Nicotine Cravings getting in your way of quitting? Every time you try and quit do the cravings drive you back to smoking? Want to know why? And what kind of things you can do to get past the cravings? Then this video is for you. Stay till the end and I will give you the #1 way to beat any craving.  Also I will post a link in the description below for a free fifteen minute phone consultation with me. It’s simply a conversation for those that really need a little help to get on the right track to quitting smoking for the rest of your life.  It’s free and fun!

My names Ted Bradley – Quit Smoking Expert and if this is your first time to this channel and you are interested in quitting smoking and you want tons of tips, tricks and hacks to quit than simply hit that subscribe button and smash the notification icon – it simply will notify you when I post new content to the channel and I post a minimum of two new video’s for you every week.

Let’s hop right into the content. Why do cravings drive us back to smoking? Well simply put its because cravings are difficult to deal with, they are our bodies’ way of dealing with a chemical imbalance in the brain. Your bodies trying to reach equilibrium. your body is designed for Homeostasis. Meaning your body is constantly trying to remain in a state of equilibrium. So when you smoke and your body gets used to the nicotine – and it does – and then all of a sudden there is no nicotine, guess what your body does? It creates a physiological condition called a craving, why? To get you to smoke so the body can achieve equilibrium again. Your body is just doing what it’s supposed to do. If you quit smoking and you get cravings congratulations you’re on your way to better health. Now that’s not particular helpful is it? As it’s these same very cravings that drive you back to smoking and cause you to fail time and time again. To get past cravings you first have to arm yourself with the knowledge of how they work as this understanding is how you will learn how to beat them. You cannot beat something you don’t understand.

Here’s what’s happening to you when you smoke and then try and quit. When you smoke your brain sends out a receptor called a polypeptide this polypeptide and other receptors job is to pull the 4,600 chemicals out of the cigarette smoke.  That’s right your body has to ingest at a molecular level all 4,600 chemicals and decide what to do with them every time you take a drag. One of those chemicals is nicotine. Once the polypeptide has the nicotine it brings it to the part of your brain that is your pleasure receptor. Want to know why smoking is an enjoyable compulsion for many? Well every drag we take hits our pleasure sensor and causes our brain to release dopamine. Dopamine is one of the chemicals that your brain releases that makes you feel good. So here you are let’s say smoking 25 cigarettes a day and the average smoker takes 20 drags on a cigarette that’s 500 hits of dopamine a day. 500 times a day you are tell your brain smoke feel good and you do this for how many years? 10, 20, 30? Do the math. Now all of a sudden you decide to quit cold turkey, which by the way is the absolute worst way to quit and the most likely to cause relapse and failure. Science already knows that only 7% of people quit smoking for good with the aid of a program. So here you are 500 times a day decade after decade getting your hit of dopamine and all of a sudden it’s gone? Guess what your body is wired to do? Homeostasis in other words your body wants to achieve equilibrium.  So your body creates a physical response called withdrawal for example sweating, headaches, sore throat, insomnia, weight gain, brain fog these are physical symptoms not mental symptoms.  Withdrawal is a physical symptom.  These physical symptoms drive something called a craving, a craving is a psychological symptom, like not being able to stop thinking about cigarettes, anxiety, stress, irritability, depression. Notice all of the cravings are feelings or thoughts in the mind? This is your first clue on how to beat them.  If it’s mental then we can use our minds to deal with these issues. Using more chemicals to deal with psychological issues is extreme and should only be done under the supervision of a medical professional and the effectiveness of this is very much in question.

So where does that leave you!? When you quit your body now lacks nicotine and your body creates withdrawal symptoms to try and get you to smoke again so your body can achieve that equilibrium. The mechanism the body uses is withdrawal as it drives the mental condition of cravings. It’s a neat little trick your body plays on you. That’s the why you get withdrawal and cravings. It’s why you often fail at quitting smoking, It’s just your body doing what it is designed to do. Why do some people seem to not have cravings and not others? Those that don’t Most likely they did a program that had a component designed to help them with cravings or they were in the 7% that do manage to quit smoking by powering through. Pregnant women quit smoking without any cravings and there are really good reasons for that but that’s for another video. If the hard part of quitting is dealing with cravings what can be done? What can I teach you that will help you? That’s difficult and here’s why, there is no magic pill I can give you that will end cravings. It doesn’t exists. If it did someone would be a billionaire and we would all know about it, right?. Even in my program I have had to carefully design my program to help people deal with it. Here’s how. Cravings are a continuum. Meaning that it’s not on or off its more like on a scale of 1 to 10.  1 being no cravings at all and 10 being the cravings are unmanageable. If you quit cold turkey or you use a program that does not have built into it how to deal with cravings what happens is you get a 8, 9 or 10 on the cravings scale and you don’t know what to do? Guess what happens when you get a cravings and it’s a 8, 9 or 10 and you don’t know what to do? You fail! You give in! Those 7% of people that quit cold turkey just power through it, but that’s the exception and not the rule. Its extremely difficult and not very likely. 93% of people can’t power through it. That’s why the average smoker fails 30 times. Do you want to fail 30 times before being successful? Your likely spend around $40,000 failing over over for the next 20 years and science tell us you will fail 30 times. What a waste of money. You could have bought and done thousands and thousands of quit smoking programs. Why not just bite the bullet find a program that deals with cravings and spend the little bit of money and save yourself 10’s of thousands of dollars! Dealing with cravings is really about driving the craving down the continuum.  If I said to you “if your cravings stays at a 9 or 10 how hard will it be to not smoke? Very hard right? What if I said to you when you get a craving I can teach you how to drive it down to a 4 would it be a lot easier to not smoke and get through it? Yes of course!

In my program “the secret to quitting smoking for life” we attack the cravings head on so most people never have the cravings in the first place and those that do experience them describe them as a 2 or a 3 and it’s easy to not give into a craving. I will now give you the top three ways that people can deal with cravings according to science. These are taken from the scientific literature and not my program. My program uses a propriety method I designed and you’ll have to take my program to found out what they are. Let’s look at what science says the top three methods are for dealing with cravings.

#3 Support, believe it or not often all you need to do to get by a craving is support. Typically it’s a quit smoking buddy to help you deal with the cravings. You simply call them on the phone and talk through what is happening to you. Often by the time you’re done explaining the craving, the craving has gone from 10 to a 6. It’s a very simply and effective way to deal with cravings.  So pick a quit smoking buddy and make sure they will be available to you for at least 1 month. You can also be there for them as well. Success is really about the art of positive momentum and you and your quit smoking buddy can feed off each other’s success.  This is well known to work. Its why in my program has support as a huge component of it.

#2 Chew or play with something. Often called the distraction method. Science has shown that often the cravings are connected to a physical action like putting something in our mouth or holding something in your hand. Often when you quit it’s why you worry about being bored. You became accustom to doing something with your hands and mouth. So now that you’re quit what are you going to do? According to science the following are the most effective techniques. Gum, hard candies, pens, toothpicks and brushing your teeth when you have a craving.  The point is you can give your body something to do when you experience a trigger. Over time this helps diminish the cravings. I personally have not found this method particularly effective but I did not do the scientific research and according to science many people find this effective. So if it works for you that I awesome!

And the #1 way to deal with any craving is to avoid or change the trigger. Here’s why, when you smoke for so long you create habits for example you always smoke when you drive or when having a drink. What happens is you create an association between smoking and a particular time of day or a particular activity. So now you’re not smoking and it’s that time of day or you’re doing that particular activity. Guess what happens? You think of a cigarette of course that’s how your brain works, but then you do something in neuroscience we call catastrophizing.  You assume the absolute worst. You have your morning coffee, 5 minutes goes by and you realize you have not thought about smoking except wait a minute I just thought about it! Am I having a withdrawal symptom? Is this causing a craving? Wait a minute is this a craving? And boom – your now freaking out simply because you thought of a cigarette.  This is what happens if you don’t know how to deal with these thoughts. If you don’t take a course that deals with this than you have not properly prepared yourself for quitting smoking and you wonder why it’s so hard to quit! You have failed to plan and prepare. That’s all. So what does science say can be done? It says you can help by avoiding the triggers. The most common triggers are waking up in the morning, going to bed, having a coffee, driving, walking, going outside, before or after meals, watching TV, Socializing, having a drink like a beer or a glass of wine or when you are stressed. If you’re a stress smoker watch my video on smoking and stress. Clearly some of these can be avoided. For example if you always smoke when you drink then quit drinking until the cravings are gone or don’t socialize with other smokers for a while. Just simply tell them you are quitting and once the cravings are gone you will go out with them again. The difference will be that it will be so much easier to say no to the smoking once you’re past the cravings even in social situations.  But many of these other triggers cannot be avoided. Like driving, are you going to stop driving for a month or longer? No you still have to go to work. But what you can do is change the trigger in a small and meaningful way. Leave at a different time, drive a different route, or change your coffee, cut down on the sugar or cream. According to science you can simply alter a trigger instead of avoiding it.

Although in my program we change the associations using more advanced techniques these, these three tips will still give you a fighting chance. It’s best to be has prepared as possible when you quit if you want to be successful at quitting smoking for life.

If you have any comments just make them in the comment section below, also if you have any questions just put them in the comment section below. I answer all questions in the comment section. Also if this video was helpful please subscribe if this is your first time to this channel and you are interested in quitting smoking and you want tons of tips, tricks and hacks to quit than simply hit that subscribe button and smash the notification icon – it simply will notify you when I post new content to the channel. Also take advantage of the free fifteen minute phone consultation with me the link is in the description below. I will get you on the right track to quitting smoking for the rest of your life.

Thank you so much for your time and attention, blessing to everyone and I look forward to speaking with you.