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Meditation for Smoking
A growing body of scientific research shows that meditation students are much more likely to be successful when trying to quit smoking. With a more poised and relaxed mind, cravings are easier to disregard - and with a reduction in general anxiety there can be less of a need to turn to cigarettes for relaxation.
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The Problem
No matter how much we may try and avoid the uncomfortable truth, smoking is unequivocally bad for us. It makes us unfit, causes health problems, makes us smell bad, and causes what doctors call “smoker’s face” (otherwise known as a load of unnecessary wrinkles).
Smoking dramatically shortens our life expectancy. Male and female smokers lose an average of 13.2 and 14.5 years of life respectively, and the effects on quality of life make this statistic even more worrying.
So why do we do it? As any smoker will tell you; tobacco is powerfully addictive.
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How it affects you
Smoking is considered to be one of the hardest addictions to quit, thanks to the power of nicotine.
Nicotine works by altering the balance of two chemicals - dopamine and noradrenaline - in your brain. This quickly lifts your mood and concentration levels and reduces feelings of stress and anxiety.
The trouble is, your body gets used to the changes, so very quickly you have to smoke more to get the same effect; the net effect throughout the day is actually more stress and anxiety.
At the same time, addiction changes your brain function so that you find it easy to justify your behaviour. Researchers in the 1970s found that smokers often develop a cognitive distortion to support the habit – such as clinging on to how someone we knew smoked their whole life and lived to 100. It’s a fantastic bit of neurological jiggery-pokery.
But the damage smoking can do to your health is substantial; smoking just one cigarette a day leads to a risk of heart disease that is halfway between a smoker and a non-smoker.
Part of the problem is that smoking plant materials such as tobacco cause a build-up of carbon monoxide in the blood which prevents it from carrying oxygen around the body and to the brain.
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How can Beeja help?
One of the things Beeja does fastest and best is reduce stress. This immediately reduces our craving for cigarettes.
Our technique is also renowned for reducing anxiety, which can be at the heart of the need to puff.
Often we hide behind a cigarette in social situations when we’re feeling nervous or restless. But the need to divert ourselves is much reduced when we meditate; we become much more comfortable and confident in ourselves.
Beeja meditation also oxygenates the brain by opening up blood vessels. This results is an improved level of brain and body functionality.
For example, Beeja meditation is remarkably good for reducing cardiovascular issues that may have built up as a result of smoking. The meditation helps open up your veins, arteries and capillaries (a phenomena known as peripheral vasodilatation), it calms your heart rate by an average of 5 bpm and has been shown to result in an overall 87% reduction in cardiovascular disorders in those at risk.
Beeja meditation is also good for helping heal the lungs after years of the inhibiting effects brought about by smoking. In the largest study ever carried out on meditation, it led to a 73% reduction in respiratory disorders amongst those who practice.
And most importantly of all, Beeja meditation helps to free us from the addictive state of consciousness that underlies all addiction. So instead of merely kicking one habit, and replacing it with another, we are freed from addiction for good.
Infamous radio DJ Howard Stern spontaneously ended his 70 cigarettes a day habit within one month of learning to meditate.
A two-year study of 324 adult smokers found that 4 in 5 meditators reduced their intake of cigarettes and half quit completely, which was far in excess of the control group. A subsequent study showed almost identical results.
Harvard trained psychologist, Charles Alexander, reviewed 19 studies over a 22-year period. In 17 of the studies, there were significant reductions in the use of cigarettes, alcohol and recreational drugs amongst all age groups, ethnicities and demographics when they practised the Beeja technique. And the more people meditated, the better the outcome.
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Upcoming courses
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Reviews
“I’ve been meditating for 12 days now, and I feel so relaxed, my wife has told me that I am like a new person. I haven’t smoked at all since that Thursday. I am just not feeling the urge, it’s great!”
“I gave up smoking a month after taking the meditation course with Will. I had tried about ten times and I never managed to keep it up. It has now been 15 months and I don't miss it at all. Meditation gave me the space and stress relief I need to be able to say no in moments of weakness when I would have usually caved.”
“I'd been a smoker for 30 years or so and tried giving up a few times, but had never been successful beyond more than a couple of weeks. This time I have succeeded and I believe meditating has played a very big part in helping me get there. Most importantly I believed I could succeed. I had a clear mental image of myself as a non-smoker and found I was able to easily talk myself out of cravings. I'm now a non-smoker and I thank meditation (and Will) for helping me get there.”
Stump out your smoking habit
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“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.”
Zig Ziglar, US Author & Motivational Speaker
"..I managed to switch off for long enough to get that floaty feeling people from Brighton swear by."
"I have a lifelong tool that has brought me calm, clarity and increased creativity"
"I've noticed that I’m no longer ruled by emotions – I can see when I’m angry or frustrated without being in that feeling.”
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