The most common way people try to stop smoking is by going cold turkey. You just stop smoking and fight the withdrawal symptoms. This does work for some people. They just wake up one morning and decide to stop smoking and that is it. They never touch another cigarette again.

You may be able to deal with your body craving nicotine but what do you do with your hands? If you have become used to holding a cigarette between your fingers then the absence of that can be a problem for some people. Overcoming this physical habit can be done with a dummy cigarette which gives you the reassuring feeling you need. Some think these are silly but it can make all the difference between succeeding or not.

One old fashioned but sometimes effective approach is to smell an ashtray every time you fancy a cigarette. Even smokers with their reduced sense of smell and taste find the smell of an ashtray objectionable so this might be enough to convince you to stop smoking and even if it just puts off smoking a cigarette for a short while that is a help.

When you stop smoking suddenly your body craves the nicotine it has become used to. To overcome this problem nicotine patches were developed and you simply fix one to your skin and it will release a certain amount of nicotine into your body. These have become a very effective way for people to quit smoking and have had a lot of success. They can be expensive but the long term savings of not smoking will easily pay for them.

Acupuncture has been used quite effectively for some people. My brother tried this and he went from being a heavy smoker to a non-smoker in one day. Unfortunately after a few years he started smoking again but maybe another treatment with acupuncture would have done the trick and stopped him from smoking again..

Willpower is the key to controlling any habit and if you can strenthen your resolve to stop smoking then that will help you enormously. This seems to be the idea with hypnosis so that your subconcious mind becomes more convinced that you do not want to smoke a cigarette at all. I have not tried this myself but it seems that some people have found this a very effective way of overcoming their desire for a cigarette.