Smoking behavior modification is a vital step in the recovery from nicotine addiction. Despite the importance of smoking behavior modification, some smokers are able to convince themselves that they do not need to focus on the emotional aspect of their tobacco addiction as much as they need to deal with the physical addiction to nicotine. The fact is that smoking is an illness whose origination is much deeper than the actual habit of smoking itself. Sure, implementing stop smoking aids into your battle plan to quit smoking forever is a great way to minimize the physical withdrawal symptoms that make quitting smoking even harder...But if you plan on buying a smoking cessation product and white-knuckling it through the rest of the battle, you're most likely destined to lose!
In order to quit smoking successfully and prevent nicotine relapse in the future, it's important to modify habitual smoking behaviors and emotional smoking behaviors that trigger your addiction. Since the act of smoking has provided a way for you to ignore your feelings for as many years as you've been smoking, smoking behavior modification techniques are necessary to teach you how to understand your emotions and process them as they come up, rather than stuff them and hope they go away (they never will).
Starting the process in baby steps will ensure you don't take on too many raw feelings too early...No need to punish yourself unnecessarily and risk an early nicotine relapse. If you have just decided to quit smoking, start paying attention to the times you smoke. Perhaps it's just a peak smoking time and you need to practice engaging in more healthful behaviors...Or perhaps there is an uncomfortable feeling you're trying to avoid experiencing. Instead of lighting up right away, practice feeling through it and trying to understand and accept what's going on inside of you.
Sometimes our original perception isn't an accurate one, and the feelings we're trying to escape are based on something that's not real. That's not always the case, but it's worth taking the time to investigate. There are many situations that arise throughout the day that present you with the opportunity to look at your feelings and practice smoking behavior modification techniques to become more in tune with your natural human emotions.
