If you think smokeless tobacco is "up to snuff" and safe, think again. Whatever you call it - chewing, dipping or spitting - it is every bit as dangerous as smoking. A lot of doctors judge more so because people are less aware of the risks. Cancers of the lips, tongue, mouth and throat can swiftly grow in people who use smokeless tobacco and cause ugly - even lethal - results.

Even with the painful and dangerous effects of smokeless tobacco, quitting with conventional ways is very challenging. A lot of people think the reason lies in nicotine, a natural, super toxic chemical found in tobacco that is the plant's defense to prevent being eaten by insects. Evaluating equal amounts, nicotine is more lethal than snake venom or strychnine, and three times deadlier than arsenic.

When dipping, the nicotine makes its way to the brain in under 10 seconds, where it generates a flood of dopamine, which brings about a relaxing sensation. Nicotine also increases adrenaline production, so it both calms and energizes. However, the psychological component of smokeless tobacco addiction is much stronger and produces many more obstacles to quitting smokeless tobacco than nicotine.

A lot of users took their first dip as young as nine years old. In just a few months, using smokeless tobacco becomes an ingrained habit that delivers reliable stress relief. In addition to the psychological conditioning, a social conditioning occurs, as images of many sports celebrities dipping also attract young users.

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

Dipping for Relaxation and Pleasure: Just like using a pacifier to calm an anxious baby, over time, people who use tobacco products begin to associate putting an object in their mouths with satisfaction and relaxation. Curbing the effects of tobacco usage means addressing all issues of the addiction.

Dipping Tobacco 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 - when a bell was rung. In relation, if, for example, you always use chewing tobacco after each meal, you will consequently have a craving to chew when you get finished eating.

In your mind, the images of pushing the plate away and laying down your napkin may be connected to using snuff, even if you are not conscious of it. Becoming aware of the trigger images or situations can help you conquer cravings.

The Physical Addiction to Nicotine, But ! : Despite the powerful addiction, doctors maintain that the physical part of nicotine addiction is quelled 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 fight to quit dipping involves overcoming the emotional and mental components. So what does this mean for people like you who would like to quit?

Quitting becomes much easier if you are able to:

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

But how does a person defeat those issues?

Self-hypnosis offers a way to tackle the emotional and psychological components of the addiction while eliminating struggles, which will eliminate the withdrawal symptoms. When we appreciate how self-hypnosis works, it makes the decision to quit dipping much easier to take on.

When people dip for relaxation and pleasure, it's to quiet stressful feelings. People often play the same images over in their heads, like a bad film, which leaves them feeling anxious and tense. With self-hypnosis and different Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) techniques, you retrain your brain to immediately and naturally stop stress-inducing images and trade them with calming pictures and mental movies. This creates satisfaction and relaxation while reducing cravings and oral compulsions. You shake 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.

In order to resist 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 won't trigger the craving. Further, the Flash can even be used to create a compulsion to deny smokeless tobacco.

Drawing on specific and strategic NLP procedures makes the decision to quit dipping very easy and painless by circumventing cravings, withdrawal and weight gain. The method is dependent on retraining the unconscious mind to abide by the same thought patterns that produce your mental addiction to smokeless tobacco in the first place, to eliminate the compulsion.

Your brain is a powerful toolfar more powerful than an addiction.