CLINICAL & RESEARCH NEWS-1

Smoking Cessation Harder 

For Women Than Men

Men and women are not created equally—at least not when it comes to quitting smoking.

Women may suffer greater smoking-related health problems and have a harder time stubbing out that last cigarette than do men, according to a review of recent research.

Kenneth Perkins, Ph.D., a professor of psychiatry at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic in Pittsburgh, reviewed more than 100 studies on smoking cessation and found that women appear to suffer greater risks of smoking-related diseases than men and tend to have less success than men when they try to quit smoking. The study appears in the May issue of CNS Drugs.

In regard to smoking-related health risks, one study showed that women had almost twice the risk of myocardial infarction than did men. Other studies pointed to greater risk of heart attack and stroke in women smokers who use oral contraceptives.

In addition, outcome studies on lung cancer led Perkins to conclude that, controlling for the amount of smoke exposure, women may have nearly double the risk of lung cancer as men. Recent research has identified a role for estrogen in increasing the lung cancer risk, according to Perkins.

Perkins also found some evidence that breast cancer risk may be increased among women who smoke, although he acknowledged that more studies are needed to replicate that finding.

Thus, smoking is especially dangerous for women, and the imperative to quit couldn’t be clearer. But it’s not that easy—especially for women, according to Perkins. “Treatment isn’t one size fits all,” he told Psychiatric News. “We can’t just say, ‘Here is a nicotine patch, now go and use it.’ Women have unique obstacles facing them.”

The research that Perkins reviewed suggests that women have more concerns about weight gain after they quit and greater susceptibility to falling back into old habits when faced with certain cues that trigger smoking, such as being around certain friends or experiencing specific moods.

Perkins also noted that men tended to benefit more from nicotine replacement therapy.

One study by Joel Killen, Ph.D., of Stanford University found that using nicotine gum resulted in abstinence from smoking twice as often in men as did using a placebo. For women, however, the nicotine gum didn’t help them to abstain from smoking.

Yet another study found similar results with the nicotine patch, where 17 percent of women but 24 percent of men were able to abstain from smoking with the treatment.

But women had a more positive response than men when it came to certain antidepressant medications. Perhaps due to the fact that depressed mood more often precipitates a smoking relapse in women, they are more likely to benefit from medications such as bupropion than are men, according to Perkins. Medications used to assist smoking cessation, such as clonidine and naltrexone, are also more effective for women, according to outcome studies.

Pregnant women, however, cannot take these medications since there is a significant risk to the developing fetus.

Finally, researchers are developing anti-smoking strategies that are tailored to women.

Perkins is currently involved in a counseling approach for women who are trying to quit smoking. Researchers at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic are using cognitive-behavioral therapy with women to reduce their concerns about weight gain.

The researchers are also using bupropion to see if it boosts the effects of therapy compared with placebo.

Smoking has resulted in the deaths of 3 million women since 1980, according to the Surgeon General’s recent report on women and smoking. It is also expected to cause 3 million more deaths per year among women by 2020.

“My message is not only for the smokers themselves but also for health care providers that there are many obstacles that crop up when people are trying to quit smoking,” said Perkins, who added that smokers should identify ways to cope with these obstacles before they emerge. “Often, people are faced with the situation that made them smoke, and they don’t have a coping mechanism in place,” he pointed out. ▪

MISSION DE-ADDICTION-1

The race begins to stop smoking with you

Summons to stop smoking is one of the most difficult tasks that many adults will be overcome. Cigarettes are easily accessible and socially acceptable, and may be difficult to follow. For other forms of chemical dependency addicts must completely from the culture that supports their habit to delete. If drug of choice, you can buy in supermarkets, but a much bigger challenge. While there are stories of people who were able to walk, is the most common history of struggle and repeated failure.

Perhaps the most important thing you can do if you decide you want to stop smoking is to help a friend or family member to win, drawing you to justice. Having someone there to encourage the street is more than any other product, stop smoking, you can buy. It is important to remember that smoking addiction as emotional, of course. Although various aspects of the medical community trying to argue both sides, it seems safe to conclude that two factors come into play, so be sure you have a great support to congratulate you, the consumer products selected to help you stop smoking.

Of course, there is a range of consumer products in order to help you stop smoking. Everything from chewing gum, patches right hand and hypnosis, to be able to reduce your cravings for cigarettes after. Some smokers have found these products can be useful to varying degrees, but it is important to remember that they are only tools. To complete the final decision must come from within or from you.

For many smokers to stop smoking, smoking might be a problem for others in their lives than by concern for themselves. The new parents decide that they want their children growing up exposed to tobacco smoke and grandparents decide that they want their grandchildren to let them know until adulthood. Family ties are important incentives and have the key to success for many adults who have stopped smoking.

If you choose, preferably with the help of your doctor, one of the commercial products to help you stop smoking, you should do a lot of research beforehand to know what to expect. Familiarize yourself with the benefits, as some will be reduced gradually over time, while others remain stable. It should also be a time for the effects that may occur, be ready.

In the struggle to stop smoking, the ultimate responsibility to you eventually. Although you can use the best products available and surround you with a strong support network, no help, if not stop the commitment to start smoking. Take the first step. Decided that it would be a slave to addiction and do what is needed to improve the quality of your life, and therefore the quality of life for your family.

TOBACCO CESSATION-1

Walk to Quit





Researchers from Exeter University recently reported that a 15 minutes walk may be effective for at least two hours and could help
smokers break the habit. Researchers examined the effects of one-mile walk on 15 smokers, who didn’t have a puff for 15 hours.
They found that during walking & for at least 20 minutes after walking, cravings for cigarette were much lower than when the person did
nothing. During exercise, the brain releases the neurotransmitter dopamine which acts on pleasure pathways almost like a reward.
The smoker’s desire for a cigarette to relieve withdrawal symptoms & to feel good were both reduced.

Quitting Smoking

Using Hypnosis to Quit Smoking




In 1974, at Hypnosis Motivation Institute, one of the biggest clinics of its type at the time, and even bigger today, I was certified by Dr. John Kappas, PhD as a Master Hypnotist.



I subsequently joined Chapter 473 of the AFL-CIO affiliated Hypnotist's Union and became a Charter Member of the American Hypnosis Association.



During my time as a practicing hypnotist, I can honestly say I had three major successes. First, my daughter stepped into a scalding tub of water and received third degree burns to above her ankles.



The doctor who treated her in the emergency room said she would eventually need grafts, as the skin was completely damaged, and likely the tendons were severely damaged as well.



Using nothing but hypnosis, I helped her heal those feet completely in seven days. No scabs were there when the bandages were removed, no scars were event. A doctor who'd examined her at the emergency room and again a week later called it, "miraculous".



The second event was with a girl who'd been crippled in an auto accident. She could barely walk with the assistance of elaborate braces and crutches. She had two doctors and a physical therapist working on her full time for two years, with no discernable recovery.



During the only session I was allowed with her (the doctors immediately put a huge block between us, threatening legal action) I discovered that her paralysis was totally psychological.



I won't detail the reason, but it was totally guilt-based. Her fiancé died in the wreck. She felt responsible.



Through hypnosis, I got her to break through the guilt barrier and walk out of the clinic without the crutches or braces. Hence, the doctors freaking out. (It probably meant the end of those insurance payments.)



The third was a man who'd had a brain surgery to stop his Parkinson's disease from killing him. After the surgery, he could only talk in a whisper. I have a cassette tape of him yelling out during a session, "Mother, can you hear me?" We both cried.



So I believe I do know something about hypnosis.



At HMI, I specialized in smoking cessation. Although I was good at it, I could not seem to get past the fact that I was not able to hypnotize myself (all hypnosis is in fact, self-hypnosis) into quitting my "pack a day" habit.



The truth of the matter was that many of the hypnotists that worked with me were also smoking, although attempting to hide it from their clients, as I was.



What was wrong with that picture?



For several years, I did theatrical "comedy hypnosis shows". Often someone who had volunteered would ask for a suggestion after the show, most for one to quit smoking. I would always oblige.



I remember one fellow who came to several shows and volunteered every time. He was an excellent subject, and we had a lot of fun.



He was, at the time, a three pack a day smoker. I gave him the suggestion that he would no longer desire to smoke, and a week later at the next show, he told me that he'd not had a cigarette since that night. I was pleased.



I saw him again perhaps three or four weeks later. He'd gone back to smoking. I asked why. He said something about some event that had triggered the smoking.



Ultimately, I quit doing the shows and quit the clinical practice. I had accomplished those few wonders while I practiced, but I was done. I'd never wanted to be a "doctor", but only the entertainer I was when on stage.



But I still wondered about how to quit smoking. I had tried "cold turkey" three times and knew I was never going to make that stick. So I asked myself this question.



How can I quit and smoke every cigarette I wanted to while I was doing it? Even the question sounded foolish to me. How could I quit doing something while I still did it all I wanted?



The answer was and is simple. I had to figure out how to stop wanting to smoke.



First, I had to figure out why hypnosis didn't last. Why did it work, but only for a while?



I came up with this. Smoking is both a chemical addiction and a psychological habit. I'd always heard, even to this day, that the addiction to nicotine is more powerful than that of heroin or cocaine.



But then if that was true, then couldn't someone be hypnotized away from either of those addictions, just as I had done with so many smokers?



The answer seems to be a resounding NO.



I never even hear of anyone being hypnotized away from a truly serious drug addiction. Or even trying.



Seems to me that if nicotine is more addictive than heroin, then it should be as simple to get someone to quit the addiction, even for a few weeks, as it is to get them to quit smoking.



But apparently it is not.



So I decided that the addiction to nicotine was not the demon drug it is portrayed to be. In fact, it did not even seem to be the driving force behind the smoking habit/addiction.



I gave a lot of thought to what we were doing when we hypnotized someone to quit smoking. What I decided was that we were instilling a habit of denying a habit. We were building a psychological wall between the smoker and their cigarettes.



Building a habit of denying a habit. Two habits in opposition. A wall between them. No wonder one gets a little "testy" during those first few weeks.



Then, when some event in their lives became so traumatic that they were psychologically "shaken", the wall crumbled. They returned to their former behavior, often very quickly to the same level of consumption they were at before they were hypnotized.



A woman told me recently that her father had stopped smoking for over twenty years. Then one night in a bar, he picked up a cigarette, lit it, and went back to his over a pack a day habit within a week.



So he never truly quit smoking, he just stopped for a while, a long while. Just as those who'd been hypnotized had done. He'd built a habit of denying his habit until one day, he decided, for whatever reason, to cast the capping habit aside.



I am not saying that hypnosis cannot work. I am saying that it must be applied in a very specific way to work. It cannot be used to simply block the habit, it must be used to uproot it at its core.



Most people who have quit smoking, should they even pick up one cigarette and smoke it, would revert to their old habit quite quickly.



Just as an alcoholic should never take even that one little drink, as it is likely to start them on a "bender", someone who's quit cold turkey should never pick up that first cigarette.



Using the system on myself that eventually evolved from my constant desire to quit while I still smoked all I wanted, I did eventually arrive at that place I so strived to achieve. I no longer wanted to smoke.



I had uprooted the psychological mechanism that I had created for myself when I was fourteen years old. I no longer am a smoker on any level.



If I was forced, for whatever reason, to smoke one cigarette, it would certainly NOT put me back on the path to that pack a day. I am certain of that.



Most hypnotist, in my experience, do not understand the concept of uprooting a psychological addiction. They use blocking methods.



To my mind, this is not only a waste of time and money, it damages the credibility of hypnosis, and it damages the belief of the smoker that they can ever truly quit smoking