Acupuncture Can Help Quit Smoking
Smoking cigarettes is one of the most difficult habits to break. If wearing nicotine patches or chewing nicotine gum doesn’t do the job, perhaps you should try something else like an alternative kind of treatment like acupuncture.
Acupuncture is an old practice that involves using needles. This instrument is inserted just below your skin to allow your energy or Qi to start flowing more freely around your body and thus allow you to quit smoking.
During your first visit to see an acupuncturist, tell him/her that you need to quit smoking. Then immediately after answering some assessment questions, the acupuncturist will perform an examination of your tongue and pulses, searching for areas where the energy flow is weak, low, erratic, or unbalanced.
After these spots are generally identified, these whisker thin needles are then inserted. Usually a few needles are put in various acupoints.
The procedure is finished after anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour when the actual needles are taken out. For smoking cessation programs you may be advised to go home wearing tiny ear magnets. This means that your treatment session will continue even after you leave the actual clinic. While acupuncture itself is usually a painless procedure, some smokers have claimed they felt an initial prick or sometimes that they even got sleepy during the session.
Most smokers have to come to the clinic 4 to 6 times before discovering any significant effects. Just to present you with an idea, one study stated that the respondents claimed a decrease in cravings to smoke just after 1 or 2 sessions. Seven out of 10 of the respondents could kick the need to light up after 5 or perhaps 6 sessions.
Because there was only a small number of test subjects, there are a lot of people of who doubt the potency of acupuncture. This is because although you’ll find positive short term effects of this technique, its effects weren’t sustained. This is exactly why some medical newsletters have stated that it is unclear what acupuncture can do in smoking cessation.
But you have to remember that acupuncture isn’t a permanent cure. It merely starts something or supports something that you have to finish on your own. Some smokers who go to the clinic several times a week then stop, will likely need to come back for follow-up sessions sometime soon.
At the same time you are getting your acupuncture treatments, you need to find additional ways to avoid buying a cigarette. You can do this by staying away from people who smoke since you may be tempted to request a stick. You can create your own mantra which you can repeat to yourself each and every time you have an urge.
Remember that cravings are just short term and will last only for a couple minutes. Considering how hard you’ve worked to leave this behind it is really important to adhere to the path as well as stay smoke free. Acupuncture can help you do this.
Acupuncture treatments to help smokers quit should only be performed by a licensed Acupuncturist, like at Whole Person Health. You can do some research online to learn if they are accredited by the National Commission of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine. Ask how long they’ve been in practice, find out the number of smokers they get helped and simply how much will they charge for their smoking cessation program.
Once you have found one, you have to commit to completing the program because both you and the acupuncturist have to figure out together what it will take for you to give up this habit.
Acupuncture can help smokers just like it can help other addicts as well as alcoholics quit their addictions. even if you may not trust it, you only have to try it to see if it will help you.