Vitality News Health Articles

For a large percentage of the world’s population, smokeless tobacco is something they have tried, if not something indulged in regularly. Most people associate smokeless tobacco with sports stars, and falsely believe that it is a safe alternative to smoking. Unfortunately for them, this proves to be wrong, as smokeless tobacco has a range of dangerous effects.

A diverse range of people use this highly addictive substance and no one is safe, dependent on income, race, or sex. The reasons for using smokeless tobacco vary widely from appetite control to generalized stress reduction. And this epidemic is hurting the world. Targeting the world’s future with the primary users being only teenagers and in many cases preteens, it is a debilitating substance.

The truth of the matter is that teen use of smokeless tobacco is a prominent problem enough that it is creating many lifelong users who suffer health problems and health risks that are just too great to be overlooked and too dangerous to be ignored. Child use of smokeless tobacco is constantly on the rise, with some users starting when they are only 9 or 10 years old.

Rural Caucasian teenagers have the highest risk of using smokeless tobacco products, and if the teenagers share a home with an adult user, their chances of also using smokeless tobacco rises dramatically. Approximately 9.3% of all U.S. students in grades nine through twelve use smokeless tobacco products. Among white male students, the average is approximately 1 user out of every 5 students. But what are the effects of smokeless tobacco and what are the advantages and disadvantages of using it? On the plus side of course is “looking cool,” and fitting in. Also it causes an odd sensation in users by first calming them, through the release of dopamine in the brain, and then exciting them with a release of adrenaline. Also the appetite is suppressed.

On the down side are more ramifications that make the reasons to chew look completely insubstantial. Use of smokeless tobacco causes a wide variety of diseases, along with tooth and gum problems, bad breath, and of course the financial spending of the user to obtain smokeless tobacco. Most tobacco users with a can a day habit, over three decades at current prices will spend up to $50,000 on chewing tobacco in their lifetime, assuming they survive their habit long enough.

There are no known cures for either the gastrointestinal or the oral cancers smokeless tobacco causes, and this can potentially cost a fortune in medical treatment and ultimately funeral costs.

Quitting smokeless tobacco is widely believed to be much more challenging than quitting the smoking habit. Part of the addiction includes a huge amount of nicotine absorbed by the body when chewing or dipping. This amount is two times as much as that received from smoking a cigarette.

But how can one beat their smokeless tobacco addiction? Various products are on the market to help users quit snuff and chew, such as a product that uses spearmint to mimic the tobacco without supplying the nicotine. And some success has come from receiving same shot that inhibits receptors in the body for smoking. But the way to stop and permanently remain tobacco-free without withdrawal symptoms, stress, and weight gain is through hypnotherapy.

Hypnosis offers a two-fold attack to the ritualistic chewing or dipping reflex built up by your prior habits and lifestyle choices. It first works to eliminate the emotional motivation for why you need a dipp, and then it works to eliminate the mental habit itself.

First consider the emotional reasons. Dopamine is a “feel good” chemical produced by your body and released by your brain to create a feeling of pleasure. In times of stress, dopamine can produce a general feeling of well being. Some common occurrences of natural release include eating a large meal, or sexual relief. In other words, putting some chew into the mouth gives a sense pleasure and relaxation. The very essence of hypnosis is relaxation, and self-hypnosis is excellent for promoting stress relaxation and stress relief.

Hypnotherapy also works to break the cycle of expectation that your mind creates. When you chew tobacco after dinner, your mind starts to signal to your body that you require a chew every time you finish eating dinner. By blocking or removing this thought process, you will not feel compelled to habitually use smokeless tobacco.

By extinguishing these two root causes of chewing tobacco use, hypnotherapy treatments can virtually eliminate the compulsion to chew or dipp, ending your physical need for the extra dopamine release. Thus hypnosis works in releasing you from this harmful habit and offers a stress free method of stopping.

Alan B. Densky, CH offers Hypnosis CDs to overcome chew. His site offers CDs for stress related symptoms including lose weight hypnosis, and quit smoking hypnosis. He provides a library of hypnosis & NLP articles, and offers FREE hypnosis & NLP newsletters & MP3s.

- Alan B. Densky, CH