With eyes closed and your body relaxed, you see yourself as being healthier, happier ... and even a bit wealthier, because you do not smoke.
You visualize yourself with a new, keener sense of taste and smell.

You have the image of yourself with a new zest for living and better vision because you do not smoke.
You can see yourself as living longer, less likely to succumb to painful disease or crippling illnesses.

See yourself in a crowd. The others are smoking, but you are not. You tell yourself that you do not need a cigarette to occupy your hands or your mind. You don't need a smouldering crutch to lean upon. You feel a little proud, and know that the others secretly admire you for doing what they have failed to do.

You know that you smoked previously for a concentration break ... for relaxation. You also know that there is nothing in the smoke of tobacco that will relax the tissues physiologically. You have a warm, pleasant sensation and a feeling of well-being—because you are through with smoking and tobacco forever.

Go over this new mental picture of yourself a number of times. Add to it those things you know about yourself which will be improved; give yourself a feeling of self-satisfaction from your ability to resist the tobacco habit.

Play the new role you have created for yourself as you would if you were acting it out in a play. Visualize yourself telling others how easy it is to quit smoking, without the "big jitters" or constant craving. Portray yourself as you would like to be, free from smoking forever.

The suggestions you give yourself under hypnosis should be carefully planned beforehand. You should know exactly what is to go into your subconscious mind.

Tell yourself why you are quitting. Tell yourself, without any doubt, that you would rather believe in the integrity and ethics of the medical researchers than in the "double talk" of the cigarette industry's advertising.

Make it plain to yourself why you are never going to smoke again.

Tell yourself that you aren't afraid this time. You know you've got it licked. You know you've got it licked because this time you understand what is involved in the habit, and what it requires to break a habit.

Tell yourself forcefully that you will not become nervous, tense or irritable because there's just no need for it. You know that your mind controls your nerves, and you are perfectly capable of controlling your own mind.
 
"The impossible we can do today. The miraculous takes a little longer." Signs carrying that message became popular during World War II, and the message is equally appropriate for your private war with the cigarette habit.

With our almost-absurdly simple but highly effective method of self-suggestion, you will be able to change your attitude toward smoking. You will be able to do the impossible; you will be able to quit. The "visual image" technique does part of the job; the new habit you learn in this chapter does the rest. You strengthen both by "talking back."

Now you will discover a new way to give yourself frequent, meaningful "concentration breaks." They must eradicate tension, satisfactorily and swiftly. They must also be powerful enough to replace immediately the quick-release-from-pressure sensation that you developed during your years of smoking when you paused to light a cigarette. And finally, these new "concentration breaks" must be able to conquer temptation.

That's the "miraculous," and it will "take a little longer." And that's why I've been asking you not to stop smoking immediately, but to set a target date a week or ten days in the future.

Realize, please, that some of your best friends will not want you to stop smoking. Your achievement, they will unconsciously feel, belittles them. You have the "will power," they’ll decide, which they apparently lack. And so they'll be tempting you—perhaps consciously, perhaps unconsciously—to start smoking again.

You'll still live in a world of cigarettes. My book and your decision aren't going to stop the barrage of advertising; there are millions of smokers, and most of them will continue to smoke. A best-seller sells from 50,000 to 100,000 copies.

And, being human, you'll have crises. Domestic problems. Job problems. Difficulties always arise, and sooner or later there'll be one that throws you so completely that you'll reach out for a crutch. And that crutch could quite easily be a cigarette. I've known people who stopped smoking for eight or nine years, and then began again as the result of outer conflict or inner turmoil, or both.

For all these reasons, then, you should perfect a new way to give yourself release from tension before you crush out your last cigarette and call it quits for good.

We begin with two interesting, opposing facts. The first is that neither of us can deny the feeling of relaxation and the respite from tension that comes from smoking. The second and contradictory fact is that not one of the many elements in a cigarette has the chemical qualities able to reduce tension or induce relaxation.

Quite to the contrary: every cigarette contains irritants and at least one potentially dangerous stimulant.
If you can remember back to the very first time you smoked, you'll remember that your first cigarette didn't relax you. It probably made you dizzy and it quite possibly produced turning, churning sensations in your stomach.

If you've ever quit smoking for more than forty-eight hours, you probably experienced similar dizziness and slight nausea when you began to smoke again.

No wonder you become dizzy