94% stop smoking success rate…really?
Stop Smoking Tip
Be cautious of companies that boast outrageously high success rates and look for a program with sufficient follow-up support.
When a client first stops smoking, laser therapy helps to alleviate the withdrawal symptoms, such as anxiety and irritability. When my clients come back every couple of months throughout the year, the laser treatments help them to reduce stress. This formula boosts long-term success.
It’s also a good idea to be cautious of companies that boast an exceptionally high stop smoking success rate. For example, a BC-based laser therapy franchise advertises a 94% success rate. This success rate is based on a one-week time period.
Rather than choosing a company that promotes a one-week success rate, I would suggest opting for a program that gives you long-term support.
Visit www.revitalizenow.ca for more information.
Isagenix Weight Loss Success
Hundreds of thousands of people throughout North America have seen excellent results with the Isagenix nutritional cleansing program. These systems are formulated to help you cleanse of impurities, reduce body fat, shed inches and increase energy. It’s a proven system that really works!
“I have noticed a definite increase in my energy! I am truly impressed with my results so far and believe my goal is achievable. Before I would never have dreamed of setting my sights so high, as the thought was quite overwhelming. This cleanse is truly a wonderful program!”
Barbara released 19 pounds during her first Isagenix nutritional cleansing program.
For a free phone consultation, please call 604-609-2004 or email info@revitalizenow.ca.
Isagenix Success Story
“For two years, I tried to figure out how to eat properly. The result was that I gained a few more pounds and my blood pressure went higher. This year, I found a way! I lost more than 20 pounds with the Isagenix cleansing program. I feel great and have more energy. People say I look younger, which is very nice to hear, but more importantly, I now have a good chance of living longer.”
Fred M., Vancouver, released 23 pounds during his first Isagenix nutritional cleansing program.
For a free phone consultation, please call 604-609-2004 or email info@revitalizenow.ca.
Reduce body fat, lose weight & improve energy with Isagenix.
Are you looking for a healthy and relatively quick way to reduce body fat?
Hundreds of thousands of people throughout North America have seen excellent results with the Isagenix nutritional cleansing program. These systems are formulated to help you cleanse of impurities, reduce body fat, shed inches and increase energy. It’s a proven system that really works!
Benefits:
1) reduced body fat and weight loss,
2) diminished appetite and fewer cravings
3) improved energy
4) clearer skin
5) enhanced mental clarity
“We’re both incredibly rejuvenated. We sleep better and we feel happier. The nutritional cleansing program has taught us better eating habits and helped us lose a lot of weight in a short time period. I lost 18 pounds and 15 inches with my first short program. My wife Shelagh shed about 10 pounds and 13 inches. She lost 4 inches from her waist!” — Cory K. and Shelagh S.
Call 604-609-2004 or email info@revitalizenow.ca for your FREE phone consultation.
See what doctors say about the Isagenix products: http://www.isamovie.com/en/Doctors.html
88 percent of smokers who work downtown Vancouver want to quit
Vancouver, British Columbia (May13, 2009) – According to a recent survey, 88 percent of smokers who work in office buildings downtown Vancouver want to quit.
The survey, which was conducted by a local business that specializes in smoking cessation (Revitalize Now!), questioned 50 smokers outside of their place of work in the downtown core. Forty-four smokers out of 50 (88 percent) confirmed that they want to quit smoking.
The majority (80 percent) of the smokers who were surveyed said that health is their primary factor for wanting to quit. Many of the participants expressed a desire to have more energy and breathe easier, as well as wanting to avoid life-threatening diseases.
Thirty two percent of the smokers commented that they want to stop smoking for financial reasons, while 30 percent claimed that the smell of cigarettes makes them want to butt out. Eleven percent said that they want to quit due to the social stigma attached to smoking cigarettes. Finally, nine percent of the participants commented that they want to stop smoking because it consumes a lot of time.
When asked what holds them back from stopping smoking, 21 percent felt that the addiction to nicotine prohibited them from stopping smoking, while another 21 percent claimed that they lacked sufficient will power or discipline to quit. Eighteen percent noted that the ingrained habit of smoking cigarettes makes it difficult to quit.
Stress was also a common response, with 27 percent of the participants claiming that stress keeps them from quitting. Nine percent said they continue to smoke because their friends smoke, which makes it challenging to quit.
“I was really surprised at the high percentage of smokers who said they want to quit,” says Rachel Shoniker, the founder of Revitalize Now!. “This shows us that although the majority of smokers want to quit, stopping smoking can be extremely difficult,” says Shoniker.
Revitalize Now! offers a multi-disciplinary stop smoking program that includes laser therapy, far infrared sauna therapy, coaching and free follow-up support within one year.
– 30 –
For more information, please contact:
Rachel Shoniker
Revitalize Now!
Ph. 604-609-2004
info@revitalizenow.ca
Stop Smoking Tip: Practice Repetition
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is not an action, but a habit.” — Aristotle
Successful change requires concentration and repetition. In the beginning, it takes a tremendous amount of conscious awareness and energy for us to create and break habits and change habitual thinking. Our brains are designed to conserve energy for important things like breathing and coordinated motion. Our brains, if given the choice, will choose to revert back to established habits because they require less energy. However, as we continuously practice our new habits over and over, neurons begin to bond with each other. In other words, neurons that fire together, wire together. After a period of time and with repetition, your new habits won’t require energy.
A research psychologist by the name of Dr. Michael Schlund conducted a test to determine what happens in the brain when we learn a new behaviour based on rewards. Schlund put volunteers into an MRI machine and they were asked to press one of two buttons to make decisions. When they pressed the right button, they would win money, which was their reward. The volunteers soon learned which button was the correct one to press in order to win the money. They repeated this process over and over and over.
Schlund discovered that when volunteers achieved the money reward for clicking on the right button, the frontal lobe lit up. The frontal lobe is the part of our brain associated with self-control, decision making and behavioural change. With each repetition, their frontal lobes lit up more and more, which meant their brain activity continued to increase as they learned the new behavior. Here’s the good news – within about 50 repetitions, the reverse started happening. The frontal lobe lit up less and less. The brain started to exert less and less effort and finally minimal effort once the task officially became a new habit and wired into the brain.
To learn more about laser therapy to stop smoking, go to www.revitalizenow.ca or call 604-609-2004.
Stop Smoking Tip: Understand how nicotine works in your body
Knowledge is an important part of your success. In order for you to come up with a plan and successfully stop smoking, it will help you to understand how nicotine works in your body.
When a person inhales cigarette smoke, nicotine reaches the brain (via the bloodstream) in about eight seconds. It only takes 15-20 seconds for nicotine to make its way throughout the entire body. Nicotine enters your body in the form of thousands of little droplets, which penetrate into the branches of your lungs. From the lungs, it’s a fast trip to the heart, where nicotine is pumped out to every part of your body.
As you know, nicotine is a stimulant. Nicotine mimics the effects of ACH or acetylecholine, which is one of our body’s neurotransmitters. There are certain receptors that respond to ACH. Our adrenal glands have these receptors on them. Our adrenal glands release certain neurotransmitters when we are confronted with a physical threat or ‘fight or flight’ situation. The result is that our heart rate increases, while less blood flows to our extremities.
These same receptors also respond to nicotine. This is why nicotine has a stimulating effect. When we inhale cigarette smoke, the same ‘fight or flight’ response is triggered. With the first cigarette of the day, our heart rate increases and our blood pressure goes up.
On the flip side, smokers will often say that cigarettes help them cope with stress and calm them. In my opinion, there are two reasons for this. First, when nicotine starts to decrease in your blood and you boost the nicotine level in your system, you will avoid withdrawal symptoms, which might calm you. Second, it has also been shown that larger doses of nicotine have a calming effect. Apparently, there was a time many decades ago when nicotine in extremely high doses was used to sedate elephants. It’s obviously impossible to inhale these extremely high doses, but it has been suggested that taking longer and deeper drags of a cigarette could have the ability to calm a smoker.
You can now see why it is important to incorporate stress reduction activities into your daily routine when you stop smoking. I would suggest that you read some of other blog entries for tips to help you adjust to a smoke-free life. Good luck!!
Stop Smoking Tip: Use a stop smoking relaxation CD
One of the most helpful tools that my clients receive with their package is a powerful stop smoking CD. The CD I use in my business is created by a psychotherapist who is a leader in guided imagery — Belleruth Naparstek. It is specifically designed to reduce mental cravings and stress, while increasing confidence and commitment to remaining smoke-free. Her CDs are used in thousands of clinics and hospitals in the States. Most of my clients love this CD!
One of my clients is a 50-year old lady who quit smoking with me almost a year ago. She suffers from depression. She told me that she still listens to the CD every day on her drive to work and when she arrives at her office she feels happy, positive and inspired. What a great way to start the day!
Here is the CD that I recommend: “A Meditation to Help You Stop Smoking” by Belleruth Naparstek. You may find it online at http://www.lifenow.com.
Stop Smoking Tip: Make your space smoke-free
Get rid of any lighters, ashtrays and packs of cigarettes. Clean up your home and vehicle so that they are completely smoke-free spaces. If you live with a smoker, ask them to smoke outside and where you can’t see them. I would suggest avoiding friends who smoke for the first three weeks. Or, at the very least, ask them to not smoke when you are around. Also, it’s a good idea to avoid hanging out where people usually smoke, such as the smoking area outside your office building.
Rachel Shoniker is the founder of Revitalize Now! – a Vancouver business that helps people stop smoking with a multi-disciplinary approach that includes: laser therapy to reduce stress and alleviate withdrawal symptoms; far infrared sauna therapy to detoxify of nicotine and toxins; and free follow-up treatments within one year to help you remain smoke-free for good.
Stop Smoking Tip: No such thing as “just one cigarette”
In order to understand the importance of this stop smoking tip, it’s helpful to first look at how our brain works. We establish pathways in our brain through repetition and habit. In other words, we develop neural-chemical circuits or “wire our brain” with our repeated actions, routine and habits. Nerve cells that repeatedly fire together, eventually wire together.
Once we establish these pathways, they remain strong as long as they are in use. Our brains, if given the choice, will revert back to established habits because they require less energy. In other words, one cigarette can reactivate the pathway and lead many ex-smokers back to full-time smoking. It’s important to embrace this fact. It’s just the way our brain works.
Several years ago, I met a man who proved this fact. He had quit smoking and had remained smoke-free for about six months. One day, he was cleaning his car when he found an old pack of cigarettes. He told me he was curious and wanted to see if he would like the taste and the sensation of smoking a cigarette, after being a non-smoker for a significant period of time. Not surprisingly, he quickly ended up going back to smoking a pack day.
Have you ever been smoke-free and ended up smoking again because you told yourself you could have “just one cigarette”?
Stop Smoking Tip: Use Liquid Ionic Magnesium to calm nerves when quitting smoking
One of the main reasons that smokers postpone quitting is the fear of withdrawal symptoms. Three common withdrawal symptoms — difficulty sleeping, hostility and anxiety — can be significantly reduced by using this healthy nutritional supplement.
Magnesium is an anti-stress mineral. It’s a nerve and muscle relaxant, and has an effect similar to a natural tranquilizer. My clients LOVE this stuff! Many of them return to my office to buy several bottles at a time. If you have trouble sleeping, magnesium will definitely help.
I would recommend buying a liquid ionic form. This form of magnesium is 100% bioavailable, which means that it is completely absorbed by your sytem and has the most powerful effect.
There are minimal places that sell this form. The distributor that I use is called Biofrequency Consulting. If you are in Vancouver, you may call me at 604-609-2004 to pick up a bottle. Otherwise, here are a couple of retail options in the Lower Mainland of BC:
Finlandia (1964 W. Broadway, Vancouver)
Lifetime Organics (2009 152nd St, Surrey)
Poco Natural Foods (2329 Wyte Avenue, Port Coquitlam)
Anderson’s Pharmacy (273 Lonsdale Ave, North Vancouver)
Valley Natural (20425 Douglas Crescent, Langley)
Stop Smoking Tip: Identify your support system
In my experience, it is very powerful to have at least one person as your “support buddy”. It could be your spouse or your best friend. This is a person who calls you to see how you are doing or sends you supportive emails or texts. This is also a person who you can call if you’re having a bad day or experiencing a craving.
Stop Smoking Tip: Regularly practice stress management to remain a non-smoker
Stress is probably the most dangerous factor for ex-smokers. Unfortunately, stress has the ability to counteract our good intentions for change. Our stress hormones inhibit our frontal lobe, which is the area of the brain that is associated with conscious decision making and behavioural change. We use our frontal lobe when we are disciplined and control our impulses. Stress can trigger us to revert to behaviours that don’t require making conscious decisions (such as the old habit of smoking).
It is absolutely imperative that you determine how you will cope with stress. It is also extremely important that you regularly practice your stress management activities. Stress is a fact of life. Loved ones become sick or die, people get laid off from work, homes flood or get broken into and relationships end. These are all reasons I’ve heard that have encouraged ex-smokers to smoke again. These stressful and painful things happen in life. We can’t avoid them. However, we can plan how we will respond.
I would like to share a personal story. I was a smoker between 15 to 28 years old. (I was one of those “healthy” smokers. I ran half marathons, worked out at the gym and ate a vegan diet, but I smoked cigarettes.) During the summer and fall of 2008, I went through a lot of personal stress. You know when you think things can’t possibly get any worse and then something else bad happens? That was me. My stress level was through the roof!
Because I had consistently practiced stress management for several years, my high stress never pushed me to revert back to my old habit of smoking. Instead, I would take long walks on the ocean, exercise every morning, read inspirational books and listen to relaxation CDs. I’ve been practicing these stress management activities for several years. As a result, it never crossed my mind during those stressful months to ask a friend for “just one cigarette”.
What are your stress management activities? Do you regularly practice yoga or meditate? Do you go for walks or listen to relaxation CDs? Do you practice deep breathing when stress is high? If you plan to stop smoking, it is incredibly important to determine and regularly practice ways to reduce stress.
Stop Smoking Tip: Be prepared to put in effort for 2-3 weeks after quitting smoking
Most of the time, we’re on autopilot. Autopilot is easy. It takes no conscious awareness and no energy. In the beginning, changing your habits will require tremendous energy. You will need to be conscious and aware of your routine. This can be annoying and uncomfortable. We seek comfort, but change equals discomfort. To make a change requires a great deal of commitment, will and effort. I personally believe that this initial discomfort enhances a smoker’s withdrawal symptoms.
What’s the good news? As we continuously and repeatedly practice our new habits, neurons begin to bond with each other. As a result, after a period of time and with repetition, your new healthy activities will become ingrained habits and won’t require energy. (For more information, read my stop smoking tip about creating a habit-replacement plan.)
Rachel Shoniker is the founder of Revitalize Now! — a Vancouver business that helps people stop smoking with a multi-disciplinary approach that includes: laser therapy to reduce stress and alleviate withdrawal symptoms; far infrared sauna therapy to detoxify of nicotine and toxins; and free follow-up treatments within one year to help you remain smoke-free for good.
Stop Smoking Tip: Neutralize Cravings for Cigarettes
Cravings happen. They last between three to five minutes. It’s ok to experience a craving, but it’s important to know how you will respond. Acknowledge that you’re experiencing a craving, then choose a different thought.
One idea is to think about your reasons “why” you chose to live a smoke-free life. Perhaps the most effective idea is to think about someone or some event that makes you feel happy. I encourage my clients to get really detailed when they imagine an event or person that makes them smile and feel joy.
For example, I have a female client who has been smoke-free for more than a year and a half. One of her powerful reasons for quitting was to have greater lung capacity and be able to breathe easily. This was important to her because she loves to scuba dive. She also wanted to save money from quitting to go to Australia on a scuba diving trip. I suggested that she focus on the image of her scuba diving in Australia every time she experience a craving. She would see in her mind the blue water, the fish and reefs. After ten seconds of scuba diving in her mind, the craving for a cigarette was gone. She had neutralized the craving with her happy thought!
Science has demonstrated the connection between the mind and the body. Our every thought produces a bio-chemical reaction in our brain, which allows our body to feel exactly the way we are thinking. When you think happy, inspiring and positive thoughts, our brain manufactures chemicals that make us feel joyful, inspired and uplifted. When we anticipate an experience that is pleasurable or remember an event that made us smile, our brain immediately makes dopamine, which causes us to feel excited and happy.
Let’s try it. Think back to a really happy time in your life. Try to remember the happiest you’ve ever felt. Think of the laughter, the peace and the confidence. Emotionally relive a few of those moments. It’s not necessary to think of the details. It’s more important to remember the way that you felt. We’ve just raised your dopamine!
What is your joyful image that helps you neutralize cravings? Is it a vacation in a foreign country? Is it playing in the park with your kids? Is it a beautiful day on the golf course with your spouse or friends? I would encourage you to be prepared with an image that you see very vividly in your mind — the more detail, the better. The image should be something that really moves you and fills you with joy. It’s the feeling behind this thought that will help you neutralize cravings.
Practice thinking about this happy thought repeatedly throughout the day. It will make you physically and emotionally feel better and make stopping smoking a lot easier.
Another way of dealing with a craving is to practice deep breathing or distract yourself by going for a walk, cooking or calling a friend. I’ve even had clients do push-ups and sit-ups when they experience cravings.
What is your plan to help you confidently handle and neutralize cravings?
Recent Comments