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Five Simple Steps to Breaking your Smoking Habit

By Anthony Churchill

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Published: 26Sep2008
Word count: 797
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Habits are easy to form but once set and established are almost impossible to break. The only way in which the power of an entrenched habit can be minimized or effectively blocked is by the gradual introduction of disturbing and conflicting changes in the time element, in the mode of operation and in the habitual procedure.

Let us assume that you are a chain smoker and for reasons of health must break that habit. You may have a strong will power and stop smoking because you will it so. But in most cases the craving will remain and the embedded tendency will be too strong to be completely ignored or discarded. Somewhere along the line you will be tempted to take one surreptitious smoke and then another and soon the old habit will reassert itself.

The only way in which you can crack the solid, impenetrable walls of the habit successfully is to attack it gradually, consistently, on one or more of these fronts:

1st. The "time-delay" attack. Introduce a time change in the usual smoking routine. Start with a five minute interval between smokes. Make it five minutes to the second. As soon as the time is up pat yourself mentally on the back for having the strength of character shown, light your cigarette and enjoy every puff of it. Keep up this five minute interval between smokes, consistently, until it stops being a hardship and becomes the new habit, of lighting cigarettes five minutes apart.

Lengthen the interval between smokes to ten minutes and then to fifteen minutes each. Turn the waiting period into a little game or a contest. If you have nothing else to do to occupy the time in between, improvise some form of temporary diversion to while away the passing moments. Continue this waiting period in a playful mood until the new interval between smokes becomes part of your regular smoking habit.

2nd. The "time-check" attack. Use your clock or your watch as a monitor, as a control to confine your smoking to certain periods. Let it be exactly on the half-hour and the full hour during the day, and the quarter hour and three-quarter hour during the evening. The underlying purpose is not to turn you into a clock-watcher but to give you a measuring or limiting control to help you inject an arbitrary time element into the customary smoking schedule and thereby interfere with your entrenched smoking habit.

3rd. The "time-out" attack. Set aside certain periods of time during your waking hours when you will refuse to light a cigarette no matter how strong the urge. Let it be a "break" a "stay-away" time when you use your will power, when you place yourself under absolute control for the ensuing period of time. The period selected and the duration of such self-restraint is not as important as the deliberate premeditated step you have taken to oppose the call of the habit and purposely interfere with its entrenched routine.

4th. The "interference" attack. Change the usual mode and manner of smoking by introducing different disturbing elements. For instance, if you enjoy smoking best by sitting down or leaning back in your seat, get up and remain standing or start walking around the room while puffing away at your cigarette. If you are in the habit of taking long, leisurely puffs, change to short, nervous pulls at the cigarette. If you usually inhale stop doing it. If you wait ordinarily between puffs and let the smoke out lazily, bunch the puffs together. In other words, mix things up and keep changing your way of smoking from one cigarette to the next. Do it consistently, deliberately, consciously. Introduce as much confusion as you can contrive so that the old smooth continuity of the smoking habit will be disrupted.

5th. The "substitution" attack. Change brands of cigarettes, from a regular to a King size, to a filter type, to one having mint or menthol in it, to a brand milder or stronger. If that does not help much change to a pipe or to stogies. Then, in between, pop a piece of hard candy or a stick of chewing gum into your mouth instead of a smoke. Give your lips and your mouth something else to do for the time being. Continue such substitutions until your system begins to accept them as part of, or in lieu of, the old smoking habit and eventually its hold upon you will be weakened and nullified.

These five ways of gradual frontal attack and deliberate interruptions with your set pattern of the smoking habit can be adapted to attack and interfere with any other non-desirable habit and prove just as effective in breaking its hold upon you.

Anthony Churchill is a staff writer and editor. This article comes from 'The 5 Secret Keys', a collection of self-help works compiled and presented by him for 1-0-1publishing. You can read more about 'The 5 Secret Keys' at http://www.becomemoreconfident.com

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