Posts Tagged ‘acupuncture’

Stop Smoking with EFT

Saturday, February 21st, 2009

You probably know someone who has successfully quit smoking with hypnotherapy or hypnosis. But how about EFT? As a hypnotherapist with 5 years’ experience helping others quit, I can see a future when EFT will be the mothod of choice. So why EFT and what is so special about it?
EFT is short for Emotional Freedom Techniques. It involves gently massaging certain acupressure points whilst repeating phrases designed to free you from a bad feeling. In this case, the bad feeling would be the smoking craving. Hence the “Freedom” part of the name.

Whether smoking cravings are purely emotional or not is subject to debate. I have certainly pushed the boundaries of this method for many physical conditions, and as a trained biochemist, I would seriously challenge anyone to define the dividing line between the emotional and the physical. As a matter of fact, many acupuncturists recommend acupuncture to allow the body to rebalance itself after quitting smoking. And the acupressure points that we use in EFT are the endpoints of the main acupuncture meridians. Only instead of using needles, we stimulate these points by a tapping sort of massage. We tap, usually with two fingers, on the area, thereby stimulating these meridians.

So what is different about the effect of having EFT from the effect of having acupuncture? Well, with EFT, your mind is asked to bring up a bad emotional state so that the acupressure will release you from that bad emotion. It is like the mind is the office cleaner, who goes into the office unobtrusively and takes out the rubbish/garbage for the council/municipality cleaners to take away. These workers in turn come and remove the refuse and it is no longer in your office. Your office is then clean.

And why use EFT instead of hypnotherapy? Because the effect of helping your physical body as well as your mind makes for a very strong combination. Although you can have EFT in hypnosis, this entails the practitioner speaking at a slower rate than using standalone EFT. With standalone EFT, because the practitioner can carry out the treatment at a much faster pace, they can get more done in the same amount of time. In other words, the treatment with EFT reaches further and goes deeper.
I estimate that within the next five years, EFT will have replaced hypnotherapy as the method of choice for quitting smoking. And when ex-smokers-to-be ask for a recommendation to help them stop, they will be asking for a good EFT Practitioner. I look forward to that day.

My name is Suzanne Zacharia and I am committed to spreading the word about health options. I believe that the more and better options one has, the more choice there is. A virus caught along with 5 other students at university at the end of 1986, along with medical negligence, meant that I got smokers lung at a relatively young age. In desperation for help with my symptoms and quality of life, I turned to complementary therapy, and this is the 10th year I have outlived one doctor’s prognosis.
I am now a complementary therapist, author and trainer specialising in “energy” therapy. My company is called New Age London, more details via the links below.

http://www.NewAgeLondon.com

http://www.EFTLondon.co.uk

http://www.EFTCourse.co.uk

[tags]stop smoking,london,EFT,hypnotherapy,hypnosis,quit smoking,smoking,hypnotherapist,W1,UK,acupuncture[/tags]

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A Plan to Stop Smoking

Sunday, February 1st, 2009

He starts by rolling the bottom of my pant legs up and the top of my stocking down while I am lying on a treatment bed. He then dabs a cotton swab dipped in alcohol on the inside of both legs just above the ankles. He repeats this process but just to the inside of the shinbone about 8 inches higher. Then he inserts these thin, hollow needles about 5 inches long, into the flesh while twirling the needle. He skips the torso and moves to the hand.

First, he rolls my sleeves up above the elbow, and then he applies the alcohol and lastly the twirling of the needle. This he does where the crease ends separating the thumbs from the index finger and just below the elbow on the outer part of the arm. He then repeats the process on the side of the neck in two locations, between the eyes and the top of the ear, just below the eyes and one in the center and above the eyes. Then he starts on the head, two on each side. One just above the back of the ear and the other just above the front part of the ear. Two more on each side of the head about midway between the crown and the ear and lastly, one on the very crown of the head.

The nurse then attaches a clip connected to an electrical wire that feeds into a control box. After all the clips are affixed, she turns them on, one at a time. She asks if I feel the electric charge and if it is to low or too high. After adjustment, she moves on to the next wire. When all the wires are operating, she says she will see me in 45 minutes and leaves the room. Sometimes there is another patient on a procedure table about 6 feet away. The electrical charge is fixed for about 5 seconds then it pulses slowly for about 4 seconds. This is repeated for the entire procedure. This is Acupuncture for smoking cessation.

I started my ’stop smoking plan’ 12 days ago on Monday, January 2 2006. It calls for smoking 1 less cigarette each day until, 56 days later I hope to be ’smoke free’. My first Acupuncture treatment was on Thursday, January 5, 2006 4 days into my plan.

The second treatment was on Saturday, January 7, 2006. The third treatment was on Tuesday, January 10, 2006. The forth treatment was on Thursday January 12, 2006.

Today is Saturday, January 14, 2006 and the fifth treatment is scheduled for 2:30 PM.

I then start one treatment each Saturday until the end.

Today I get to smoke 44 cigarettes. This sounds like a lot but I am used to smoking 3 packs a day, which means a cigarette whenever I feel like one. Now, I am on a set figure and it is a challenge. I try to have non-smoking hours but am not rigid. If I only smoke 3 cigarettes in a smoking hour when I was allotted 4, I can smoke the ‘extra’ cigarette whenever I choose. I haven’t decided exactly what I plan to do when I get down to 20, 15, 10 and 5 cigarettes a day. After meals? With Coffee? When I get up in the morning? Before I go to bed? All of this is to be worked out.

Monday I am calling Allister. He is a British ‘EXPAT’ (Foreign National living abroad) that practices ‘ACUPRESSURE’ and claims to do ‘HYPNOSIS’. He gave a lecture at an ‘EXPAT’S’ meeting I attended and claims that the procedures work. The ‘Acupressure’ is supposed to last 3 hours during a single visit. The ‘Hypnosis’ was not mentioned and is not described in his brochure. I intend on utilizing both procedures to the highest extent possible.
In addition, I intend to purchase a ’stop smoking drug’ available here in Thailand (and I think all over the world) that has 60 tablets that I presume contain some form of Nicotine inhibitor. I plan to start to take them when I reach 1 pack or 20 cigarettes a day.

I am going to try ‘Replacement Psychology’ by replacing the smoking of a cigarette with the ‘eating of a pistachio nut’.

Lastly, ‘MANTRAS’. I am a big believer in ‘MANTRA’S. I resumed my exercise program on the 2nd of January and have managed to complete the entire program 12 consecutive days. I had to stop the program because the TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) training program occupied all my time, the weather was rain and cold, I was traveling to Chaing Mai and Penang and I think I became a little lazy.

If I had an excuse, I used it. Overall, I think I missed 5 or 6 weeks. The program calls for a set number of:

1. Jumping Jacks-5.

2. Running in Place-50 (each left foot equals one count).

3. Twist the body from the left to the right with arms extended,
rolling them-50 times to each side.

4. Jumping Jacks-5.

5. Running in Place-50 (each left foot equals one count.

6. Bend the upper body, from arching backwards to parallelto the floor-50 times each way.

7. Jumping Jacks-5.

8. Running in Place-50 (each left foot equals 1 count.

9. Bend the upper body to the left and then to the right-50 times each way.

10. Knee bends-5.

11. Touching the tows-5, both feet equal a count of one.

12. Push-ups-5.

13. Sit up’s-5.

14. Leg Scissors-5 (Lying prone, raise the legs 45 degrees, separate,bring together and down.

15. 4 laps of swimming (back stroke) in the pool (about 170/180 strokes).

16. Walk

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