After many years of smoking I am concerned that I should give up while I still can. I have smoked for so long that I can hardly imagine not smoking but I know I must stop and I know it will be hard to do. I have been trying to find the best way to stop and I thought others would be interested too.

The way most people tackle the task of quitting smoking is by simply going cold turkey. They stop smoking and try to remain strong and determined enough to fight the craving and desire for cigarettes. Many people have succeeded in this way and I guess if you are astrong willed person this may work for you. I am not so sure this is the way for me to give up cigarettes as I suspect I would just start all over again.

For some people they need a replacement therapy such as a dummy cigarette. One of the habitual features of smoking is that you have something between your fingers and the idea is that by replacing that cigarette with something else to put between your fingers you can reduce the feeling of loss.

One old fashioned but sometimes effective approach is to smell an ashtray every time you fancy a cigarette. Even smokers with their reduced sense of smell and taste find the smell of an ashtray objectionable so this might be enough to convince you to stop smoking and even if it just puts off smoking a cigarette for a short while that is a help.

One of the more recent developments has been nicotine patches which you fix onto your skin. The patches release a certain amount of nicotine into your skin which helps prevent your body craving the chemical. With your body’s habit satisfied you only need to get yourself over the idea of smoking and patches, perhaps, combined with one or other of the ideas mentioned here might do the trick for you.

One slightly surprising way to help you stop smoking is acupuncture. The ideas behind acupuncture have been around for thousands of years and for some people it is an effective way of helping them to stop smoking. My brother tried this and stopped smoking for several years but then started again. Maybe with a few more treatments he might not have started again but this may be a very effective way to stop smoking for some people.

Willpower is the key to controlling any habit and if you can strenthen your resolve to stop smoking then that will help you enormously. This seems to be the idea with hypnosis so that your subconcious mind becomes more convinced that you do not want to smoke a cigarette at all. I have not tried this myself but it seems that some people have found this a very effective way of overcoming their desire for a cigarette.