What do you really know about smoking

The risks of smoking and the benefits of quitting

There are many reasons you might want to use hypnosis to help you stop smoking. These are just a few of the benefits you'll get when you quit:

you'll save money: if you spend currently £5 per day on cigarettes, you'll save £1825 per year when you quit
you'll become healthier: one of many reports about smoking and health can be found here
you're protecting your family or setting them a better example:
- smoking during pregnancy damages children's blood vessels; see the study here.
- 73% of smokers' children worry that their parents will die due to smoking, and 69% of smokers had parents who smoked, see a report here.
you'll look and feel younger:
- smokers look older, see this slideshow and reports
- ladies who smoke have saggier breasts, see the report here.
- men who smoke 20+ a day are more likely to go bald, see the article here
you'll feel better about yourself: smokers who quit are happier, see the report here

Most people know that smoking is linked to cancer and other health risks, here are a few statistics you may not be so familiar with.

Smoking 1.5 packs a day gives a dose of radiation of 60 - 1650 mSv per year, the same as 300 chest x-rays. To put this in perspective, living near a nuclear power plant gives a dose of only 0.0001 mSv per year [source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_effects_of_tobacco ]
We do not know exactly what is in a cigarette because the full 'recipe' is known only by the tobacco companies. Just like Colonel Sanders' 'blend of 11 herbs and spices' for chicken, it's a closely guarded commercial secret.
We do know there are over 4,000 different chemicals, many of which are harmful or even lethal at the right levels. For example, if you were to extract the nicotine from just one cigarette and inject it directly into a vein (instead of smoking it) you would be dead within seconds [source: Roger Allen, 'Scripts and Strategies in Hypnotherapy', publisher Crown House Publishing]
Sidestream smoke (also called 'second hand' or 'environmental' smoke) includes both exhaled smoke and smoke which is emitted from a cigarette at rest (e.g. left in an ashtray). It is breathed in by those sharing the environment with the smoker (passive smoking). Sidestream smoke is thought by some researchers to be even more dangerous than mainstream smoke [source: Schick, S; Glantz S (December 2005).'Philip Morris toxicological experiments with fresh sidestream smoke: more toxic than mainstream smoke'. Tobacco Control 14 (6): 396–404]

If you are not yet ready to stop smoking altogether you can gain some benefit simply by cutting down on cigarettes. Find out more at http://www.buzzle.com/articles/benefits-of-cutting-down-smoking.html.