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If you think smokeless tobacco is "up to snuff" and safe, think again. Whatever it is called - spitting, chewing or dipping - it is every bit as hazardous as smoking. Many medical researchers believe more so because users are unaware of the dangers. Cancers of the mouth, lips, tongue and throat can quickly develop in people who use smokeless tobacco and cause grotesque and debilitating - even deadly - results.

Regardless of the painful and dangerous consequences of smokeless tobacco, quitting with traditional means remains very difficult. A lot of people think the reason lies in nicotine, a natural, super toxic substance found in tobacco that is the plant's defense to prevent being eaten by bugs. Analyzing equal amounts, nicotine is more deadly than strychnine or snake venom, and three times more lethal than arsenic.

When dipping, the nicotine travels to the brain in under 10 seconds, where it produces a flood of dopamine, which brings about a relaxing feeling. Nicotine also increases adrenaline production, so it both calms and energizes. However, the psychological part of smokeless tobacco addiction is much stronger and leads to many more challenges to quitting smokeless tobacco than nicotine.

A lot of users took their first chew as early as nine years old. In as little as a few months, using smokeless tobacco becomes a fixed habit that delivers reliable stress relief. In addition to the psychological conditioning, a social conditioning takes place, as images of many athletes dipping also attract young users.

Understanding that there are individual emotional and physical reasons that play a role in a chewing habit makes it easier to develop a plan to overcome smokeless tobacco addiction. Let's look at each element individually and look at effective methods to curb them.

Dipping for Relaxation and Pleasure: Just like using a pacifier to appease a restless toddler, over time, people who use tobacco products begin to associate putting something in their mouths with relaxation and satisfaction. Curbing the effects of tobacco usage means addressing all aspects of the addiction.

Tobacco Dipping is a Conditioned Response: The classic case in point of a conditioned response relates to Pavlov and his dogs, which were trained to anticipate food - and thus began salivating - after a bell was rung. In relation, if, for example, you always use chewing tobacco after each meal, you will consequently develop a craving to chew when you get finished eating.

In your mind, the images of folding the napkin and pushing the play away may be linked to using snuff, even though you are not conscious of it. Developing awareness of the situations or trigger images can help you overcome cravings.

The Physical Addiction to Nicotine, But ! : In spite of the intense addiction, medical professionals say that the physical part of nicotine addiction is broken after people quit using tobacco for seven days. It's my firm belief that nicotine addiction comprises a mere 10 percent of smokeless tobacco dependency. As such, 90 percent of the battle to quit dipping involves overcoming the mental and emotional components. So what does this mean for people like you who would like to quit?

Quitting becomes much more feasible if you are able to:

A. Address and remove the tension or anxiety that compels you to use smokeless tobacco B. Cancel the conditioned responses to chew in certain situations

But how does a person surmount those issues?

Self-hypnosis offers a way to tackle the emotional and psychological factors of the addiction while reducing difficulties, which will eliminate the symptoms of withdrawal. When we comprehend how self-hypnosis works, it makes the decision to quit dipping much easier to assume.

When people dip for relaxation and pleasure, it's to calm stressful feelings. People often play the same images over in their minds, like a bad film, which leaves them feeling tense and anxious. With self-hypnosis and various Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) techniques, you retrain your brain to instantaneously and automatically prohibit stress-inducing images and replace them with soothing images and mental movies. This produces relaxation and satisfaction while reducing cravings and oral compulsions. You lose the inclination to put the chew in your mouth, and you will not get any desire to substitute food in its place. This suppresses weight gain.

To battle the conditioned response of chewing smokeless tobacco, the NLP Flash technique removes the associations of dipping during certain activities or situations. This means your subconscious will no longer trigger the craving. Further, the Flash can even be used to create a compulsion to reject smokeless tobacco.

Drawing on specific and strategic NLP methods makes the decision to quit dipping effortless and painless by averting cravings, withdrawal and weight gain. The process involves training the unconscious mind to follow the same thought patterns that produce your mental addiction to smokeless tobacco in the first place, to eliminate the habit.

Your brain is a powerful instrumentfar more powerful than an addiction. With commitment and the aid of self-hypnosis and NLP, you can quit smokeless tobacco forever.