I have been smoking for a long time now. Over forty years I have become thoughly addicted to cigarettes and I know I should give up but I also know that it will not be easy to stop smoking. So, I decided to read up on some of the different ways there are to stop smoking.

The most common way people try to stop smoking is by going cold turkey. You just stop smoking and fight the withdrawal symptoms. This does work for some people. They just wake up one morning and decide to stop smoking and that is it. They never touch another cigarette 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.

When you stop smoking suddenly your body craves the nicotine it has become used to. To overcome this problem nicotine patches were developed and you simply fix one to your skin and it will release a certain amount of nicotine into your body. These have become a very effective way for people to quit smoking and have had a lot of success. They can be expensive but the long term savings of not smoking will easily pay for them.

The idea that inserting needles into parts of your body could stop you smoking seems a little odd. However, acupuncture has been around for thousands of years and has had some success in stopping people smoking. My brother stopped smoking for several years after acupuncture so it can work and if you have tried everything else to stop you smoking then you might want to give acupunctue a go.

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.