The mind has two parts: the conscious and subconscious.

And so when you tried using the willpower method, you were in two minds whether to stop smoking or not - literally in 'two minds'.

For example, here is a typical dichotomy; you might want to stop smoking because it's bad for your health (conscious reason), but you're still aware that smoking makes you feel good about yourself (subconscious reason).

Do You Have Subconscious Reasons?
When you try to stop smoking but get bad withdrawal symptoms, that's a sure sign that your subconscious mind is resisting the change.

Here's an example of how it feels when your subconscious mind makes you do something.

When you were young, did you ever try and hold your breath for as long as possible? Do you remember feeling that your lungs were going to burst?

Well, that feeling was generated by your subconscious mind.

Your subconscious mind is capable of exerting incredibly powerful pressure on your conscious mind if it feels that its needs are not being met.

This where all the extreme examples of withdrawal effects when people stop smoking come from.

"Climbing the walls", "Tearing my hair out" and "Getting the shakes" are all typical examples of the withdrawal effects of someone with strong subconscious needs to carry on smoking.

Perhaps your subconscious wants to carry on smoking because it reminds you of a time of happiness or a time you felt powerful in your life; we all have fond memories of the time we spent growing up, and the emotions from our youth are vivid ones, and they stay with us all our lives.

Or perhaps your subconscious may feel that smoking represents your desire to thumb your nose at authority; everyone is saying you should stop smoking, and maybe you feel unwilling to let them have their way.

Maybe your subconscious feels that smoking represents freedom, or it might be simply that your subconscious fears the withdrawal of the nicotine.

Whatever the reason, the point is if you want to stop smoking, both your conscious and your subconscious need to be convinced that they will benefit from you becoming a permanent non-smoker.

Does Your Subconscious Need Convincing?
However, your subconscious mind doesn't work the same way as your conscious mind, so the usual line of reasonable argument isn't going to work.

The best way to convince your subconscious that it's a good idea to stop smoking is to tell it a fairy story.

I am being serious.

You could make up a story about this beautiful princess, and a wicked witch put a spell on her, took all her money away and made her dress in rags.

I'm sure your conscious mind saw straight away that the wicked witch represents the smoking habit, but your subconscious mind soaks stuff like that up without your conscious mind noticing.

If you don't believe me, try this little demonstration of how powerful this method is.

Read the following sentence which contains descriptions of three TV adverts, and try to stop the pictures coming into your head; here we go:-

The store where people pat their back pocket twice,
the insurance with the 'Lucky' dog, and
the product with the 'friendly bacteria'.

You can see how powerful this method is because you know exactly which adverts I'm talking about.

People's subconscious picks these messages up, and so they are more likely to shop at Asda, get their insurance from MoreThan, or buy
... that little drink thing ... er, well perhaps that one doesn't work as well as the others.

Companies spend billions of pounds each year on marketing because they know it produces results.

When people see an advert, the message goes straight into their subconscious without their conscious mind knowing it.

"All this talk of the subconscious is all very well", I hear you say, "but isn't nicotine an addictive drug?"

You're right, it is ...
Nicotine is an Addictive Drug, isn't it?
Nicotine is a highly addictive drug; you can get hooked with just one puff of a cigarette.

Fortunately, the withdrawal effects are quite mild