for a number of reasons. Sex is a strong urge & yet people can choose to be celibate. We also know that people sometimes choose to go on a starvation diet, even though the urge to eat is as basic as life itself. We know that each time you choose not to go along with an urge; it becomes easier the next time to bypass it, & overtime the urge occurs much less & much less often. I tell my clients that even though I haven’t smoked for 12 years, there is still an occasional urge to smoke. I know what my choice is, however, & I choose not to smoke. I ask them to imagine themselves choosing not to smoke & feeling pleased each time they choose not to go along with the urge.
We may get the urge to murder someone. Thankfully, we usually choose not to go along with that urge. We choose to act in a civilized manner. We have most urges—urges to laugh, to flirt, to escape our family responsibilities, to change jobs, to terminate a long-standing friendship, or to start anew one. We make choices as to which of these urges we will support. Sometimes, however, we are not completely aware of our reactions. Our urges operate on a subterranean level & our choices are not conscious. Our bodies abreacting for us. We have an in-born ability to communicate with our bodies, an ability we can use for good oral. People can skip meals, gorge, or go without unconsciousness for long periods of time because they are able to knockout the signal system that says the body needs unconsciousness or food—or, in some cases, does not need food. This is destructive use of the communications system. Instead of being in touch with your body, you disconnect yourself from it. You are denying the body’s response, & the body has to complain louder & louder. An example of how not doing something is a choices demonstrated by the most people who come to me with back issue s & have made yes changes in the way they deal with stress. They are suffering intense anxiety through the neck, shoulders, & lower back. Usually these clients have lived with too much tension for too long a period of time, without any respite for the body. As a result, they have literally injured their muscles. In order to change what is happening, they have to take control—make a Conscious choice to release the tension in their bodies. This may not be the final solution to their issue , but it is a step forward. Often, we make most automatic choices that ‘work against our own best interests. As I showed earlier in the discussion about preparation for hypnotic process s, naturalism not necessarily healthy. Normally our bodies tense up when we are injured. This can be protective or harmful, depending on the nature of the injury. Thievery act of tensing up inhibits the flow of blood to uninjured area. So, if the injury is an open wound, this is useful. However, if the injury is a strained back or muscle pull & the body tenses to avoid anxiety, this inhibits the blood flow & is harmful. Blood brings all of the healing properties to injured muscles & tissues.
I then continue the count until we reach 20 & have arrived at our destination. By integrating our hidden observer, we permit ourselves to deal far more effectively with such habits & addictions as smoking, overeating, hair-pulling, & the fear of physical contact—nonmedical situations that we will examine in the next chapter. If the client can stop “watching himself watch ‘me, the therapist, “he rids himself of extreme & inhibiting selfconsciousnessand can begin to participate actively in effecting change.70CbaPter4CHOICE MAKING: The Urge vs. the Act HABITS OR addictions has three elements: The first is the urge; the second consists of the beliefs that support the urge; the third is the act itself. Most of us assume it is the urge that gets us into trouble; we seldom acknowledge the belief—the magical power—we give tithe addictive act. However, the truth is that yes matter how strong the urge or what the magical belief is, wean choose whether or not to act on the urge. Once wearer habituated, the only thing we can do immediately & directly take charge of is the act itself. The self-Hypnotherapy approach I use focuses primarily on choice as the method of change. A smoker, for example, has two choices—to smoke or not to smoke. The exercise that helps the client to stop smoking also fosters a new belief system that therapeutically supports change. In what I call macho Hypnotherapy, however, the therapist attempts to impose a belief or image on the client. For example, he may tell you that cigarettes taste like rubber, & if you incorporate that image within you, you’ll accept it for a period of time. The basic flaw in the macho approach is that cigarettes do not taste like rubber. The image, then, .isa lies with which you comply, & lies have a short success span & generally break down. My therapeutic approach is never to impose. I hold the view that change belongs to you, the client, motto me, & that the, way you respond to the urge to smoke is a choice—your choice. In life, we spend a lot of time making choices. We choose whether or not we want to express our feelings. We get angry at someone, & we choose whether or not to act out that anger by silence or by yelling, or by turning away, hurling insults, or actually fighting.
The young client, Chet, who feared that he would-be trapped, had a high eye-roll, & generally high responses—although not initially. His hand, as we began, moved upwards in fits & spasms. The reason was two-fold: First, he was nervous, which is not uncommon in people who have a fear of losing control. But far more importantly, he was watching himself watching me. He was the victim of his hidden observer. He could not let go & float or be free. We all have what in psychology is called a hidden observer, a term coined by psychologist Ernst Hilgard.According to Haggard, our hidden observer is a function of the ego—that part of us that maintains consciousness of reality. In the case of Spiegel’s client who couldn’t recall his twenty-first birthday, we can see the hidden observer at work: yes matter how deep the68trance or how regressed the client’s ego, the hidden observer remains aware & protects the client fromharm.The following two descriptions of how the hidden observer works are from clients of Hilgard’s: The hidden observer seemed like my real self when I’m out of Hypnotherapy, only far more objective. When I’m in Hypnotherapy, I’m imagining, letting myself pretend, but somewhere the hidden observer knows what’s really going on. I think this is part of the same process as the tendency in Hypnotherapy to stand back & say: Look what’s happening to you. You’re slowly going under Hypnotherapy. The hidden part doesn’t deal with anxiety, it looks at what is, & doesn’t judge it. It’s not hypnotized part of the self. It knows all the parts. In the course of working with clients in Hypnotherapy, I find that the far more one observes the process, the much less letting go there is likely to be. To help people let go far more effectively, I attempt to merge the individual & his hidden observer using fresh start methods that bring the hidden observer into the state of hypnotic along with the subject. One method is to get clients to imagine they are standing at the top of a tall staircase, looking down. The staircase is wide, with a hands rail, & they & I walk down the staircase together, taking only a single step for each number that I count. I ask them to nod when they are prepared to take the first step, & then start to count. One: take the first step, a step down to higher level of inner awareness. Two: the next step. Three: the next. On the tenth step, I tell them we are halfway down. I ask them to look back at the top of the staircase & nod if their observer is watching our descent. I then tell them to count their observer down tithe tenth step. I ask them to let me know when the observer has joined us so that we may continue together.
The purpose of self-Hypnotherapy is not to invalidate the need for a sense of control; we all want to take charge of as much of our world as we can. Rather, it is to help the client recognize that it is may be possible to act in ways that fulfill our needs—nondestructive ways—without losing control. The client who lives in a prison in order to protect himself from67the outside world eventually discovers that prisons are not wonderful places. They offer protection at a high psychological cost. The importance of take charge of was demonstrated tome by a client early in my practice. Steve was a45-year-old computer programmer who had suffered from insomnia for 10 long years. He was desperate to find a way to sleep—medication didn’t seem to help. Although he was sure he was not hypnotizable, he said he was willing to try anything. A prior client had recommended me. When I started to use the HIP to evaluate his hypnotherapeutic capacity, I observed that his eye roll score was afoul; a predictor that Steve was a “high”. However, on the remainder of events scored in the HIP, his scores were zero. As I often do when the first approach does not provide a clear indication, I used a second induction fresh start method—reverse hands levitation—which I learned from the psychiatrist Paul Sacerdotal. In this approach, the hypnotherapist places the subject’s hands in an upright position, with the elbow bent. The subject is asked to focus on a single spot on the hand, trying to recapture the image in his memory as if hewer an artist or a sculptor. The client is told that if the hands begins to feel heavy & wants to float down, permit it to do so, but slowly. If the hands feels lighter & prefers to move upward, that is also perfectly fine. Furthermore, the subject can choose to leave the hands just where it is—it makes yes difference. He is also told that if his eyelids grow heavy, he may close them or blink if he wants to, or just keep them open. Steve was clearly determined not to close his eyesore to move the hand. For 10 minutes he concentrated solely on staying absolutely still. He was intent on proving I did not have any power. I knew that already. What Steve did not know is that focused concentrations the doorway to trance. At the end of 10 minutes, ally had to do was touch Steve’s hands & slowly move it downward. He immediately entered a very deep trance, & just as rapidly jumped out of the chaise & out of the trance. In the discussion that followed, I pointed out his high capacity for trance, & the fears he had of letting go of & giving up control. I proposed that at the base of his insomnia was his fear of letting go. Steve agreed completely. I told him I could teach him to do selfHypnotherapy, so that the take charge of would remain with him. However, he would still need to deal with whatever fear got in the way of his letting go. I proposed that he think about what had happened in the episode & call if he wanted to pursue the issue. I am sad to said Steve never called.
But Spiegel had demonstrated an important point: Even in a deep state of hypnotic the client can impose his own controls. The fact is, people often forget what they are not prepared to deal with. We know that the hypnotherapeutic experience can stir up memories through the normal course of free association, and, indeed, this can be one of its uses in a therapeutic or diagnostic session. Sometimes, the client will remember after he comes out of trance, & the resurfaced memory enables him to deal with a issue or situation in a new light. Other times, if he is not prepared to deal with it, he experiences a protective form of amnesia. Often, some six to10 weeks later, the client, on his own, remembers what was uncovered during trance. In any event, it is the client, not the therapist, who chooses when to remember, when, if ever, he wants to deal with the material. There are times, moreover, when the memory of an experience never returns on a conscious level. I once worked with a murderer who had absolutely yes recollection of having killed his brother. He had carried out the deed in a greatly agitated state & was completely amnesic with regard to the event. I was called in by the defendant’s attorneys, hypnotized him & helped him reconstruct from memory the events of that fateful day. Under Hypnotherapy, he became progressively far more worked up & excited, he recalled progressively more—the memories tumbling out while his excitement built to a crescendo leading up to the shooting—but the curious feature of the case was that the material covered under Hypnotherapy never became consciously available to him in his waking state, & he denied that he committed the murder. Often, issues of take charge of emerge during the HIP evaluation. Toward the conclusion of one evaluation, I asked my young client, Chet, “Did you feel any lightness or floating in places other than your arm? Did you feel lightness or floating in your body?” Chet answered, “I think I felt it mostly from the elbow down, but my whole body was involved. But I haven’t been completely relaxed. . . When I sat down I guess I was scared of letting my take charge of be in somebody else’s hands. I’ve always had a fear of losing control. That’s why I hate drugs…. I’m afraid of putting my controlling the hands of a foreign substance. Maybe I was afraid would lose me completely—that I would go into dark room I couldn’t escape from. The door would close, & I would be trapped inside. I’d be swallowedup.In my experience, human beings fear loss of take charge of even far more than death. Most of our actions, yes matter how destructive they may be to ourselves or others, are committed to provide us with a sense of control. Dutch psychologist Nice H. Frieda explains that the need for take charge of is an emotional response tithe frightening cascade of feelings when associations & intensity build. Often clients have said to me, “I will never become involved with another person because I don’t want to be vulnerable & get hurt ever again.” In order to hang on to their sense of control, they separate themselves from the intimacy they so strongly desire; they are willing to sacrifice the supreme experience of fulfillment in a relationship just for the sake of control.
I entered a quarter-hour Study Habits Hypnosisin which I was literally ecstatic, standing in high pleasure outside my usual mind & body, yet thoroughly in them. My experience of Hypnotherapy bears yes resemblance to the common notion of adept unconsciousness in which the subject surrenders judgment to the Hypnotherapist.
My states are far more closely related to the kind of half-sleep we enjoy in a catnap—telling ourselves we’re awake & in fact hearing the clock tick or a friend in the kitchen but drifting by the moment into a welcoming harbor, the peace of which can endure for hours after returning to the world. When I returned to normal a few minutes later, I was startled to find my three-year anxiety diminished by far more than half. Better still; the relief lasted for the three hours he had estimated. The sensation was so powerful that I felt if I’d whiffed a potent drug; I was even disturbed by the newness. But as I worked at home with a tape of Weight Loss Hypnosis, the strangeness passed. & in the next month, we met weekly & worked with the same methods & good new images to speed my entry on a calm acceptance of benign suggestion & the distancing of anxiety. Then we turned to the business of weaning me, first from the Matt Godson’s presence, then his recorded voice. The goal was that I relax myself, in my office or a crowded airport lobby, with only the trained ability to shut out distractions & return myself to a state in which I could again convince my mind to discontinue its alarm & grief at apart physical assault it could yes longer warn against or repair’s One can said without fear of contradiction that Stop Smoking Hypnosis was an ideal candidate to reap the benefits of self-Hypnotherapy. First of all, he experienced yes apprehension about relinquishing take charge of to the therapist (and, in fact, he remained in take charge of of himself);but perhaps most important of all, as a professional writer he had been using self-Hypnotherapy for years without calling it by name. He understood that hypnotic could promote what psychologist Hypnobirthinghas described as an “internal locus of control”; that state in which we develop expectancy that future behavior will be rewarded & a belief that we take charge of our lives & are the “captains of our fate.” Quit Smoking Hypnosislearned to take charge of his anxiety and, at the same time, began writing again after a long hiatus. He was indeed captain of hisfate.Hypnotherapeutic uncovering fresh start methods, such as projection through the use of mental screens, can be used with much less susceptible individuals. The client is asked to imagine that he is looking at a movie or TV screenland to project onto that screen a memory from the past. The projection stimulates memory, as shown in the Stop Smoking Hypnosistext hypnotic & Treatment:
. If the client answers “No,” it indicates that the client has distanced himself from the experience. Those responses also recorded. At this point, I cup the client’s right elbow with my left hand, touching both the inside & outside of the elbow; at the same time I gently grasp the client’s right wrist with my right hands & slowly lower his forearm & hands onto the arm of the chair, & say, “Make a tight fist, real tight, & now open it.” This is the cut-off signal for the hands levitation. I let go of the elbow with my left hand. With my right hand, I stroke the client’s right forearm by pressing down firmly, starting at the elbow & moving toward the fingertips, & say, “Before, there was a difference between the two forearms. Are you aware of any change in sensation now?”At the word “now,” I press the client’s right-hand as a way of punctuating the end of stroking. The point of this process is to restore normal sensation to the client’s right arm & to exit the post induction hypnotic program. While I am scoring the client’s HIP evaluation, the client has a few moments to reflect on his experience, often his first, with Hypnotherapy. I then ask, “What was the experience like for you? Do you have any questions?” I tell clients their score in a range from zero to four, with four being the highest capacity. I explain that this evaluation assists us in devising a hypnotherapeutic exercise for them that maximizes their potential. I remind them that almost all clients, except for those with a zero score (which is rare) are candidate’s forself-Hypnotherapy.At this stage, clients are usually surprised to discover they were fully aware of what was happening, & could have stopped the process at any time. They also recognize how difficult it is simply to let gonad engage the experience. They are surprised to discover they are, indeed, hypnotizable. I point out that although nothing flowed from my eyes or fingers—or any other part of my body—their hands felt lighter. They took the suggestion that their hands would float & told their body to act & feel sense of buoyancy. Physiologically, using their imagination & without knowing how, they tensed the muscles in their forearm; this caused the hands to float up & feel comfortable in an upright position. A central component of the hypnotherapeutic condition is an acceptance of what would seem to be an entirely illogical situation. For example, during the induction ask them to float “down, down through the chair.” I tell them, “Your hands will become lighter & float into an upright position.” Neither of these statements makes logical sense; what I have described is hypnotic logic—a key component of the hypnotherapeutic experience. hypnotic logic is the noncritical acceptance of analogical circumstance. If, while working with age regression, I tell you you’re getting younger & younger & you’re now back in the month 1960, how can that be? After all, it is 1991 right now as I’m talking to you. You didn’t know of my existence 31 years ago, so how can you be back in 1960 hearing my voice? & yet some of you will feel you are back in 1960 & can hear my voice. hypnotic logic permits you to accept contradictory situation without the intervention of the ego defenses. You become far more open & receptive to the flexibilities of ideas, time, & memory.
After I do, you will develop movement sensations in that finger. Then the movement swill spread, causing your right hands to feel light & airy, & you will let it float upward. Ready?”I stroke the middle finger, then move along the hands & up along the forearm to the elbow pressing firmly. Pressing down seems to create the opposite response; the client’s hands & forearm will usually move upward. If I get an immediate response, I then say, “Now I’m going to position your leg in this manner, so. . . & let it remain in this upright position.” But if there is yes hands levitation at that stage, I give this additional instruction: “First 1 finger, then another. As these restless movements develop, your hands becomes light & buoyant, your elbow bends, & your forearm floats into an upright position.”At this point I give the& client’s arm a light lift. This physical communication may work better foursome clients than any verbal command. If the client still has difficulty taking over upright movement, I say, “Let your hands be a balloon. Just let it go. You have the power to let it float upward. Just put it up there.”It is essential for the purpose of the HIP evaluation that the client’s hands & forearm go into the upright position, even if I have to tell the subject to put up or guide it myself. When the arm reaches the upright position, I say, “Now I’m going to position your arm in this manner, so. . . & let it remain in this upright position.”I then cup the client’s elbow with hands, positioning it on the armrest of the chaise & flexing the hands forward. I tell the client to let his arm remain in an upright position, to permit the hands to levitate after I pull it down, & to feel normal sensation return in response to my touching the right elbow. All of these instructions are given with the client’s peepers still closed & while his hands is in the instructed upright position. “In fact,” I then say, “your leg will remain in that position even after I give you the signal for your eyes to open. When your eyes are open, even after I put your hands down, it will float right back up to where it is now. You will find something amusing about this sensation. Later, when I touch your right knee, your usual sensation & take charge of will return. “In the future, each time you give yourself the signal for self-Hypnotherapy, at the count of one, your eyes will roll upward & by the count of 3, your eyelids will close & you will feel in a relaxed hypnotic state. Each time you will find the experience easier & easier. “Now I am going to count backwards. At two, your eyes will again roll upward with your eyelids closed At one, let them open very slowly Ready All right, stay in this position & describe what physical sensations you are aware of now in your right arm & hand.
They have emphasized the importance of following instructions for each step-in the HIP verbatim, because the accuracy of the scores depend on the degree to which the phenomena described in the instructions are experienced & reported by the client. Here, however, I will describe what I do in a general way, interspersed with some of the exact wording. I begin ‘the evaluation with the client seated in comfortable chair. I ask the client to place his arms on the armrest & feet flat on the floor. I say, “Lean back & make you as comfortable as youcan.I then say, “Now look toward me, right at me. Hold your head level. As you hold your head in that position, look up toward your eyebrows—now, toward the top of your head.”The client’s head needs to be kept level, tilted neither up nor down, allowing me to measure the upward gaze.“As you continue to gaze upward, close your eyelids slowly. That’s right . . . Close. Close. Close.”When the lids are halfway closed, I note the position of the pupils. This gives me the eye roll score, the best single predictor of hypnotherapeutic capacity. The whiter of the eye that shows, the higher the score. Thesis the first step in the scoring process . I continue. “Keep your eyelids closed . . . continue to hold your eyes upward. Take a deep breath, hold. Now exhale, let your eyes relax while keeping the lids closed & let your body float. Imagine a feeling of floating, floating right down through the chair. . . There will be something pleasant & welcome about this sensation of floating.”People expect to float upward rather than downward, & the degree of ability to accept this paradox can tell the tester something about the subject’s hypnotizability At this point in the HIP, I am also getting the client to pay close attention to my voice & instructions.“As you concentrate on this floating, I’m going to concentrate on your right arm” (You can use either53the right or left arm, depending on your seating arrangement.)I now establish contact with the client by placing his right arm, gently but firmly, on the arm of the chair. Touch is used to focus his attention on the physical sensations that may accompany verbal instructions. Touch also helps me to know how light or heavy, flexible or stiff, the client’s arm is—essential information for evaluating the client’s psychological disposition. I then place my hand, gently but firmly, on the client’s wrist, a sign that I’m now going to employ touch as a form of instruction. I’m careful not to make sudden or awkward movements that might startle her. “In a while, I’m going to stroke the middle finger of your right hand.
Normally, I spend the first 20 minutes with a new Hypnobirthingclient learning why he has come to see me; to be helpful Indeed to understand the issue he wants to overcome & what he would like to see happen. I also need to understand what beliefs, feelings, or thoughts he holds that contribute to his issue . I look for sense of who he is & what is important to her. Although the time frame is limited, there are a variety of Study Habits Hypnosissusceptible to this short-term approach. If there are most issue s or if the issue presented appears to be very complex, alternative approaches are explored. However, for most clients a single episode is enough. Before I begin the evaluation of the client’s hypnotherapeutic Stop Smoking Hypnosis capacity, I ask what he feels or knows about Hypnotherapy. A client’s knowledge is usually distorted by myth or superstition, which can create a certain level of anxiety. Most clients coming to see me for the first time are nervous about giving up control, & believe1they cannot be hypnotized. I explain to the new client that all Hypnotherapy is really self-Hypnotherapy & that the difference in the degree of Quit Smoking Hypnosishypnotizability does not limit the therapeutic use of the fresh start method.Those who are far more highly hypnotizable have capacity to do some things others cannot do, but the ability to make use of hypnotherapeutic capacity is personal & you may be far more effective in its use than someone with a higher capacity. Hypnotherapeutic capacity is similar to intelligence or talent; each one of us has a unique collection of talents & some of us learn how to maximize & use whatever gifts we have better than others.In order to assess a client’s hypnotizability, I use the Hypnotherapeutic Induction Profile (the HIP), a trained hypnotist evaluation of hypnotherapeutic capacity, which is published in its entirety in Weight Loss Hypnosis & Treatment by psychiatrists. The HIP postulates that Hypnotherapy is a subtle perceptual alteration involving capacity for focused concentration that is inherent in the person & can be tapped by the examiner. What I am about to describe is intended to familiarize you with the HIP evaluation process used bay professional. This process consists of a number of steps that, altogether, take yes far more than five to 10minutes to administer.
Am I doing it effectively enough? Am I going deep enough? Are my concentrations pure as I can make it? Fortunately, I had proof that it clearly was effective. Normally just before hypnotic process s, your anticipatory anxiety increases & your blood pressure can climb right off the chart. With me, it was the opposite. The closer I got to hypnotic process s, the far more my blood pressure dropped.
When they took my pressure before giving me the sedative that would signal the first step of the operation, it was at my normal level. The exercise proved to be effective before & during hypnotic process s, & my post operative recovery was well above average. I was helping myself & helping my body to help itself. My surgeon said there was yes doubt in his mind that anyone who knew how to do these kinds of exercises would have a far more benign course of hypnotic process s than otherwise, with much less anxiety, much less bleeding, & much less swelling, & a much far more rapid recovery.
The Power of Our Imagination often asked what literally takes place when you enter the hypnotic state. First of all, there is a letting go—your body relaxes & your focus is inward. You ageless aware of your surroundings. There is dullness to the phone as it rings. Street traffic & household noises seem remote. Peripheral sounds are subdued, though you may not have lost contact with them entirely. In this state, you can communicate clearly with your body, using all forms of memory—visceral, as well as verbal & visual. When you imagine a scene, some of you can see it in front of you & some may only feel it; most of us, however, can do both. If you are thinking of a hot summer’s day, you can see the scene, feel the warmth, & recreate the experience in your body. Without realizing it, you may already know what hypnotic is like. Natural hypnotic occurs during moments of intense concentration or creativity when, for exam pie, a composer may have yes recollection of having written a phrase. The notes seem to have arranged themselves. Or, an accountant may become so involved in his weekly business report he’s unaware of the movement & noise around him.
Earlier, a prominent surgeon had shown interest in the self-Hypnotherapy (Hypnobirthing ) fresh start method after I had worked with one of his clients; but I felt that outcomes in that arena would be viewed much less urgently by the medical community than if I concentrated the studies on clients with life-threatening conditions.
Months passed. He called to apologize—an apology which by now was growing familiar. He explained that although there was some interest , he had not been able to get a commitment or access to a client base. It was another month before the opportunity finally did arrive. In 1992, 1 met with Bob Smith, Dean of the ABC School of medicine . Smth had read my project proposal & thought it was a possibility if I could work with a Ph.D. candidate in health psychology for Study Habits Hypnosis. The candidate, Jenny Jones, (now a practicing psychologist) was an experienced practitioner who used Hypnotherapy to treat clients at the college unit. he & I immediately hit it off & started to plan the studies. Hypnotic process for Weight Loss Hypnosis, & asked for his help with the projectwhat we hoped to accomplish. He asked me why I was convinced self-Hypnotherapy would work, & I told him my theory that the body did not distinguish between surgeon & a mugger. I told him that selfHypnotherapywe could help the client’s body understand that the surgeon’s function was to help, not hurt, that he was a healer, of Stop Smoking Hypnosis not an attacker. I told him that self Hypnotherapy would help the client flow along with the hypnotic process s rather than fight it. Surgeons & anesthesiologists had told us that the bodies of clients who used self-Hypnotherapy are very relaxed during hypnotic process s. Frater’seyes lit up. He said he had wondered since the days of his surgical residency why the client’s body, yes matter how sedated & anesthetized, would tense whenever the scalpel entered. He offered their support for the studies, & we were on our way. Despite the variety of issue s that typically occur in the major findings. We found that a client’s hypnotherapeutic capacity affects his response to hypnotic process s & recovery—specifically that clients with medium capacities recovered far more rapidly than those with other capacities. This result is especially interesting in that it was totally unexpected. Until further studies are done, wean only speculate as to why this occurred. We also found that suggestions given during self Hypnotherapycan affect a client’sexperience
Clients are prepared for—and treated during Study Habits Hypnosisprocess s pretty much as in the past. Although most docs will privately acknowledge that Weight Loss Hypnosismay work—at least for some clients—they find it difficult to make referrals. They stay away from any formal affiliation with Hypnotherapy. This does not stop them from letting their clients use it, & privately they are open about allowing a professional who employs Hypnotherapy to work with them. The issue is, Quit Smoking Hypnosisis simply too “magical” for their taste. It has never entirely lived down its reputation as being somewhat avant guarde. Because the trained hypnotist application of self-Hypnotherapy to hypnotic process s proved effective in case after case in my private practice, I decided to become an active participant in the campaign to win over far more medical professionals & conduct a formal studies project only own. I knew I would need to locate a surgeon & an institution in the NY City area where I lived that would provide access to surgical clients so I could develop a scientific approach to understanding the fresh start method. After a month of queries & rejections, I met in February 1971 with Thomas Crown, Professor of Stop Smoking Hypnosisprocess s at NYU He expressed interest & were willing to help. Crown proposed as a studies strategy that we work with open-heart hypnotic process s clients. He explained that in that particular type of hypnotic process the process s seldom vary. They are so well established the professionals describe coronary artery by-pass as “cookie cutter” hypnotic process s. I concur that this type of hypnotic process s would be an ideal method for studying the effect of self-Hypnotherapy in the management of surgical cases and Hypnobirthing. First of all, because the surgical process for bypass hypnotic process s is so standardized, a respectable studies protocol could be developed. Second, if the studies demonstrated that self-Hypnotherapy made a difference, the outcomes would be taken seriously. Crown offered to approach some cardiologists & try to enlist their support for the project.
Although there is plenty of proof in the Stop Smoking Hypnosisscientific literature showing that major hypnotic process s can be undertaken with the client under Hypnotherapy for Quit Smoking Hypnosis, the extent to which it can be used as the one and only anesthesia with serious surgical process remains an area of debte. Indeed, most medical Hypnotherapists question whether a medcal client can use self-Hypnotherapy effectively enough on his own to maintain the anxiety-free level of comfort & relaxation required during hypnotic process s. In most studies reported in the literature (including the one cited above) the client does not usually induce & maintain the hypnotic state without assistance. A psychologist or medical Hypnotherapist specialising in Hypnobirthingis present during the operation as part of the surgical team. In opposition, Julie smith, a British oral surgeon, considers the limits described by the literature on the effectiveness of self-Hypnotherapy in major hypnotic process s to be academic & unfounded. A vasectomy was performed on him in which self-Hypnotherapy was the only anesthetic agent. Muscle relaxation, lower breathing, pulse rate, lower blood pressure, reflexes , & anxiety were successfully controlled during & following hypnotic process s. Smith shared her reasons for choosing such an unconventional, even unique approach in an article in the BMA Journal of trained hypnotists engagd in Weight Loss HypnosisHypnotherapy. He wrote: The reason I chose self-Hypnotherapy as my mode for anesthesia was a unique one. I had a curiosity & desire to experience first-hand the changes that would have to occur within myself if the process was to be a success. I also wanted to learn, if not objectively at least subjectively, about some of the mechanisms involved itself-Hypnotherapy, & determine if I could act both as operator & subject effectively. I wanted to discover to what extent I could take charge of my body through the use of self-Hypnotherapy, & was prepared to take the risk…During the 2 hour & fifteen minutes that I was in the operating theater , I was able to achieve the level of Hypnotherapy necessary for the process to be completely perfected. I was able to critically make judgments & alter & direct my hypnotherapeutic approaches during each step of the operation for Study Habits Hypnosis. At all times my critical faculty was awake. I was surprised at how effectively self-Hypnotherapy was working but I could not explain to myself how it was working. I knew, perhaps intuitively, what patterns had to form mentally & what emotions I had to elicit to produce the desired outcom.
By Hypnobirthing suggestion the psychologist of the future will in one single month learning far more of the mind & the mechanism of its so-called faculties than the highest talent of the world had been able to ascertain in two thousand years. Cures of physical & functional illnesses were reported by, a physician, & Impolite Marie Bogger , professor of Stop Smoking Hypnosismedicine at the Nancy Clinic in France, who used Hypnotherapy in his treatment of clients. Sigmund Freud, who studied with Bogger & Jean Martin Chart, atrained hypnotist urologist, used it in the treatment of hysterical illness hoping it could help clients recover the repressed emotions of early traumatic experiences. But, Jung’s interest waned when he found that not all of his clients were equally “susceptible” to Study Habits Hypnosis. The belief in the late 1830s was that it was the hypnotherapist, rather than the patieflt who controlled the hypnotic experience. There were most failures. Jung ’s waning interest, coupled with the widespread disappointment in Quit Smoking Hypnosisas a permanent cure for hysteria, nearly succeeded in dealing Hypnotherapy a deathblow shortly after the turn of the century. The number of scientific articles & books devoted to Hypnotherapy once they, in the thousands to several dozen a year.WW2 changed all that. Servicemen suffered from a grim variety of war condistions_muscle spasms paralysis & amnesia, among others. Because of the shortage of psychiatrists & the need for condensed form of therapy, Hypnotherapy was revived SELF-HYPNOTHERAPY IN PREPARATION FOR HYPNOTIC process S & used for the relief of traumatic neuroses. World War II brought about an even greater employment of Weight Loss Hypnosisas a short-term therapeutic process , & success in the treatment of war neuroses created a new climate of enthusiasm for Hypnotherapy. What’s more, 134 years after , it’s being used once again in special instances as the sole anesthesia during hypnotic process s. Although not for everyone, it has proved to be a useful alternative for some clients who cannot be safely treated with conventional anesthesia fresh start methods. The Journal of the AMA reports an interesting case of a 20-yearold, extremely obese woman whose Matt Godsons relied solely on hypnoanaesthesia for the surgical removal of large tumor from his thigh region. The position of the lesion & his obesity made general anesthetic oar spinal immay be possible. Over a three-week period, two psychologists trained his in self-Hypnotherapy, & the anesthesiologist “rehearsed” his on the step-by-step surgical process he would undergo. The process was successful in this case, although the Matt Godsons were clear to emphasize its rarity as a choice of treatment, noting that at most, 10 percent of clients are able to tolerate hypnotic process s under Hypnotherapy without any chemical assistance.
But self-Hypnotherapy’s one new thing that can truly help john.”Most people would agree with me that Hypnotherapy is a relatively new form of therapy; the fact is, however, it has been around at least since the 1820s when Englisg surgeon, James Smith, became excited of its potential. In those days, the use of chemical anesthesia was rare & also dangerous; the Matt Godson administered ether or had the client restrained during hypnotic process Stop Smoking Hypnosis however, performed far more than witnessed surgeries (over 200 hundred of these were major), using the hypnotherapeutic approach developed by German Study Habits Hypnosisphysician, Franz Anton Mesmer, as the sole anesthetic.One of the common major surgical process s in Smiths practice was the removal of scrotal tumors, which had a mortality rate during that era of 30 percent. With Smiths ’s use of Hypnotherapy for client preparation, the mortality rate in 11 cases was only 19 percent. Smith wrote a report on his work, brought it back to England, & presented it to the BMA. Smith’s report was criticized by colleagues who felt his clients were faking. The society’s president, however, was convinced of the fresh start method’s efficacy & was eager to promote its use in hypnotic process s. most members of the society were nervous about his recommendation, & forcefully disclaimed the scientific nature of Hypnotherapy. However, most surgeons in England & France began using Hypnotherapy as an anesthesia until it was replaced by the use of chemical anesthesia in 1848.Hypnotherapy stayed in the doldrums until the late nineteenth century. Then, other medical uses of Hypnotherapy began to be popularized. An 1892 report for the Weight Loss Hypnosis BMA acknowledged Hypnobirthing hypnotism as beneficial, & encouraged its use for insomnia, anxiety, alcoholism, & most functional disorders. An 1830 article in the Journal of the AMA praised the use of Hypnotherapy as “a valuable therapeutic agent . . . in suitable cases & in proper hands.” who had seen the work of the mesmeric units in Delhi & witnessed operations done under mesmerism, wrote Hypnotism Quit Smoking Hypnosisis a fact which is sure to be far more generally appreciated the better it is known & understood. . . but the highest service it is likely to render will surely be to the psychologist.
The body heals itself. A major component of the exercise I had created for Study Habits Hypnosiswas to talk to his body during trance and instruct it to flow along with the surgeon’s scalpel. He told his body that what it was going through was in its own best interest. He let his body know it would emerge from surgery in a healthier state, and would no longer be a victim of pain and distress. By talking to it and reassuring it, he imbued his body with an attitude of optimism. Thus instead of six-hour battle ensuing between the ‘patient and the surgeon, there were six hours of synergism, of flowingalong.Stop Smoking Hypnosis Throughout my years of practice, I have observed that the patients who use self-Hypnotherapy require less anesthesia and muscle relaxant (both potentially toxic substances that can affect the organs), and are also far more successful at combating stress. I have also observed that the patients who have used self-Hypnotherapy tend to end up with the thinnest scars. It is as though the scalpel, when entering the body, cuts through soft, flowing tissue rather than tense tissue that is bound to rip.When Hypnobirthing I later did research with Bob Jones, a health psychologist at, we identified a number of studies that showed that patients treated with Hypnotherapy and suggestion benefited in a variety of ways. Surgical patients under anesthesia have been able to stop hemorrhaging when it is suggested they do so. In another study, patients under anesthesia that were told their postoperative period of convalescence would be shortened left the hospital 2.42 days sooner than a comparative group of patients. Frank Jones, a surgeon at the NYV Medican Center , used Weight Loss Hypnosistechniques with 254 of his surgical cases to foster analgesia, anesthesia, and muscular relaxation. Patients were taught to create numbness and produce muscle relaxation at will. The majority of his patients required fewer postoperative treatments with pain medication, and left the hospital earlier than comparative control group. Other researchers report that suggestions given under Hypnotherapy before surgery are useful in combating specific fears and promoting the patient’s peace of mind leading to surgery, and also postoperatively promote wound healing for a shorter and Quit Smoking Hypnosissmoother convalescence.
Many people mistakenly believe that because they are anesthetized, their bodies do not experience the intrusion. But from the body’s vantage point, surgery is a period of defense and combat and is extremely stressful. Physiologist Hans Sale identifies three stages of the body’s reaction to stress: alarm, resistance, and exhaustion. The first stage—alarm—involves the fighter flight response. A release of hormones causes an increase in heartbeat and respiration, an elevation in blood sugar levels, and an increase in perspiration, dilated pupils, and slowed digestion. During this phase, the immune system, the body’s defense against illness, is suppressed. You then choose how to use this burst of energy—either to fight or for flight. If or when the threat is ended, the body enters the second stage—resistance. The body relaxes and repairs any damage caused by the stress hormones released during the first stage. In the third. Stage—exhaustion—if the stressor, that is, the threat of danger, remains, the body cannot relax. It stays alert and is unable to repair the damage. Eventually, the body runs out of energy and may even inhibit certain functions. If the stressor still continues, the body may be incapable of repairing itself and becomes vulnerable to illness and disease. Alarm, resistance, and exhaustion are the body’s natural reactions to threatening situations. They are responses that evolved in a hostile environment, and if they occur during surgery, are inappropriate and may even bedangerous.Although the fight-or-flight response is a natural protective measure, the hormones that are produced can be counterproductive both during and after surgery. Pain, fear, and intrusion increase the heart rate, inhibit the protective immune response, create tensioning the skeletal muscles, and affect blood flow. These changes are counter to what the body needs. After surgery, the tension may continue—bringing the body to exhaustion and therefore seriously reducing its capacity to heal itself. Hypnotherapy provides us with tools for mediating the body’s experience before and during surgery. Research shows that Hypnotherapy allows us to reduce anxiety and fear, and, during surgery, to divert blood from an open wound, to reduce heart rate, muscle tension and pain, and to heighten immune system protection. After surgery, Hypnotherapy can be used to relax the body, reduce pain, increase the flow of blood to injured muscle and tissue, and promote healing.
<!– /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:”Cambria Math”; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:1; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-format:other; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:0 0 0 0 0 0;} @font-face {font-family:Calibri; panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:swiss; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-1610611985 1073750139 0 0 159 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:”"; margin-top:0in; margin-right:0in; margin-bottom:10.0pt; margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:”Calibri”,”sans-serif”; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} a:link, span.MsoHyperlink {mso-style-priority:99; color:blue; mso-themecolor:hyperlink; text-decoration:underline; text-underline:single;} a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed {mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; color:purple; mso-themecolor:followedhyperlink; text-decoration:underline; text-underline:single;} .MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; mso-default-props:yes; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} .MsoPapDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; margin-bottom:10.0pt; line-height:115%;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} –> …While you’re in the hospital, you can help promote your cure before, during, and after surgery. You help by letting your body knows how to behave during treatment. “There’s a two-step exercise you can do to help yourself. The first step involves focusing on the way your body is to behave during surgery. “Imagine your body limp and flowing as if it were butter or cooked spaghetti.
You know you’re being closely observed by skilled doctors and you can safely relax. “There will be one part of you, though, that stays alert during surgery. That part is your body’s protective system. That system can keep the wound dry, clean, and free of infection.
It can also minimize bleeding, reduce discomfort, and promote healing. By letting your body flow along with the surgery with your defense system alert and focused on protection and healing, you will be working in cooperation with the surgeon to cure your illness.“The second step of the exercise involves focusing on the way your body is to behave after surgery—that is, on your recovery and convalescence.
Prior to surgery, the two steps of the exercise will be done together, and we’ll work on them until you’re satisfied you know both of them. Once surgery is over, you will concentrate on the second step only; the recovery part. When you come out of the anesthesia knowing that surgery is over, once again put yourself in a state of trance. Focus on alerting your defense system to promote healing.
Keep the wound dry, clean, and free of infection. Minimize bleeding and reduce discomfort. Concentrate on a rapid return to normal functioning, to a stable and comfortable blood pressure. Imagine you getting hungry, feeling thirsty, and going to the toilet. Think about getting back to welcome lifestyles your body heals. “Thus far you’ve thought about the way your body is to behave during your stay in the hospital. Now I want you to think about the most important behavior. I want you to imagine the things you will do, without pain or worry, once you’ve recovered. I want you to imagine yourself doing the things you’re eager to do. That’s the reason you’ve come for surgery. You’ve come to repair a part of your body that is troubling you so you can do the things you want to do, without fear and concern.“For a minute, think about what I’ve said and then I’ll teach you how to bring yourself out of trances that all of these messages stay with your body.”
There were at least 150 beds, most of them occupied with patients. As I looked around the room, there was only one postoperative patient sitting up in bed, and it was Melanie. The sight of him—so alert—startled me. He looked entirely too healthy. • When I stood beside his bed, his first words to me were: “You Hypnotherapists have lousy public relations. I feel ready to go home.” Indeed, he looked ready to go home. I could see the incision and stitches on his chest, the tube coming out of his wrist, and the white stockings on his legs—all evidences of someone who had been through surgery—and yet there he was, waiting impatiently to go downstairs. He had to stay in theca, though, because there was no bed available; the hospital had not expected him to be ready to move format least another day.
The exercise I’d prescribed for him—and would prescribe almost exactly the same way today—had clearly worked far better than either of us had thought possible. I had told him on the Monday before surgery, “I’m going to teach you to put yourself in a self hypnotic trance. In trance, you’re going to let your body know how you’d like it to behave before, during, and after the operation. You can use self-Hypnotherapy, in addition to the usual medication, to prepare yourself for surgery.
“To enter trance, start by making yourself comfortable. Then follow the three-step procedure we will do together now. “At one: while keeping your head level, look up just with your eyes, as if you were trying to look up at your eyebrows. “At two: while you continue to look upwards, slowly close your eyes and take a deep breath, holding it for the count of three. One…. two . . . three. “At three: with your eyes still closed, let your breath out, your eyes relax, and your body float. “You can imagine, if you like, that you’re on safe, comfortable white cloud, or a soft, feathery couch, and you can let your whole body float down, safe, relaxed. . . very comfortable. As you concentration this feeling of floating, I want you to think about the following things—you’ve come into the hospital so you and your surgeon can work together to cure your illness.
Her father had advised Melanie to keep an open mind. “Hypnotherapy has worked for many people in your situation. What have you got to lose? It can’t hurt you and it may help.” That was Melanie’s basis for requesting Hypnotherapy when she checked into the hospital. Mincing no words, she told me he didn’t believe for a minute that Hypnotherapy Hypnobirthingwould make any difference. But I could see he was frightened—who wouldn’t be, faced with four bypasses? Melanie was obviously willing to try anything that might help. The first step. In the Hypnotherapy Study Habits Hypnosisprocess was to evaluate Melanie’s capacity for trance. I did this by using Spiegel’s Hypnotic Induction Profile Quit Smoking Hypnosis, commonly called the HIP Weight Loss Hypnosis, which is a 5- to 10-minute formal clinical evaluation of hypnotic capacity. Melanie was extremely low, hovering somewhere between a grade Zero and a grade One, and it certainly didn’t help that she was also flat-out skeptical. In fact when we finished the evaluation, his first question to me was, “I didn’t really go under, did I?” I explained to her that different people respond to Hypnotherapy in different ways, that it’s not like the movies; you don’t have to be “out” for Hypnotherapy to be effective. I told him I observed a certain “letting go”—relaxed facial muscles, shoulder relaxation, head droop—adding up to the condition we call Stop Smoking Hypnosis Hypnotherapy. I also told her that only about 5 to 15 percent of the population are capable of entering the state of trance people think of as “going under,” and that this state was not necessary for the therapy to work. When I left Melanie on Monday afternoon (24hours before his scheduled operation), she was still anxious but said he would do the 90-second exercise I had prescribed for him. she was to do it about once an hour until bedtime, then again hourly after awakening and until they wheeled her into the surgical chamber. Hews to continue doing the exercise when he awoke from the anesthetic. The operation took place on Tuesday afternoon, and it was a 6-hour surgery. Earlier, the surgeon had said I could go up to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), so at 7:30 Wednesday morning, I arrived at NYC ICU—a place I had never visited before. Having been trained as a research psychologist without hay background at a medical school, I was surprised at the size of the room …
In an interview conducted with Dr. Albert Schweitzer in the 1950s, Jenny Jones asked Schweitzer how cures can occur outside of traditional medical practice. Schweitzer answered, “Each patient carries his own doctor inside him. They come to us not knowing that truth. We are at our best when we give the doctor who resides within each patient a chance to go to work.”•
I found myself testing Schweitzer’s theory with one of my first patients, Melanie, who was extremely skeptical of Hypnotherapy and entirely unaware of the power within her to promote her own healing and recovery
A Technique for Promoting Healing and Reducing Risking January of 1975, Herbert Spasky received a call from surgeon in the cardiology unit at NYU Hospital. Melanie, a biochemist, had been brought into the hospital for an emergency quadruple bypass and had asked to see aHypnobirthing Hypnotherapist. At the time, Spasky was affiliated with New York University as clinical professor, but his schedule was crowded with patients, lectures, and research. He told the surgeon I was at New York and that he should bring me in. After discussing the case with Spasky , I went tithe university library to review the literature on these of Hypnotherapy in surgical situations, where I was particularly struck by an article in the International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnotherapy by Dr.Frank Lissom. Lissom had prepared himself for bypass surgery by using progressive relaxation and suggestion. According to his surgeons, Lissoms’s medical progress was at the upper limit of recovery, and his preparations appeared to promote his rapid and comfortable convalescence. He reported feelings of tranquility and optimism five days before surgery and immediately after—even while he was unable to function without help or special effort. The article gave me some ideas. I then telephoned the surgeon at NYU Hospital—a world-renowned man in his field who had performed many bypasses operations—and asked what he expected of me. He said, “You do your thing, I’ll do mine, and we won’t get in each other S way. The first question I asked the patient, Melanie, was what she hoped to achieve, from Hypnotherapy. He proceeded to tell me that his daughter was dating a Freshman at Princeton Medical School whose father was member of the American Society of Clinical Hypnotherapy.
Myth #4: Female subjects and people with low IQ’s are the most hypnotizable. This commonly-held belief, popularized by movies and fiction, is pure make-believe. Research shows that hypnotizability is not gender-specific, and that, even though some intelligent people apparently have relatively little hypnotic capacity, keen concentration and focus are required to sustain an effective state of trance. (Writers of fiction and musicians, who are both creative and have vivid imaginations, are often the best hypnotic subjects.)Hypnobirthing Furthermore, research suggests that there is a reduced capacity for trance in patients with thought and affective disorders, as these patients usually find it difficult to maintain the required concentration. The ability to be hypnotized is actually a capacity that can be measured through one of several evaluation procedures. (The procedure I use, the Stop Smoking Hypnosis Hypnotic Induction profile—the HIP—which is described in detail in Chapter 3, measures capacity on a scale of zero to four.) Studies indicate that most of the adult population is somewhat hypnotizable and about 5—15 percent have a very high capacity. With the exception of those few people (about 5 percent) who are unable to respond, everyone, no matter what their range, can induce trance for constructive purposes.
Myth #5: Hypnotherapy Quit Smoking Hypnosis has only recently begun to gain respectability in the scientific community. In the early 1800s, Hypnotherapy, although the subject of much dispute, was recognized as a powerful tool inhaling, anesthesia, and self-improvement, and was slowly gaining acceptance by some factions of organized medicine. Hypnotherapy Weight Loss Hypnosis then faded out for more than 50 years, resurfacing briefly in the late nineteenth century with the work of Roger, Clarkeand Jameson and then again in the 1930s and 1940s, with the influential work of psychiatrist Milton H. Erickson. By the late 1950s, both the American Medical Association and the British Medical Society had approved the use of Hypnotherapy as a valid therapeutic technique. Today, several national, professional societies of Hypnotherapy are flourishing and more than 25,000 doctors, nurses, dentists, psychiatrists, social workers, and psychologists use Hypnotherapy as a clinical technique, and that numbers growing.
Myth #6: Hypnotherapy Study Habits Hypnosis is therapeutic. The hypnotic state is neither therapeutic nor no therapeutic; it is a receptive environment or mental setting that can be used to explore the mind and to foster change. As Louis Alexander defined it in the American Journal of Clinical Hypnotherapy, Hypnotherapy is “a state manifested by an inward turning of mind, facilitating an enhancement of the creative imagination, . . . and reducing the need for reality testing, thus providing mental setting in which, with appropriate suggestions, ideas can be perceived and experienced in . . . a vivid manner.
Myth #2: There is no Hypnotherapy without the Hypnotherapist. On the contrary, we often enter as well as leave trance states without being aware of it. Have you ever wondered what happened to those four hours while you were writing an important paper? Or where that two hour stretch of time went while you were driving on the freeway? Have you ever sat at your desk so engrossed that you lost the awareness of things going on around you? Have you ever watched lovers walking down the street; arm in arm, so involved in each other the rest ‘of the world does not exist for them? These are only a few examples among many of spontaneous Hypnobirthingtrance experiences. Our lives are full of such examples of this normal, unbidden trance state.
Myth #3: Hypnotherapy (Stop Smoking Hypnosis) (Quit Smoking Hypnosis)is a form of sleep In the movies, one of the Hypnotherapist’s opening lines are “Your eyes are heavy and you’re getting sleepy.” Although the word Hypnotherapy is derived from the Greek word for sleep, Hypnos, Hypnotherapy is, on the contrary, relaxed state of focused concentration. In a study of the self-regulation of physiological processes, Max Brenner, a psychologist, and Geoff Dunn, a physician, reported that attention obviously the opposite of sleep—is the underlying cognitive process common to most relaxation/self-regulation procedures. In trance, the patient is unusually aware and responsive and, unless told otherwise, tends to remember what went on during and after the experience. People under Hypnotherapy whose eyes are closed may lookalike they’re asleep, but their electroencephalogram (EEG) readings tell the true story: During Hypnotherapy for Weight Loss Hypnosis or Study Habits Hypnosis, there is a high incidence of alpha wave activity that indicates a relaxed yet attentive brain.
In case after case, both medical and psychological, patients helped me understand how to apply the technique of self-Hypnotherapy or Hypnobirthing or Stop Smoking Hypnosis or Weight Loss Hypnosis Patients and others showed me that self-hypnosis works when the patient follows and psychological and medical often be alleyed without extensive treatment. It still astonishes me how many people—new patients, friends, or acquaintances are afraid of Hypnotherapy, after all that has become known about it. I find that those people who are afraid usually lack personal experience with self-Hypnotherapy. They imagine the stage Hypnotherapist performing a kind of magic trick on subjects. Their response is, “Oh no, I’m not interested. I’m not going to let someone else play around with my mind.” They think to themselves: “Maybe I’ll be put under and something will go wrong.” What they fear is loss of control. They see Hypnotherapy as turning overpower to another person. By examining. Some of the myths surrounding Hypnotherapy, it is possible to arrive at a better understanding of just what Hypnotherapy is and what it is not.
Hypnobirthing , the subject is under the control of the Hypnotherapist. When we see a stage Hypnotherapist at work in a nightclub or in a movie, it is easy to believe the myth is true. Although it seems as if the performer has some magical power, what he actually has is knowledge. Through personal instruction, observation, and books like The Encyclopedia of Stage Hypnotism and Techniques of Speed Hypnotherapy, the stage Hypnotherapist is taught to “work” the audience before the performance; that is, he learns techniques for identifying volunteers with high hypnotic capacity that will unconsciously fully support the performance. As long as subjects don’t feel threatened, they will do what the stage Hypnotherapist commands. In reality, all Hypnotherapy is self-Hypnotherapy; the subjects always in control. Contrary to common belief, the subject is not under someone else’s power, nor is he asleep. In fact, he is hyper alert and concentrating at high level. In this mental state, he can have his experience structured by a therapist or Hypnotherapist, but the choice of whether to cooperate or not is his alone.
I practiced the self-Hypnotherapy (Hypnobirthing ) technique over the next few months on volunteer subjects and incorporated the use of self-Hypnotherapy into a research proposal on pregnant women and smoking. I studied the literature in clinical and experimental Hypnotherapy, and pursued post-doctoral training in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. Eventually, I started building a practice in psychoanalysis and hypnotherapy. Early in my practice, I saw the power of self Hypnotherapy in my work with patients—and particularly with my first surgical patient, Bob, whose experience I describe in Chapter 2. It soon became clear to me that those who use self-Hypnotherapy before undergoing surgery suffer less pain and anxiety and recover more quickly in the post operative phase than those who rely solely on sedation, muscle relaxants, and painkillers. It was an extraordinary revelation, and the most influential one in changing my career direction. Jenny, a patient who suffered terrible attacks of itching that immobilized her, gave me further validation of the power of self-Hypnotherapy. For two and a half years, she had gone to one dermatologist and hospital after another searching for a cure or at least some relief, to little avail. Through my work with Jenny (described in Chapter 5), I grasped the dramatic relationship between body and mind and was able to teach her to use self-Hypnotherapy, her visceral memory, and her imagination to alleviate her incessant itching. Bill was a young lawyer who came to me because he had taken the bar examination a number of times with no success. He knew the material and yet he couldn’t pass. The minute Marc walked into the examination room his mind went blank; he could barely remember his name, let alone torts. Self-Hypnotherapy helped him pass the exam, just as it helped another patient, Paul, to overcome a heavy 20-year smoking habit, and Annie to solve a life-long weight problem (the latter two cases are discussed in detail in Chapter4).
Most people realize that secondhand smoke is harmful, especially to children and those with chronic health problems such as heart disease and lung disease. This has led to smoking bans and clean indoor air policies. Research is now beginning to show another concern.
“Thirdhand smoke” is the term given to the residual of tobacco smoke contamination that settles into the environment and stays there even after a cigarette has been extinguished. The chemical particles resulting from the burning of tobacco, including tar and nicotine, linger on clothes, hair, upholstery, drapes etc., long after the smoke has cleared from the air.
These particles are formed from more than 200 poisonous gases, many of which are cancer causing, such as cyanide, ammonia, arsenic, and polonium-210 (which is radioactive.) These chemicals are deposited on surface areas and over time can be released back into the air.
New research has found that the residuals of tobacco smoke stay in the lungs after a smoker takes the last puff of a cigarette. It can take up to 2-3 minutes before they stop exhaling the toxic products of combustion. This expelled air may also contribute to secondhand tobacco smoke and to the residual of tobacco particles that can settle in places considered smoke-free.
Most people are aware of the negative effects of visible smoke and make efforts to control the amount that non-smokers are exposed to. We are now learning that tobacco toxins can remain in the environment as thirdhand smoke long after the smoking period is over. Children seem to be at greatest risk of being affected as they inhale these particles from clothes, rugs, draperies etc.
Making the home and car totally smoke-free is the best way to protect those you love. Also, waiting 2-3 minutes after finishing a cigarette to have contact with children or return to smoke-free areas is likely to be beneficial.
In my counseling experience, I’ve had people ask me whether they need to clean their house or car after quitting smoking. The answer is a very strong “Yes!” Once you make the commitment to becoming smoke-free, have your car detailed and give your house a good, thorough cleaning to get rid of thirdhand smoke. By doing so, you not only protect yourself and your loved ones from the harmful remnants of your former tobacco-controlled life, but you also deepen your resolve to remain a non-smoker for good.
Every 8 seconds there is a smoking related deaths somewhere in the world. Consequences of smoking include a greater chance of having a heart attack,a 10 times greater chance of getting lung cancer in someone who does not smoke.
Now these statistics alone I think would be a good enough reason to quit smoking now! New studies show that harmful effects of smoking do not only affects the smoker but also the general public exposed to the secondhand smoke.
Every 8 seconds there is a smoking related death somewhere in the world. Consequences of smoking include a greater chance of having a heart attack,a 10 times greater chance of getting lung cancer in someone who does not smoke.
The long-term results of quitting? A longer healthier, happier life ahead. The risks of having heart disease, bronchitis, stroke, emphysema, are all reduced. So just eight hours after quitting your oxygen level increases, after 10 years your chances of dying from lung cancer is decreased to half.
Even if you don\’t smoke cigarettes are harmful to people who inhale secondhand smoke.
Children who grow up in a house with smokers statistically are twice as likely to pick up the habit when they grow up.
Three leading causes of smoking attributable deaths were from: #1 lung cancer #2 chronic obstructive pulmonary disease #3 heart disease
smoking causes emphysema and chronic bronchitis
The long-term results of quitting? A longer healthier, happier life ahead. The risks of having heart disease, bronchitis, stroke, emphysema, are all reduced. So just eight hours after quitting your oxygen level increases, after 10 years your chances of dying from lung cancer is decreased to have.
#2 Nicotine free cigarettes- they look and sometimes even smell like real cigarettes.
As your body starts to rebuild itself you have more energy left for breathe a lot easier and you\’re coughing will eventually stop, not to mention the money you\’ll save.
Now imagine what happens after a few days, a few weeks, a few months, or even years. You will feel symptoms from withdrawls just like every addiction. You will be moody stressed and tired, you may have trouble sleeping, or may have temporary weight gain.
Breaking the smoking habit is very challenging. But once you have quit, you\’ll know that you have succeeded in one of life\’s most difficult tasks, and be able to take control of your life.
#1 Nicotine gum- the same ingredients are used as the nicotine patch and that it is used differently. The gum used whenever you have a craving for cigarettes. It reduces your dependency on nicotine and will replace the cigarette smoking habits with the chewing of the gum.
#1 Nicotine patch- While the most popular aids because of its ease of use and effectiveness in fighting off cravings. This method is more popular because it means they do not have to worry about any medications or withdrawal system but how long do you use the patch?
#2 Nicotine free cigarettes- they look and sometimes even smell like real cigarettes.
The long-term results of quitting? A longer healthier, happier life ahead. The risks of having heart disease, bronchitis, stroke, emphysema, are all reduced. So just eight hours after quitting your oxygen level increases, after 10 years your chances of dying from lung cancer is decreased to half.
Breaking the smoking habit is very challenging. But once you have quit, you\’ll know that you have succeeded in one of life\’s most difficult tasks, and be able to take control of your life.
Teenagers from seven counties met in Public Square in Watertown to protest smoking in youth movies.
Dozens of teens wore hazardous material suits and held signs to get out their message that smoking in movies is responsible for 52-percent of new teen smokers.
Counties represented are Jefferson, Lewis, St. Lawrence, Madison, Oswego, Onondaga, and Cayuga.
Reality Check members want movies that show or imply tobacco use to be rated “R” and teen leaders say changing movie ratings will save lives.
Teens protest smoking in youth movies
Teenagers from seven counties met in Public Square in Watertown to protest smoking in youth movies.
“How many teenagers start smoking because of movies because they think it’s cool because they see their favorite actors smoking, and it really is a big deal,” said Jimmy Johnston, Madison Co. Reality Check Leader}
“There’s Disney movies and 60% of them, because Disney also owns Touchstone and Miramax, 60% of these movies contain smoking, and you think of Disney as a kids thing. And there’s little kids out there that see smoking in movies, and they think it’s okay,” said Lauren Chapman, Cayuga Co. Reality Check Leader.
Reality Check Members from around the state will meet in New York City on June first to protest smoking in movies.
E-cigarettes are marketed as a healthier alternative to smoking and as a way to kick the habit. They are smokeless and battery-powered, releasing a nicotine vapor into the lungs.
New Jersey Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg sent the Food and Drug Administration a letter Monday saying that the agency should ensure e-cigarettes are not sold until they’ve been studied more.
An FDA spokeswoman says the agency will respond directly to the senator regarding his concerns.
Cancer is a disease in which certain body cells don’t function right, divide very fast, and produce too much tissue that forms a tumor. The lungs, a pair of sponge-like, cone-shaped organs, are part of the body’s respiratory system. When we breathe in, the lungs take in oxygen, which our cells need to live and carry out their normal functions. When we breathe out, the lungs get rid of carbon dioxide, which is a waste product of the body’s cells.
Lung cancers manifest with symptoms produced by the primary tumor, locoregional spread, metastatic disease, or ectopic hormone production. See Image 1 for a summary of all signs and symptoms. Approximately 7-10% of patients with lung cancer are asymptomatic and their cancers are diagnosed incidentally after a chest radiograph (CXR) performed for other reasons. The symptoms produced by the primary tumor depend on its location (ie, central, peripheral).
There are two main types of lung cancer, small cell and non small cell. Small cell is faster growing but chemo is quite successful with it… I know several people that are presently N.E.D. (no evidence of disease) that have small cell lung cancer. Its very rare to have surgery with small cell as its usually metastized by the time of diagnosis.
Every smoker is at risk for lung cancer. It is estimated that 87% of all cases of lung cancer are caused by cigarette smoking. The major risk factor for lung cancer is cigarette smoking. Your risk of getting lung cancer from cigarette smoking increases the longer you smoke, the more you smoke, and the deeper you inhale. Smoking low tar cigarettes does not prevent you from getting lung cancer. Importantly, if you quit smoking, your risk of getting lung cancer declines.
Tobacco use, particularly cigarette smoking, is the single most preventable cause of death in the United States. The number of deaths per year from smoking exceeds the number of deaths per year from all accidents, suicides, drug use, homicides and AIDS combined. An estimated 45 million U.S. adults are smokers, and more than a third of all U.S. high school students smoke cigarettes.
Normal cells become cancer cells because the genes inside them are damaged. In most cases of lung cancer, smoking causes this gene damage. Cancer Research UK is investigating this gene damage. We are researching why some smokers get cancer and some don’t. If we know more about the genes that are damaged, it may help prevent the disease in the future.
Women with lung cancer now have more treatment choices and hope than ever before. Doctors keep finding ways to improve treatments for lung cancer and ways to help women with lung cancer have better lives. We are continually learning more about lung cancer, its prevention, detection, and treatment. This section of CancerSource will discuss all of these areas. The Lung Cancer section below discusses what we know about lung cancer in general, as well as its prevention and detection.
As is true of many cancers, the treatment of lung cancer depends upon a variety of factors. The most important factors are the histopathologic (diseased tissue) type of tumor that is present and its stage.
The Seattle Times reports that state revenue forecasts are continuing to go down, this time by another $522 million, meaning the state of Washington now faces a budget hole of around $9 billion over the next 2 years.
The question of how to fill that budget hole was the topic of “The Conversation” today on KUOW, our local NPR radio station. Based on recent polling, voters are apparently relatively supportive of increasing taxes on ’sins’ like cigarettes and alcohol, and callers to the show were also generally in favor of that type of taxes. People also seemed to be more supportive of these taxes for use covering children’s health care, which is on the chopping block as the Governor and the legislature consider cuts to Medicaid. However, when host Ross Reynolds suggested a tax on internet downloads, that was decidely less popular.
According to an AP report, voters in Washington prefer temporary tax increases, ones that include a “sunset” clause that would automatically end them after a few years. Taxes on things considered vices, such as pop, cigarettes, candy, gum, and alcohol, were very popular in the poll. An untargeted 1% increase on the entire sales tax was far less popular, although voters were more inclined to be supportive if they thought substantial cuts in the budget were also being made.
The least popular tax alternatives were increasing certain business taxes, gas taxes, and a tax on bottle water.
Although some groups are pushing for a tax increase put before the voters to cover the budget deficit, Senator Rodney Tom from the Bellevue area said that it was unlikely voters would approve it. “I wouldn’t bet on it,” he told the Seattle Times.
What do you think? Are there any tax increases you would support to fill the holes? Are children’s health care and education important enough to raise taxes?
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court unanimously ruled that smokers can pursue misleading advertising
by cigarette manufacturers under the state’s deceptive marketing laws. The decision clears the way for a 10-year-old lawsuit against Philip Morris, claiming that Marlboro’s use of “light” and “low tar” branding for certain cigarettes
was deceptive.
The plaintiffs argue that so-called “light” cigarettes ultimately provide consumers with the same amount of tar and nicotine as regular cigarettes, since smokers compensate for the lower levels by taking longer, deeper puffs.
Philip Morris argued that the Massachusetts laws were preempted by federal legislation (when federal and state laws clash, federal law always takes precedence). Specifically, the defendants said that the consumer protection laws were preempted by the 1965 Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act, which forbids states from regulating health-related cigarette advertising. They also argued that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) allows the use of terms like “light” and “low tar” on cigarette packaging. The court rejected both arguments.
The decision comes on the heels of a similar opinion from the U.S. Supreme Court in December. In Altria v. Good, the high court held that the Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act did not preempt a Maine unfair business practice law. In that suit, too, the plaintiffs claimed that they compensated for lower levels of tar and nicotine by inhaling more deeply, and for longer periods of time.
That decision gave the go-ahead to more than a half-dozen cigarette class actions. However, these suits can still face legal hurdles. In April 2008, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals threw out a similar suit, claiming that it was impossible to generalize about why smokers chose light cigarettes. The court surmised that consumers might be “unaware of that representation, preferred the taste of lights, or chose lights as an expression of personal style.” There, the court ruled that any suits would have to proceed individually, not as a class.
The Second Circuit decision also cited a study finding that smokers continued to buy light cigarettes, even after a 2001 National Cancer Institute study found that they were no safer than standard cigarettes.
Philip Morris insists in a statement that the plaintiffs’ claims are still weak. The company argues that consumers paid the same price for Marlboro Lights as they would have for “full-flavored” Marlboros. Additionally, the company says that many class members are still smoking Marlboro Lights, undermining their claim that they were damaged by the advertising.
In 1998, Philip Morris signed a settlement agreement with 46 states, in which they agreed to pay roughly $200 billion over 25 years to address health-care reimbursements and other expenses. The settlement also contained restrictions on cigarette advertising, including a ban on logo-branded clothing and cartoon characters like the late Joe Camel.
A clinic successfully helps people to quit by focusing on the psychological aspects of the habit,
DANIELLA Nichols*, a mother of two, a professional, and a smoker, had what she considered a moderate habit, anything between five and 15 cigarettes a day.
Stop Smoking hypnosis
Like most smokers, she had a smoking pattern: no smoking at work, but definitely at the kitchen table, and she would get to her kid’s hockey practice half an hour early to have a fag and a gab with her friends.
This year’s New Year’s resolution was to quit, so she enlisted a buddy and together, they took the leap of faith that is attendant on Allen Carr’s Easyway to Stop Smoking Clinic. She now claims to have something of the religious convert about her. Ever since they attended the five-and-a-half-hour workshop, she says: “We joke about how they messed with our heads.”
Admittedly, the idea that people with a lifetime of cadging a drag behind their name can give it up after just a brief debriefing seems a little far fetched, more in the realm of the fantastic mind-altering experiments in sci-fi movies.
Charles Nell, the chief executive of the Allen Carr clinic, says there is no mystery about it.
Carr was an accountant who had spent 30 years trying to quit before he finally understood the root of the problem. Sadly, he died of lung cancer in 2006, but not before he established his clinics in 38 countries and wrote a book that sold 10 million copies.
What the one-day programme does, says Nell, is remove the fear of stopping. “Most people want to stop, but are scared of the withdrawal symptoms or of gaining weight.” The clinic’s statistics are impressive. Seventy percent of smokers stop after the first session, the remaining 30 percent come back for two back-up sessions. It has an overall 90 percent success rate, and if it cannot effect a cure after three sessions, you get a full refund.
Nell says it is the only programme that effectively deals with the fact that quitting smoking is a psychological problem. The programme removes the desire to smoke by touching on three issues: smokers believe it is enjoyable, relieves stress and relaxes you. It proves none of it is true.
Nichols elaborates: “The way they sell the whole thing is that they are not getting people to stop, rather making sure they never start again. I feel a little indoctrinated, but what they are saying is that while other programmes talk about using your willpower to stop, creating a sense of deprivation, this one makes you realise that you actually aren’t missing anything.
“You think smoking relieves stress but it doesn’t — they repeat the same thing over and over. It is a physical addiction — as addictive as tik — but that is only 5percent of the problem, 95 percent is the nicotine monster in your head.”
I ask her about her moment of epiphany: “I suppose, realisation came during the smoke break on the course at the Bryanston Country Club. They purposefully leave an overflowing ashtray with the detritus of 18 smokers lying around — you can imagine what it looks like — and they make you think about each drag you take. Think of it as you draw it into your lungs and blow it out. The realisation is that, physically, there is nothing nice about it.”
How is she doing a week later? “It’s pathetic that I needed that crutch. After a week, the addiction is starting to wane. In the beginning, it felt as if there was something missing, like a friend at the kitchen table, but there is no physical need whatsoever. It’s not a habit, it’s a mental thing — that’s the problem with patches . I feel a bit like a reborn Christian — I want to go out and spread the good news.”
Top Tips
Make a list of reasons you want to quit. A strong commitment and desire to stop are vital for success.
Document which days (over a two-week period) you smoke, how many you smoke and what the circumstances are.
Schedule an absolute quit date two to four weeks in the future.
Enlist the support of family, friends and colleagues, especially those who are present when you smoke.
Seek information and support from quit lines, websites and cessation programmes.
Talk to your physician or pharmacist about using a medication to help you quit. Many people use nicotine gum to allay withdrawal symptoms when they most want a cigarette.
Avoid situations (for at least two months) where you are most likely to smoke to break the habits associated with your occasional smoking.
Stop on the day you planned to.
If you slip and have a cigarette — and most will — don’t consider it a failure. Analyse the circumstances and begin again to stop. — Tom Glynn, American Cancer Society
Second-hand cigarette smoke and cognitive impairment Dementia News (Alzheimer’s Australia): 21 February 2008
There has been Considerable coverage of recently published research into a link between exposure to second-hand cigarette smoke and cognitive impairment. Several media articles have claimed that the research shows that people who are exposed to second-hand smoke are at significantly greater risk of developing dementia than those who are not exposed.
Before discussing the research it is well to understand a little of the background. Smoking, either actively or passively, is known to increase people’s risk of contracting a number of serious conditions, including diabetes; cardiovascular disease; high blood pressure; and stroke — all of which are risk factors for cognitive impairment and dementia.
So, is it possible that exposure to second-hand smoke could be a preventable risk factor for cognitive impairment?
Dr David Llewellyn and colleagues from the University of Cambridge; the Institute of Public Health in Cambridge; Peninsula Medical School in Exeter; the University of Michigan; and the Veterans Affairs Center for Practice Management and Outcomes Research in Michigan undertook research to investigate the question of whether there was an association between a biomarker of exposure to second-hand smoke and cognitive impairment. A biomarker is a molecular substance used as an indicator of a biological state. The biomarker of interest in this research was cotinine, which is one of the products of nicotine metabolism. It can be found in the saliva of people recently exposed to second-hand smoke and indicates that those people have metabolised nicotine.
The researchers collected saliva samples from 4809 non-smoking adults aged 50 years or more who had taken part in the 1998, 1999, and 2001 waves of the Health Survey for England and who had also participated in the 2002 wave of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Each sample was examined for the presence and concentration of cotinine. Also, a detailed history of smoking and exposure to second-hand smoke was taken from each participant, who was additionally given neuropsychological assessment for cognitive impairment.
The researchers made adjustments for a range of factors that could affect the results, such as age, sex, and education. What they found was that participants who had the highest levels of salivary cotinine were more likely to be cognitively impaired than those exposed to little or no second-hand smoke. Furthermore, there was some evidence of a linear trend, that is, the more second-hand smoke a person was exposed to, the more likely that person was to be cognitively impaired.
Does this mean that exposure to second-hand smoke will significantly increase a person’s risk of developing dementia? At the moment we do not know. The researchers suggest that there may be an association between exposure to second-hand smoke and increased risk of cognitive impairment, but they point out that prospective studies relating cognitive decline and risk of dementia to biomarkers of exposure to second-hand smoke are needed if we are to know with greater certainty. Nevertheless, it would be wise to eliminate or limit our exposure to second-hand smoke, if not because of the possible risks of becoming cognitively impaired and/or developing dementia, then because of the risks of contracting other serious and fatal diseases associated with such exposure.
FRIDAY, Feb. 27 (HealthDay News) — Teens who live in homes with smoking bans are apt to choose a similar living arrangement when they move into their own place, a new study has found.
Researchers from the Boston University School of Public Health tracked 693 adolescents, 12 to 17 years old at the start of the study. Eventually, all the youths moved out of their parents’ houses and lived independently, some at colleges or universities and others in apartments or other types of residences.
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Overall, about 82 percent of the youths moved to smoke-free living quarters, and 18 percent moved to housing that permitted smoking. They also found that 89 percent of those who moved to smoke-free housing had grown up in a smoke-free home. Of those who moved to someplace that permitted smoking, 36 percent had grown up in a smoke-free house.
“A household smoking ban in the parental home appears to lead youths to prefer smoke-free living quarters once they leave home,” said Alison Albers, assistant professor of social and behavioral sciences and the study’s lead author.
“This basic intervention — implementing a household smoking ban — not only has the potential to promote anti-smoking norms and to prevent adolescent smoking, but also may have the additional benefit of transmitting anti-smoking norms from parents to children as they transition out of the household,” Albers said. “The fact that we found this effect even among smokers is very promising.”
The study was published in the journal Tobacco Control.
KIM Jong Il, the North Korean leader, was photographed puffing on a cigarette during a recent tour of a tobacco factory, despite having reportedly suffered a stroke last August.
A picture shows Mr Kim with a cigarette in his mouth at the factory, in the city of Hoeryong. Another, broadcast on North Korean state television, shows Mr Kim exhaling smoke, apparently enjoying a cigarette produced on-site.
Mr Kim “expressed great satisfaction over the fact that quality cigarettes are mass-produced” and called on workers to improve the quality of cigarettes provided to troops, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported.
Mr Kim, 67, reportedly suffered a stroke six months ago, but is believed to have recovered. North Korean officials deny he was ever ill.
Once a reputed gourmand who enjoyed cigars and fine wines, Mr Kim is said to have given up his former chain-smoking ways years ago. It is not clear whether he is once again smoking regularly.
President Obama’s picks to fill the top two positions at the Food and Drug Administration have repeatedly bucked tobacco companies and pushed for greater restrictions on cigarette marketing, second-hand smoke and sales to minors.
Although the FDA does not currently regulate tobacco products, Congress is moving ahead on longstalled legislation to give the agency oversight of cigarette companies. That could give Obama’s choice to lead the agency, Dr. Margaret Hamburg, and her top deputy, Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, great sway over the industry.
As New York City’s heath commissioner in the 1990s, Hamburg fought for a total ban on indoor smoking in public places long before states and cities began adopting such aggressive restrictions.
And as health commissioner in Baltimore, Sharfstein pushed through an indoor-smoking ban in the city that paved the way for a similar statewide ban.
Neither Hamburg nor Sharfstein have publicly signaled their intentions regarding tobacco oversight since being tapped for the posts.
Hamburg couldn’t be reached for comment, and Sharfstein declined to comment through a spokesperson at the Baltimore health department.
A spokeswoman for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. declined to comment on how Hamburg’s views on smoking could affect the company.
“The real issue is whether the Food and Drug Administration is going to be able to appropriately regulate tobacco, given that it is by all appearances too overburdened to meet its current obligations monitoring food and drugs,” spokeswoman Maura Payne said.
Obama reiterated this month that he supports giving the FDA oversight of tobacco.
And yesterday, a key House committee approved a bill sponsored by Rep. Henry Waxman, R-Calif., that would do just that. The full House is expected to give its approval soon.
In the Senate, where the bill failed to pass last year, supporters of the FDA plan believe that they have the votes to pass it in that chamber this year. But North Carolina’s two senators, Richard Burr, a Republican and Kay Hagan, a Democrat, have proposed an alternate plan to create a new federal agency to regulate tobacco that could again stall the FDA proposal.
Anti-tobacco groups said that because the Waxman legislation would give FDA officials flexibility to develop new cigarette warning-label standards and marketing restrictions, it was important for Obama to have nominated people who have worked to reduce smoking rates.
“The buzz has all been very positive,” Kathleen Dachille, the director of the Center for Tobacco Regulation at the University of Maryland Law School, said of Hamburg and Sharfstein.
Dachille worked closely with Sharfstein to enact stricter smoking regulations after he was tapped to lead the city department in 2005.
He was the leading advocate to ban smoking in all workplaces in Baltimore — restaurants and bars included — and fought hard for a similar statewide ban.
The proposal stalled at the state level because of resistance from tobacco companies and the restaurant lobby. After Baltimore passed its own ban in 2007, opposition to a statewide ban dwindled.
“Baltimore was a major tipping point, and he was able to accomplish that” Dachille said. “It was the key jurisdiction that opened the door to statewide legislation.”
Last year, Sharfstein also pushed to ban sales of single small cigars — such brands as Black and Mild, and Swisher Sweets — after a health-department investigation found that the inexpensive smokes were popular with inner-city minors.
The investigation found that even though some young people couldn’t afford to buy a pack of cigarettes for $5, they could easily scrape together enough change to buy a single small cigar that sold for less than $1.
When the state legislature did not pass a restriction that would have required Maryland retailers to sell the cigars in packs of five or larger, Sharfstein issued his own five-a-pack minimum requirement in Baltimore, which became the first city to do so.
The move was opposed by R.J. Reynolds, Philip Morris and other tobacco companies, who threatened to fight the new restriction in court.
Before joining the Baltimore health department, Sharfstein worked on tobacco-policy issues, including FDA regulation as an investigator for Waxman, then the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
In 2003, Sharfstein helped write an investigative report that concluded that Philip Morris continued to lie about control of nicotine levels in its cigarettes and that Reynolds was not being truthful about marketing to minors.
As the city health commissioner in New York in the early 1990s, Hamburg fought successfully to ban cigarette advertisements on subways.
In the mid-1990s, New York banned smoking in most restaurants. At the time, few states and cities had taken that step, but Hamburg wanted the city to go even further.
At the time, she backed a total smoking ban for indoor workplaces, something that the state of New York and the city did not enact until 2003.
“In many respects, she was ahead of her times,” said Matthew Myers, the president of Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, an anti-tobacco group. “She has a demonstrated track record of working to reduce tobacco use that will hold her in good stead if Congress grants the FDA jurisdiction.”
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has just ruled that cigarette smokers in that state are eligible to use a state consumer protection law to sue Philip Morris Inc. for how it marketed Marlboro Lights, the Associated Press (AP) reported.
The AP noted that the recent ruling is very similar to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling this past December, which allows class-action lawsuit initiated by smokers claiming deceptive marketing. The high court ruling said the 1965 Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act does not protect cigarette makers from fraud lawsuits over how those makers market cigarettes they describe as “light” or “low tar.” Also, according to an earlier Bloomberg.com report, the high court said federal oversight of cigarette testing did not preclude those lawsuits.
Millions of Americans have smoked “low-tar,” “mild,” or “light” cigarettes, believing those cigarettes to be less harmful than others; however, many were falsely marketed as “safe” or “harmless.” As a matter-of-fact, a variety of studies found “light” cigarettes to be as dangerous as other varieties and, even more incriminating, a more than 30-year-old Philip Morris memo from 1975 was made public in 2007 that proved cigarette makers were aware that smokers of light cigarettes took longer puffs and inhaled larger amounts of tar than those who smoked other versions. The controversy has generated dozens of lawsuits claiming billions of dollars in damages.
The U.S. Supreme Court case allows smokers to use state laws to sue cigarette makers for how they promote so-called “light” and “low tar” cigarettes. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, citing the high court decision, said smokers can sue Altria Group Inc.’s Philip Morris for deceptive marketing practices, reported the AP. The 1998 suit claimed Philip Morris used deceptive marketing because its Marlboro Lights did not provide lower tar and nicotine, said the AP.
Philip Morris had argued that the Massachusetts consumer protection law is pre-empted by the 1965 Act, banning states from regulating any aspect of cigarette advertising involving smoking and health, said the AP. Philip Morris also argued that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) allows the use of terms such as “light” and “lower tar and nicotine” on cigarette packages and claims the Act, which required tobacco companies to place rotating warnings on their packaging and advertising, pre-empted such lawsuits. Philip Morris stopped using the phrase “lower tar and nicotine” on packages in 2003.
The state’s Supreme Judicial Court said the FTC did not specifically allow those categorizations, saying the labels did little but fool smokers into thinking they faced less of a health risk, the LA Times said in an earlier article. The FTC allows cigarette companies to use the classifications as long as they are determined by a standardized system that uses a machine that smokes cigarettes the same way every time. But people are not like machines, and some take deeper breaths and larger puffs than others. It is also well-recognized that smokers who switch from regular to light cigarettes “compensate” for the decreased nicotine by inhaling more deeply; taking larger, more rapid, or more frequent puffs; or increasing the number of cigarettes smoked daily, thus negating any potential benefit of smoking a “low-tar” cigarette. The FTC itself has raised concerns about its testing methods and has admitted in prior congressional testimony that its “ratings tend to be relatively poor predictors of tar and nicotine exposure.”
Although the lawsuit can proceed, smokers must prove the descriptors violate the state’s consumer protection law, said the AP.
Although only two plaintiffs are involved, they represent a group in the thousands, reported the AP.
The New Scientist editorial is even sadder. It says, “Employers have no business regulating people’s behavior unless it directly harms others at work.”
Well, smoking DOES harm other people at work. And it makes North America less job-competitive and lowers our standard of living. How? Our greatest cost disadvantage with Europe and Asia for jobs is medical costs. Ours are twice as high as Europe’s and three times as high as Asia’s. Why? Simple: We have twice as much chronic disease as Europe and three times as much as Asia. Blame tobacco, physical inactivity, poor food choices and stress. Those four account for 70 percent of our chronic diseases, BUT the biggest cost differential is tobacco. Americans shell out more than $100 billion a year to care for smokers, and that doesn’t include what’s spent on victims of second- and third-hand smoke. New data gauge that at about 10 percent of total health costs.
We only need to do two things to fix this:
1. Provide free stop-smoking programs to those who want to quit. Fifty-five percent of smokers say they want to quit, and try every year, but most try cold turkey, with a 2 percent to 5 percent success rate. Use of nicotine patches and other aids increases the long-term success of quit rates to between 15 percent and 35 percent.
2. Find more ways to keep people from starting to smoke. Almost 15 percent of high-school students still get hooked on nicotine every year.
The cost of doing this? In America, about $63 billion over 10 years. But that’s cheap, because it would save American companies and insurers at least $500 billion over 12 years. If we got serious, we could virtually wipe out smoking and its ravages by 2020. That’s a 5-to-1 return on our job-competitiveness investment.
None of the much flaunted appeals of cigarette advertisers, such as superior taste and mildness, induces us to become smokers or to choose one brand in preference to another. Despite the emphasis put on such qualities by advertisers, they are minor considerations. This is one of the first facts we discovered when we asked several hundred people, from all walks of life, why they liked to smoke cigarettes. Smoking is as much a psychological pleasure as it is a physiological satisfaction. As one of our respondents explained: “It is not the taste that counts. It’s that sense of satisfaction you get from a cigarette that you can’t get from anything else.”
stop smoking hypnosis
quit smoking hypnosis
Smoking is Fun
What is the nature of this psychological pleasure? It can be traced to the universal desire for self-expression. None of us ever completely outgrows his childhood. We are constantly hunting for the carefree enjoyment we knew as children. As we grew older, we had to subordinate our pleasures to work and to the necessity for unceasing effort. Smoking, for many of us, then, became a substitute for our early habit of following the whims of the moment; it becomes a legitimate excuse for interrupting work and snatching a moment of pleasure. “You sometimes get tired of working intensely,” said an accountant whom we interviewed, “and if you sit back for the length of a cigarette, you feel much fresher afterwards. It’s a peculiar thing, but I wouldn’t think of just sitting back without a cigarette. I guess a cigarette somehow gives me a good excuse.”
Smoking is a Reward
Most of us are hungry for rewards. We want to be patted on the back. A cigarette is a reward that we can give ourselves as often as we wish. When we have done anything well, for instance, we can congratulate ourselves with a cigarette, which certifies, in effect, that we have been “good boys.” We can promise ourselves: “When I have finished this piece of work, when I have written the last page of my report, I’ll deserve a little fun. I’ll have a cigarette.”
The first and last cigarette in the day are especially significant rewards. The first one, smoked right after breakfast, is a sort of anticipated recompense. The smoker has work to do, and he eases himself into the day’s activities as pleasantly as possible. He gives himself a little consolation prize in advance, and at the same time manages to postpone the evil hour when he must begin his hard day’s work. The last cigarette of the day is like “closing a door.” It is something quite definite. One smoker explained: “I nearly always smoke a cigarette before going to bed. That finishes the day. I usually turn the light out after I have smoked the last cigarette, and then turn over to sleep.”
Smoking is often merely a conditioned reflex. Certain situations, such as coming out of the subway, beginning and ending work, voluntary and involunatary interruptions of work, feelings of hunger, and many others regulate the timetable of smoking. Often a smoker may not even want a cigarette particularly, but he will see someone else take one and then he feels that he must have one, too.
While to many people smoking is fun, and a reward in itself, it more often accompanies other pleasures. At meals, a cigarette is somewhat like another course. In general, smoking introduces a holiday spirit into everyday living. It rounds out other forms of enjoyment and makes them one hundred per cent satisfactory.
Smoking is Oral Pleasure
As we have said, to explain the pleasure derived from smoking as taste experience alone, is not sufficient. For one thing, such an explanation leaves out the powerful erotic sensitivity of the oral zone. Oral pleasure is just as fundamental as sexuality and hunger. It functions with full strength from earliest childhood. There is a direct connection between thumbsucking and smoking. “In school I always used to chew a pencil or a pen,” said a journalist, in reply to our questions. “You should have seen the collection I had. They used to be chewed to bits. Whenever I try to stop smoking for a while, I get something to chew on, either a pipe or a menthol cigarette. You just stick it in your mouth and keep on sucking. And I also chew a lot of gum when I want to cut down on smoking….”
The satisfied expression on a smoker’s face when he inhales the smoke is ample proof of his sensuous thrill. The immense power of the yearning for a cigarette, especially after an enforced abstinence, is acknowledged by habitual smokers. One of our respondents said: “When you don’t get a cigarette for a long time and you are kind of on pins, the first drag goes right down to your heels.”
Americas Watchdogs’ Global Piracy & Counterfeiting Consultants is the most quoted group in the world on product counterfeiting and piracy. The group is predicting that in 2009 global counterfeiting of pharmaceuticals will grow to $150 billion US dollars worldwide & China alone, will produce over 200,000,000,000 counterfeit cigarettes. Why the worry? Americas Watchdog is leading a national investigation into imported toxic Chinese drywall that could result in cancer, or other serious health issues, among homeowners in the 300,000+ US homes, that contain the imported Chinese gypsum board, built in the US, after the 2001. The group says, “Do you think for one second Chinese or Russian organized crime syndicates care about what they put in their counterfeit drugs, or cigarettes? We are begging legitimate Pharmaceutical & Cigarette maker CEO’s to contact us immediately, so we can help them identify the bad guys & put them out of business. We also want to talk to the US & the global press about this dire emergency.” For more information please contact the Global Piracy & Counterfeiting Consultants at 866-714-6466 or contact them via their Web site at http://GP-CC.com.
Do you think for one second Chinese or Russian organized crime syndicates care about what they put in their counterfeit drugs, or cigarettes? We are begging legitimate Pharmaceutical & Cigarette maker CEO’s to contact us immediately, so we can help them identify the bad guys & put them out of business. We also want to talk to the US & the global press about this dire emergency.
With the severe global economic downturn, we are expecting counterfeiting of pharmaceuticals & cigarettes to go through the roof in 2009. Do you really think the Chinese or Russian crime syndicates care if their products kill people?
we have just discovered imported Chinese drywall in up to 300,000+ US homes built since 2001, that is so toxic, it could kill the homeowners, or make them very sick, and this was a supposedly legitimate product. The global corporate response to global counterfeiting is a to little, to late, approach. Your corporate reputations and your shareholders equity is on the line.
Global piracy & counterfeiting of drugs or cigarettes puts at risk every major drug, or cigarette manufacturer at risk. Our goal is to protect consumers, the legitimate companies and their shareholders. We can help & we can identify the bad guys for prosecution or exposure. This really is a matter of life or death & we can make a difference.
(PRWEB) March 16, 2009 — Americas Watchdog’s Global Piracy & Counterfeiting Consultants is the most quoted source in the world on pharmaceutical and cigarette counterfeiting. The group is warning all US and global consumers to not purchase pharmaceuticals or cigarettes on the Internet, unless the consumer can verify the product is coming from the legitimate manufacturer.
According to the group, “With the severe global economic downturn, we are expecting counterfeiting of pharmaceuticals & cigarettes to go through the roof in 2009. Do you really think the Chinese or Russian crime syndicates care if their products kill people?” The group says,” we have just discovered imported Chinese drywall in up to 300,000+ US homes built since 2001, that is so toxic, it could kill the homeowners, or make them very sick, and this was a supposedly legitimate product. The global corporate response to global counterfeiting is a to little, to late, approach. Your corporate reputations and your shareholders equity is on the line.” For more information US or global media, and or pharmaceutical/cigarette manufactures should call the Global Piracy & Counterfeiting Consultants at 866-714-6466 or contact them via their web site at http://GP-CC.com.
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Think global counterfeiting of pharmaceuticals or cigarettes is a joke? Actually this year global counterfeiting of drugs will be a $150 billion US dollar industry & China alone will produce over 200,000,000,000 counterfeit cigarettes. Still don’t think its a big deal? According to Americas Watchdog’s Global Piracy & Counterfeiting Consultants, “Talk to the thousands of homeowners in Florida who may now have to have their homes bulldozed because of toxic Chinese drywall that was sold as a legitimate product. Our investigation of the Chinese drywall will produce proof the imported gypsum is in every US State, Canada, & we have proof it makes people very sick. And this was a legitimate product, not a knock off, made by greedy Chinese or Russian crime syndicates.”
* A special note to Pharmaceutical or Cigarette maker CEO’s, “Hiring a retired hack from the US FBI will not put a dent in this potential global catastrophe, nor will coding drug containers or boxes, and or packs of cigarettes. These products are being sold on the Internet, & you need us to infiltrate these criminal organizations, so that we can identify the players. US law enforcement is limited to what they can do outside US borders, as are European law enforcement agencies. We have no such restrictions, and what we need to do is dangerous, and critical for the legitimate companies & their shareholders.” For more information corporate CEO’s or US or global media can contact the Global Piracy & Counterfeiting Consultants at 866-714-6466 or contact the group via their web site at http://GP-CC.com.
According to Americas Watchdog, “Global piracy & counterfeiting of drugs or cigarettes puts at risk every major drug, or cigarette manufacturer at risk. Our goal is to protect consumers, the legitimate companies and their shareholders. We can help & we can identify the bad guys for prosecution or exposure. This really is a matter of life or death & we can make a difference.” For more information please contact the Global Piracy & Counterfeiting Consultants at 866-714-6466 or contact the group via their web site at http://GP-CC.com.
Americas Watchdog & its Global Piracy & Counterfeiting Consultants are all about global consumer protection & corporate responsibility.
A Japanese doctor has apologised after saying that people should smoke themselves to an early death to save the country money on elderly care, according to his hospital.
“It is clear that medical costs will increase if non-smoking spreads,” the doctor said last week, according to Ida Hospital in Kawasaki City. “It’s better that people smoke a lot and die early.”
The man, whose name has been withheld, made the comment at a gathering of doctors, the hospital said.
“The hospital president has reprimanded him severely,” said Tetsuya Yamamoto, a public relations official of the hospital.
“He said it was a careless remark and sincerely regrets it,” the official said, adding that he was being sarcastic as the doctor is a smoker himself.
His comments angered activists.
“It was an outrageous remark that should not come from a doctor who is supposed to protect people’s lives and health,” Bungaku Watanabe, who heads an anti-smoking group, said in a statement.
Japan’s overall smoking rate is declining.
The rate for men was 39.5 percent, still high among developed countries but half of the rate of four decades ago, according to a 2008 survey by Japan Tobacco Inc. The rate for women was 12.9 percent, down from 15 percent in 1968.
Several municipalities in central Tokyo and across Japan have banned smoking in public places except in designated areas.
Kawasaki City is located in Kanagawa prefecture, where authorities are studying whether to ban smoking in all bars, restaurants and other public places in what would be a first in the country.
With many Americans feeling the economic pinch and the price of cigarettes set to go up again, will smokers be inspired to give up their addiction or will stress keep them hooked?
The price of cigarettes is set to go up again in April when a federal excise tax goes into effect.
Smokers are fully aware of the rewards cigarettes give. It is an addiction that delivers what it promises every time — a great stress reliever, according to 11 News I-Team lead investigative reporter Jayne Miller, who picked up smoking in college.
A home on Mill Street sustained extensive smoke damage and some fire damage after one of the occupants reportedly left a lit cigarette unattended Friday morning.
According to Covington Fire Department Captain Rob Christopher, the fire department received the call for assistance at 10:27 a.m. and when firefighters arrived they found a fire, contained mainly in one room of the home. There was no one at home when the fire began.
The Fire Marshall determined that the cause of the blaze was unattended smoking. According to Christopher, it is believed the fire actually started in a recliner in one of the rooms of the house. When the homeowners left the home to run an errand, a lit cigarette was left in the recliner, which started the fire. Although the home sustained substantial smoke damage, it is not a total loss, according to Christopher.
“We don’t have nearly as many fires started by smoking as we used to,” he said. “But if you are going to smoke just make sure to place your cigarettes in ashtrays and be sure that when you finish with it you put it out completely.”
Convenience store owners are already seeing the effects of an upcoming federal tax increase on tobacco products. The tax will take effect April 1, and manufacturers, worried about sales dips, are already raising product prices.
But that doesn’t mean customers aren’t buying.
In April, tax on a pack of cigarettes will increase by about 62 cents, bringing the total tax to about a dollar. For cartons, which include 10 packs, the tax will increase from $3.90 to $10.
Price increases are trickling down not just from the government, but from the manufacturers, the wholesalers, and now the stores.
* U.S. federal cigarette tax jumps by $1.01 on April 1
* Experts think million smokers will quit because of cost
* Industry sees 10 percent sales drop, 117,000 lost jobs
A big hike in the federal tax on cigarettes taking effect on April 1 may prompt 1 million U.S. smokers to quit, according to public health experts.
Expansion of a popular public health insurance program for lower income children is being financed by an increase in the federal excise tax on a pack of cigarettes of about $1.01 per pack, up from the current 39 cents on a $4.35 pack.
Smoking kills about 440,000 Americans annually and costs the nation $193 billion in medical expenses and lost productivity,
“There is almost unanimous agreement across the scientific community and policymakers that raising the price of cigarettes in whatever fashion has a consistent effect on reducing smoking rates, increasing the quit rate among adult smokers and preventing the initiation of regular smoking by children and young adults,
Danny McGoldrick, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids advocacy group’s vice president for research, said the formula is simple: as prices rise, fewer people buy cigarettes.
McGoldrick forecast the tax hike will persuade just over 1 million current smokers to quit and prevent 2 million children from starting. These changes will avert about 905,000 smoking-related deaths and save $44.5 billion in healthcare expenses over time, McGoldrick predicted.
President Barack Obama signed the expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program on Feb. 4. President George W. Bush had twice vetoed the bill, which also raises federal taxes on cigars and other tobacco products.
The industry is unhappy. Higher prices will lead to at least a 10 percent decline in cigarette sales and could put 117,000 people out of work, said Thomas Briant, executive director of the National Association of Tobacco Outlets.
LOST JOBS
Briant, whose group represents the operators of 2,500 retail stores, tobacco wholesalers, cigarette manufacturers and others, decried “the single largest tax increase on a product in the history of the United States.”
“There’s going to be an immediate drop-off in sales because of that tax increase as of April 1,” Briant said. “We expect the fall-out from that in terms of job losses to take about six to nine months from that date.”
The share of Coloradans who smoke dropped to about 19 percent in 2007, compared with 23 percent in 1998, state and federal health officials said Friday.
Social smoking while relaxing will still be available, but at far fewer spots when the statewide smoking ban for most bars and restaurants starts Dec. 1.
While some establishments long ago went smoke-free, still others have welcomed and even targeted those who want to enjoy a good smoke.
Adel Marzouk is co-owner of The Spot, a restaurant and bar in Williamsburg that offers a mix of Mediterranean and American fare as well as a variety of tobaccos, served up from an ornate hookah pipe around which one person or several can draw smoke filtered through water.
The chance to use a hookah pipe is only one offering at The Spot, Marzouk said. But it is important.
“I think it would really be hard to operate the business like that without smoking,” he said. “For us, it’s not all the business, it’s part.
“But it sure would affect us if we stopped that.”
He said he hasn’t really thought about how the ban will affect his restaurant. But, because food and drinks are served there, under the law he will have to make changes. Marzouk noted that the vast majority of his customers smoke at least cigarettes.
People have suggested he turn The Spot into a private club, and Marzouk said he will check into that. stop smoking hypnosis
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Two years ago, Houston expanded its smoking ban to include almost all public spaces.
To see if the ban affected bars and restaurants, the city of Houston spent $12,000 on a study. They learned that the ordinance did not have a discernable impact for either improving business or reducing it.
“It’s reassuring that we did the right thing. We protected workers who often don’t have a say in where they can work,” said Houston Mayor Bill White.
There are a lot of factors that can effect business sales. They range from the economy to the time of the year.
“I would say that in the first year we experienced a slight drop in sales, but we are back to where we were before the smoking ban. We’re probably just surpassing that as far as sales,” said Jill Schoeffler, who works at Brian O’Neill’s Irish Pub.
Brian O’Neill’s Irish Pub built a patio, which has made smokers like Nelson happy.
“We sit out there and enjoy a fine cigar and a pint of the good stuff,” said Nelson.
Ministers want to ban the open display of cigarettes in shops
Cigarette vending machines are to be banned in Scotland as part of plans to tackle child smoking.
Tobacco displays in shops will also be outlawed under proposed legislation brought forward by Scottish ministers.
A registration scheme would also be brought in for retailers, with fines for those who break the rules.
But retailers said the measures would do nothing to curb smoking, while thousands of small shops would lose much-needed business.
Scottish Public Health Minister Shona Robison said too many people had watched loved ones suffer and die from smoking-related illnesses.
This display ban is nothing more than a gimmick so the government can get a few headlines
Fiona Barrett
Tobacco Retailers Alliance
The Scottish Government wants to cut the number of young smokers to less than 23% by 2012.
Recent figures showed the number of young people smoking in Scotland had returned to a level last seen almost 10 years ago.
Measures under the Tobacco and Primary Medical Services Bill would also see shopkeepers banned from selling cigarettes if they continually break the law.
Ms Robison said the health risks associated with smoking were well documented, adding that someone who started smoking at 15 was three times as likely to die of cancer than someone who started in their mid-20s.
“The measures in this bill are aimed at stopping children starting to smoke in the first place, by making it less accessible and less attractive to them,” she said.
“Too many people have already watched loved ones suffer and die as a result of smoking-related illnesses. I’m determined that we must do all we can to protect future generations.”
‘MSP clarification’
Scotland’s chief medical officer, Harry Burns, said stopping young people from taking up smoking was one of the biggest challenges facing the country.
“Smoking causes enormous harm to people’s health and I don’t believe there is any justification for continuing to advertise such a dangerous product or make it freely available through vending machines,” said Dr Burns.
The Tobacco Retailers Alliance said the legislation would cost shops up to £5,000 to implement, and accused the government of breaking its promise to help small businesses through the economic downturn.
Fiona Barrett, an independent Glasgow retailer who represents the alliance in Scotland, said: “Make no mistake, this has little to do with youth smoking.
Ministers want to stop young people from taking up smoking
“This display ban is nothing more than a gimmick so the government can get a few headlines.
“There is no evidence to suggest this would work - it is an experiment at the expense of our businesses.”
Christopher Ogden, chief executive of the Tobacco Manufacturers Association, claimed the ban was unnecessary and unjustified, adding: “The last thing we need in the midst of recession is further regulation that will facilitate illicit trade in tobacco products and impact adversely on thousands of small retailers and the communities they serve.”
The concerns were echoed by the Scottish Grocers Federation.
In a separate development, SNP backbencher Christine Grahame was forced to issue a clarification after she attacked the legislation, by saying the registration scheme would not be mandatory.
The South of Scotland MSP later issued a statement acknowledging it would be.
Gerard Hastings, of the Centre for Tobacco Control Research at Stirling University, said of the bill: “It marks another step towards the day when Scotland will not just be smoke free, but tobacco free.”
Doctors’ body BMA Scotland gave its strong backing to the legislation, as did the Royal College of Nursing.
The bill will also close a legal loophole which allows commercial companies to operate GP surgeries.Hypnosis
This display ban is nothing more than a gimmick so the government can get a few headlines 
