There are many methods for giving up smoking ranging from the various nicotene replacements such as patches and gum, to self-help books, to hypnotherapy. Many people attempt to give up using willpower alone. So, which is the most effective method to give up smoking?

The following was taken from New Scientist vol 136 issue 1845-31 October 92, page 6: Cognitive reactions to smoking relapse by Elliot Wald, Tami J Eggelston PhD & Frederick Gibbson PhD.

Hypnosis is the most effective way of giving up smoking, according to the largest ever scientific comparison of ways of breaking the habit. Willpower, it turns out, counts for very little.

Smokers are coming under increasing pressure to quit. Earlier this month the Institute of Actuaries published the results of a study it commissioned which showed that the mortality rate for smokers is twice as high as for non-smokers, and that on average a smoker dies 6 years earlier than a non-smoker. Surveys suggest that three in four smokers would like to give up, according to the anti-smoking campaign Action on Smoking and Health (ASH). To find the most effective way to give up smoking, frank Schmidt and research student Chockalingam Viswesvaran of the University of Iowa carried out a meta-analysis, statistically combining the results of more than 600 studies covering almost 72,000 people from North America, Scandinavia and elsewhere in Europe. By combining the results from so many separate studies, the meta-analysis enables the real effectiveness of each technique to be picked out from the statistical "noise" that often blights studies involving smaller numbers of subjects. The results, published in the current issue of the journal of, show that the average success rate for all methods was 25%: that is, only about two in five smokers is likely to succeed using methods covered by the study. Patients told they had serious cardiac disorders, and so a clear incentive to stop immediately, had the highest quitting rate, at 36 per cent. But for most smokers the most effective technique was hypnosis, which included 48 studies covering over 6000 smokers, gave an average success rate of 80 per cent for this method.

The Quit Smoking sessions at Oke Hypnotherapy are designed not just to help you stop smoking but also to remove the "smoker mentality" so that you do not return to nicotene dependency later on during times of stress. In other words, the aim is to make you a non-smoker, not just someone who has quit. The session lasts up to two hours and includes a high quality CD recording of the session and the guarantee of future therapy at no cost if you do not stop smoking, or if you start again. Bear in mind when you compare this scheme to those offered by other hypnotherapists, the guarantee of future therapy is not limited to one or two sessions as with most schemes of this kind and does not have a time limit to the guarantee. Oke Hypnotherapy is able to offer such a confident guarantee due to the extremely high success rate of Gary's techniques. If you wish to discuss this scheme further, please feel free to call 0800 197 2775 for an informal discussion.

"I was a smoker for over 20 years, I had no idea giving up could be so painless" JC, Manchester