Central Hypnotherapy

“Hi Chris,
Just wanted to let you know that I still can’t believe that I have not had a cigarette since I walked out of your office 10 days 2hrs and 57 mins ago! (Not that I am counting!) I must admit I was so sceptical that I did not believe you were actually going get me to stop smoking. Well I’m eating humble pie at the moment, and my office colleagues think you are a miracle worker!!
Thank you so much.

Regards
Sandra”

Actually it is not a miracle, and Sandra’s belief that hypnotherapy would not work is quite normal, but notice how that did not stop her from being successful! Her co-workers clearly did not believe it would work either, but that is only because they don’t understand it.

A habit like smoking is just the automatic repetition of a familiar behaviour. Smokers’ cravings are reminder signals produced by the Subconscious mind, and hypnosis is simply a way of getting new information to the Subconscious mind. The hypnotherapist explains to the Subconscious mind that the habit is no longer required, and requests that the reminder signals be shut down. There’s a lot more detail in it than that, but that is essentially what happens in our Stop Smoking Session.

You walk in a smoker, you walk out a non-smoker. No cravings, no bad moods, no weight-gain. Does that sound like the kind of solution that would suit you? Call 0161-474-8120 now to find out more, or 07748 838 644 out of office hours. You’ll be glad you did!

Consultant Hypnotherapist Chris Holmes BA(Hons) HPD DipCAH MNCH is a Senior Registered Hypnotherapy Practitioner (General Hypnotherapy Register) and has been providing effective and confidential hypnosis and hypnotherapy services at Central Hypnotherapy for Stockport, Manchester, Tameside and Cheshire since August 2000.

Central Hypnotherapy, Merchants House, 24-25 Market Place, Stockport SK1 1EU

This is what we aim for every time: no cravings, no withdrawal, no over-eating or weight gain. As standard.

“Hi Chris

You said to give you feedback and to let you know how I was getting on… It has been 4 days and 6 hours since my last cigarette! For the first few of days at every trigger point I thought about it – when I left your office, walking down the stairs I thought about it – the main thing I suppose is I don’t want one, the thought is more I would of/could of/ had a cigarette then/now. But I’ve no cravings, no withdrawals, no over eating and as far as I am aware no further habits forming in its place. And with each day the number of times I’ve thought about it are reducing.

Charlotte”

There is a world of difference between thinking about smoking – which I naturally do every day, I’m a therapist specialising in the subject – and wanting to smoke or feeling tempted to smoke. Hypnotherapy doesn’t stop you thinking, it stops you wanting one because it shuts down the cravings and the habit simultaneously. The Central Hypnotherapy method also ensures that there is no weight gain and – as Charlotte confirms – no new habits replacing the smoking one. No other therapy can do that in a single session – only hypnotherapy.

If you would like to be smoke-free like Charlotte, why not call me (Chris) on:
Office: 0161-474-8120 Monday-Friday 8.30 a.m. to 6.30 p.m., or call/text 07748 838 644 any day, any time.

Central Hypnotherapy (hypnotherapist Chris Holmes): Hypnotherapy and Hypnotherapy Training Services for Stockport, Manchester, Cheshire, Tameside.

Most smokers who have attempted to stop smoking before will have tried some form of Nicotine Replacement (NRT) – or several different forms of it – and after telling me this, my smoking clients will usually go on to say: “…and I’ve failed every time!”

Notice how they do not conclude: “…and it doesn’t work at all!” They nearly always say: “I’ve failed.”

Let me explain why they are wrong. The latest research from Harvard University in the USA published January 2012, concluded that:

“NRT is no more effective in helping people stop smoking cigarettes in the long-term than trying to quit on one’s own”.

This means that the products do nothing useful in the long run, they just waste your time. If smokers knew that, would they bother with them at all? Smokers are not “failing”, they have simply been misled. They were told that NRT would help, when in fact it does not. The manufacturer was also careful to put the words: “Requires Willpower” on the adverts and the packaging, so that the smoker is likely to assume, when it doesn’t work, that the fault was their own because they ‘lack willpower’. Smokers are more than ready to believe that about themselves, aren’t they? So you are set up to blame yourself for the failure of the method before you even try it! Sneaky, eh?

Hypnotherapy is the most effective method of the various ways of quitting tobacco available to smokers, according to the largest ever scientific study of the subject, carried out by the University of Iowa in 1992. All you have to do is book in, and turn up for the session – you can leave the rest to me. No weight-gain, and no willpower required! Call me (Chris) on Office: 0161-474 8120 (Office Hours) Mobile: 07748 838 644 (any time, including evenings & weekends)

Central Hypnotherapy (hypnotherapist Chris Holmes): Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy Training Services for Stockport, Manchester, Cheshire, Tameside.

Our celebrated one-session stop smoking method simply shuts down cravings completely. If you try to quit any other way, you are trying to IGNORE cravings, but hypnotherapy wipes them out so you walk out of the session a non-smoker. This is just a return to normal: we were all born non-smokers in the first place. There is no weight-gain because that is usually caused by attempts to feed cravings away. This method shuts them down, so you don’t feel as if you are missing something.

We also challenge the beliefs that support the habit: the idea it’s a pleasure, the idea it “helps you deal with stress”. Only hypnosis does this at both conscious and Subconscious levels at the same time. This method also ensures that other people smoking will not bother you in any way: after the session you will even find it easy to chat to someone else while they are smoking, without finding the smoke appealing OR annoying.

The truth is, our first experience of tobacco was sickening and nauseating – in fact we all had to work at that to get past it, and we only did it to be part of the gang, or to be all grown up. We did not intend to make it a lifelong commitment, and we certainly didn’t mean to do ourselves any real harm.

I can make sure it doesn’t. All you would have to do is call me at Central Hypnotherapy on 0161-474 8120 (Office Hours) Mobile: 07748 838 644 (any time, including evenings & weekends) and make an appointment, then turn up on the day. You can leave the rest to me!

Consultant Hypnotherapist Chris Holmes BA(Hons) HPD DipCAH MNCH is a Senior Registered Hypnotherapy Practitioner (General Hypnotherapy Register) and has been providing effective and confidential hypnosis and hypnotherapy services at Central Hypnotherapy for Stockport, Manchester, Tameside and Cheshire since August 2000.

Were you a bit short of cash this Christmas? If you smoke 20 cigarettes per day, at around £6 a pack that will cost you something like £2190 by next Christmas, assuming the price doesn’t rise further (which it will). But if you call Central Hypnotherapy now, you can save all that money and make 2013 healthier, wealthier and safer.

Many smokers expect this to be difficult, based on their previous attempts to quit using willpower alone, basically by trying to IGNORE cravings. But it’s not, because hypnotherapy shuts the habit AND the cravings down, so you are simply not bothered at all by other people smoking. And what’s more, we can easily prevent weight gain, so you won’t find yourself replacing one thing with another – even if you gained weight during previous quit-attempts.

Does that sound like the kind of help YOU need? Then just call me (Chris) at Central Hypnotherapy on 0161-474 8120 (Office Hours) Mobile: 07748 838 644 (any time, including evenings & weekends) for more info or to book an appointment. You’ll be glad you did.

Central Hypnotherapy (hypnotherapist Chris Holmes): Hypnotherapy and Hypnotherapy Training Services for Stockport, Manchester, Cheshire, Tameside.

They say that the only certainties in life are death and taxes, but death can be postponed by changing your lifestyle and some taxes can certainly be avoided by quitting the habits that the tax man penalises the most.

Did you know that 77% of the cost of a pack of cigarettes in the U.K. is tax? Or that £7.15 is charged in direct tax (duty) on a litre of whisky, then 20% VAT is added to the retail price on top of that, including 20% of the cost of the duty you already paid? Now add the tax you paid when you earned that money in the first place, and it becomes obvious that any taxpayer who smokes and drinks is being clobbered every which way by the government.

Of course, you could start a distillery of your own – and risk prosecution, or the danger of blowing yourself up like those guys in Lincolnshire did recently. You could avoid the tax by buying dodgy vodka with methanol in it, which can blind or kill you. You could resort to buying illicit tobacco, which has allegedly been found to contain contaminants like rat droppings and battery acid. But then, that shouldn’t bother smokers too much, since legal tobacco contains hydrogen cyanide and arsenic anyway, as well as about 400 other toxins.

Or you could – for the price of a single two-hour session at Central Hypnotherapy – shut down a drinking habit or a smoking habit, improve your quality of life and save yourself a fortune! After all, alcohol is a poison, tobacco is full of poisons and hypnotherapy is 100% safe and tax-free.

The testimonials that follow are all genuine, and all those clients gave written permission for them to be included here. Notice how they all seem rather surprised that they succeeded, and how easy it was with hypnotherapy. That’s because they – like you, perhaps – had already tried to stop smoking with other methods and didn’t succeed, so they were a bit doubtful about hypnotherapy before they tried it for themselves. That’s actually normal.

So why not call me (Chris) at Central Hypnotherapy on 0161-474 8120 (Office Hours) Mobile: 07748 838 644 (any time, including evenings & weekends) for more info or to book an appointment.

This just came in today by email from Jim:

Morning Chris

Jim

You may be able to tell from this message that Jim is a little surprised that he didn’t start smoking again when “the worst” happened in his private life. That is because he knew from experience, as every smoker does, that if he’d been trying to quit the willpower way, or with nicotine patches, he would have been straight down to the nearest shop and that would have been the end of the quitting attempt.

After the Stop Smoking session at Central Hypnotherapy this is not the case, because during Jim’s session I explained to his Subconscious mind that tobacco isn’t really relaxing or comforting at all, in fact it makes your heart beat faster and causes your blood pressure to rise, which at times of stress is more likely to trigger a heart attack than anything else, so can we please shut down the compulsive urges to reach for tobacco when things go wrong in life? Much safer!

This is exactly what his Subconscious mind did. It made a note of the new information, and the next time something went wrong in Jim’s life it decided NOT to use the craving system to prompt him to reach for tobacco. So he didn’t.

Why was his conscious mind surprised? Because he had never had hypnotherapy before, and he had always been told that cravings were withdrawal symptoms. Which they aren’t, they are irritating prompting signals from your Subconscious mind sent via the body, mimicking bodily needs – very convincingly too! And the Subconscious mind can easily switch them off.

One Call, One Session: One Non-Smoker. Regardless of what else is going on in your life, Jim has just proven that it is ALWAYS a good time to quit smoking if you are using hypnosis! Call me (Chris) at Central Hypnotherapy on 0161-474 8120 (Office Hours) Mobile: 07748 838 644 (any time, including evenings & weekends) for more info or to book an appointment.

The Central Hypnotherapy Stop Smoking Session shuts down any smoking habit in two hours, cravings and all. We also make sure that the habit is not replaced by another habit, as often happens if you try to stop smoking with willpower. When you choose the hypnotherapy route, no willpower is required and there will be no weight-gain and no change to eating habits.

Call me (Chris) at Central Hypnotherapy on 0161-474 8120 (Office Hours) Mobile: 07748 838 644 (any time, including evenings & weekends) for more info or to book an appointment.

Central Hypnotherapy, Merchants House, 24-25 Market Place, Stockport SK1 1EU

Consultant Hypnotherapist Chris Holmes BA(Hons) HPD DipCAH MNCH is a Senior Registered Hypnotherapy Practitioner (General Hypnotherapy Register) and has been providing effective and confidential hypnosis and hypnotherapy services at Central Hypnotherapy for Stockport, Manchester, Tameside and Cheshire since August 2000.

Scientific Proof of Success With Hypnotherapy

As long ago as the Autumn of 1992, a report appeared in New Scientist magazine which began with the words:

“Hypnosis is the most effective way of giving up smoking, according to the largest ever scientific comparison of ways of breaking the habit.” New Scientist 31.10.92

This study, which was carried out at The University of Iowa in the United States, had already been reported in the Journal of Applied Psychology earlier in the same year. Eight years later, the London-based hypnotherapist Valerie Austin published a book in which she listed other published scientific studies going back as far as 1968, one of which reported a 94% success rate for hypnotherapy after a follow-up period of eighteen months.

In Contrast:

NHS methods fail 93% of smokers when the results are reviewed one year from the start of treatment. In late 2005, the U.K. Department of Health finally decided to assess the long-term outcomes of its NHS Stop Smoking programme, which began in 2001. Previously, all NHS “success rates” were based on the number of smokers who had reported not smoking for four weeks – they were never previously monitored after that point, and as it turns out, nearly all of them relapsed.

So if you ever tried any of those methods and they did not work, or you only quit smoking temporarily, you did not fail – the method fails nearly everyone. They just didn’t tell you that.

This four-week model of assessing performance closely mirrors the original trials of nicotine replacement products, in which the results after only six weeks were accepted as the official “success rate” of the products. If the approval bodies had only assessed those results over a one-year period, N.R.T. products would never have been approved in the first place. Why? Because:

Willpower Alone

The independent Iowa study – which was described by New Scientist at the time as being the “largest ever scientific comparison of ways of breaking the habit” – looked at all methods available then, including willpower. The success rate arrived at for willpower alone was only 6%, which proves that willpower is simply a poor quitting method (see the Willpower Myth page on this site). The recent Borland Report into the long-term outcomes of NHS Stop Smoking Services discovered that 93.5% of smokers using those services would still be smoking at the one year follow-up, which puts the success rate at 6.5%… almost exactly the same as willpower!

The Hypnotherapy Solution

Success with hypnotherapy is completely different from other quitting attempts, which largely rely on willpower to resist the urge to pick up a cigarette.  Those urges – often called cravings – are signals from the brain which prompt the repetition of habitual behaviour.  Humans will experience lots of craving signals, they are not all about tobacco.  The impulse to buy or eat chocolate, repeatedly snort cocaine, drink alcohol, play slot machines or eat fast food… these are all Compulsive Habitual behaviours, which often get called “addictions” when in fact they are not! They just look like addictions – they are really all compulsive habits that can be quite easily shut down with expert hypnotherapy, provided the person really wants to ditch the habit.

Hang on – isn’t tobacco addictive?

Actually no, but it certainly appears to be… as do cocaine and also alcohol.  However, it would be true to say that the vast majority of people who drink alcohol sometimes are NOT ‘problem drinkers’. Most adults who have been drinking alcohol for years do not believe they are addicted to it, which seems odd if the substance itself is ‘addictive’.  Likewise there are occasional cocaine-users who never develop a habit, just as there are those who sometimes drink tea or coffee but they can take it or leave it, whilst others drink ten cups a day, every day.  Are they addicted?  And if so, why isn’t everyone?

“Addiction” doesn’t explain it – “Compulsive Habit” does!

It is often suggested that sugar is ‘addictive’, as an attempt to explain the chocoholic’s behaviour – but what about gambling and fast food?  Gamblers aren’t even consuming anything, yet that gets called an addiction too – as does playing computer games for hours on end – so does the word ‘addiction’ equally apply to anything you apparently can’t stop doing?  If so, how would that differ from breathing, going to sleep or using toilet facilities?  We certainly feel compelled to do those things too, and indeed seem unable to stop!

Natural v Unnatural

The difference can be easily demonstrated with hypnotherapy, provided the client would prefer to be rid of the problem.  A real drug addiction – heroin is a classic example – cannot be simply shut down with a single session of hypnotherapy.  Not in any case, so far as I am aware.  All the other unnecessary habits can, and I have done that many times with tobacco, cannabis, alcohol, cocaine, various forms of gambling, chocoholics, fast food and computer gaming.  In smokers, we also make sure we prevent the weight gain or overeating that many smokers fear when they contemplate quitting. So don’t worry, even if you have gained weight in previous quitting attempts, you won’t have that problem if you come to Central Hypnotherapy.

How it works

Hypnotherapy shuts down the impulse to reach for tobacco, which really has nothing to do with nicotine or anything else in the smoke. These impulses (sometimes called cravings) are signals from the brain which prompt you to repeat the usual habitual action in the usual situations. When smokers try to quit with willpower, they are attempting to just ignore or resist those impulses. This usually drives the smoker up the wall, because the signals only become more insistent if you do not respond at first. The brain assumes you didn’t notice the signal, so it sends a stronger, more insistent one! And it will usually keep doing that until you finally respond by lighting up.

Instead of fighting a battle using willpower, in hypnotherapy we explain to the Subconscious mind (which sends these signals) that the smoking matter is under review, requesting that the reminder signals be shut down. In fact, they shut down at regular intervals anyway: when you go to sleep, or whenever you go into a situation in which smoking is not possible such as a cinema or hospital, or if you board a plane. Few smokers are bothered by cravings whilst they are in these situations. Even the few smokers that do struggle with those restrictions only suffer because they have not really accepted the restriction, so they feel resentful about being told they are not allowed to smoke there!

Beliefs, Feelings and Concerns

In addition to requesting that the craving signals be shut down, it is important for the therapist also to explain the reasons for the change to the Subconscious mind – and take into account the feelings and concerns of that particular smoker – all of which may have a bearing on their response to the therapy process. Preventing over-eating or weight-gain is probably the most common example of an associated issue which may be a concern to some clients, and they will be very relieved to discover that they will not be gaining weight after the smoking habit is shut down – even if that did happen before when they tried to quit with other methods.

Quick and Easy

In most cases we can do all this in a single session, which takes about two hours from start to finish. The great thing about hypnotherapy from the client’s point of view is that they spend the whole time relaxing in a comfy chair and do not need to contribute anything else to the process apart from looking forward to being rid of the problem. This makes hypnotherapy by far the easiest, as well as the most effective method of stopping smoking.

N.B. Clients sometimes have mixed feelings about stopping smoking, and feel uncertain about the hypnotherapy process if they have not had hypnotherapy before. We take care of all those issues within that session, this is all quite normal. So if you have doubts, don’t let that put you off – some doubts are only to be expected and they do not get in the way of the process because the response comes from the Subconscious mind, not the skeptical conscious mind. Your Subconscious mind is blissfully unaware of any doubts that may be bothering your conscious mind about what the Subconscious mind can or cannot do. Let your conscious mind be pleasantly surprised by the outcome! Your Subconscious already knows what it can do, and it shuts down the craving signals regularly anyway, purely for your convenience. Of course it can shut them down forever, it only needs to hear a sound case for doing so. That’s my job, so you can leave that part to me!

Call me (Chris) at Central Hypnotherapy on 0161-474 8120 (Office Hours) Mobile: 07748 838 644 (any time, including evenings & weekends) for more info or to book an appointment.

Consultant Hypnotherapist Chris Holmes BA(Hons) HPD DipCAH MNCH is a Senior Registered Hypnotherapy Practitioner (General Hypnotherapy Register) and has been providing effective and confidential hypnosis and hypnotherapy services at Central Hypnotherapy for Stockport, Manchester, Tameside and Cheshire since August 2000.

Central Hypnotherapy, Merchants House, 24-25 Market Place, Stockport SK1 1EU

On 22nd December I got the following email message:

Hi Chris

Just wanted to say thanks for your help – I stopped smoking after a session with you in April 09 and never had a cig since, and was on 30 a day – Cheers,
Neil.

So I asked Neil if it would be okay to share this happy message here on the website. He replied:

Hi Chris

Thanks
Neil

This proves what I tell all smokers: with hypnotherapy you can quit smoking easily even if you live with another smoker! This – as all smokers will know – would be much more difficult if you tried it without hypnotherapy! Why? Because the sight of others lighting up is one of the cues that triggers an impulse to light up yourself, which means you would have to rely on willpower to fight the urge to smoke. But hypnotherapy removes the impulses/urges to reach for a cigarette – so the sight of others smoking does not move you at all, just as it didn’t before you ever smoked yourself.

Yes, we were all born non-smokers in the first place! Hypnotherapy simply returns you to normal, but without having to fight battles with yourself over cravings. Easy.

One session. Takes about two hours, no effort from yourself – in fact you spend the whole time lazing about in a comfy chair. Sound all right for you? Save yourself a fortune in 2011! Call now for more info: 0161-474 8120 (Office Hours) Mobile: 07748 838 644 (any time, including evenings & weekends) for more info or to book an appointment.