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Try my mantras! Basically, whenever you even think of smoking you condition yourself to repeat the following to yourself mentally: "I don't want to die" "I do

Try my mantras! Basically, whenever you even think of smoking you condition yourself to repeat the following to yourself mentally: "I don't want to die" "I don't want to smell" I picked those two because they are pretty nasty and represent what fags do to you. Whenever you fancy a smoke, you say those phrases to yourself. My method is mine and perhaps another method will work for you. Have a think about what might work for you. Cheers Jon

seanmcdirmid 4y ago
I haven't smoked in more than 5 years now, so I think I'm good. The cravings never really go away completely, and I'm probably one crisis away from starting again, but my life has been fairly crisis free for a long time now.
- gerdesj 4y ago
  Keep the faith mate. As you say - the cravings never go away but I managed to do a mental job on myself. I find that if I repeat (mentally) a couple of phrases - "I don't want to die and I don't want to smell" then that kills off the cravings. You've managed longer than I have - what's your strategy?
mirekrusin 4y ago
Hey, emotional algebra doesn't have negation (it does have fear though), may want to try "I want to live" "I want to smell nice". It can also help to visualize ie. headache pain when inhaling etc.
- gerdesj 4y ago
  I picked the negative version by accident and it worked for me. I needed to, figuratively, kick myself - repeatedly. Whenever I had a craving, I mentally repeated my mantra and it really did knock it on the head. I'm not sure what emotional algebra even means! I studied maths to degree level and I'm quite sure that the Arab bloke what gave his name to algebra (and his mate for algorithms) didn't manage to include a formal evaluation of human emotion within their deliberations. I'll grant you that we can use terms like positive and negative in relation to emotions but al-jabr? OK, I'll stand corrected: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebra - al-jabr means "reunion of broken parts" so that fits your usage of the term. That creaking sound you can hear is my neck being wound back in. sigh you live and learn. Anyway, I needed to kick myself and it worked (despite myself!) Do you have any idea how hard it is to try to outsmart yourself, without going a bit mad (whatever that means). With hindsight, I picked a strategy that worked, first time. It was a fluke but I'm rather glad that it did and does work.
  - mirekrusin 4y ago
    Just invented it so don't put too much weight to this name! But the phenomenon is real in the sense that emotional interpretation doesn't have/understand "don't"s and "not"s. It creates feeling or it doesn't (when not mentioned). It's a bit similar to saying "try to not think about yellow elephant" - well, you did and "not" part didn't really contributed to not thinking about it. Ie. "I don't want to smoke" would be very bad mantra. But you used "Don't want to die" which is emotionally read as "Death.", which evaluates to "fear", which is ok - "fear", "pain" any feeling of discomfort or in general negative feeling is ok/equivalent to usage of "don't"s. Hope it makes sense.

seanmcdirmid 4y ago

I haven't smoked in more than 5 years now, so I think I'm good. The cravings never really go away completely, and I'm probably one crisis away from starting again, but my life has been fairly crisis free for a long time now.

gerdesj 4y ago
Keep the faith mate. As you say - the cravings never go away but I managed to do a mental job on myself. I find that if I repeat (mentally) a couple of phrases - "I don't want to die and I don't want to smell" then that kills off the cravings. You've managed longer than I have - what's your strategy?

mirekrusin 4y ago

Hey, emotional algebra doesn't have negation (it does have fear though), may want to try "I want to live" "I want to smell nice". It can also help to visualize ie. headache pain when inhaling etc.

gerdesj 4y ago
I picked the negative version by accident and it worked for me. I needed to, figuratively, kick myself - repeatedly. Whenever I had a craving, I mentally repeated my mantra and it really did knock it on the head. I'm not sure what emotional algebra even means! I studied maths to degree level and I'm quite sure that the Arab bloke what gave his name to algebra (and his mate for algorithms) didn't manage to include a formal evaluation of human emotion within their deliberations. I'll grant you that we can use terms like positive and negative in relation to emotions but al-jabr? OK, I'll stand corrected: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebra - al-jabr means "reunion of broken parts" so that fits your usage of the term. That creaking sound you can hear is my neck being wound back in. sigh you live and learn. Anyway, I needed to kick myself and it worked (despite myself!) Do you have any idea how hard it is to try to outsmart yourself, without going a bit mad (whatever that means). With hindsight, I picked a strategy that worked, first time. It was a fluke but I'm rather glad that it did and does work.
- mirekrusin 4y ago
  Just invented it so don't put too much weight to this name! But the phenomenon is real in the sense that emotional interpretation doesn't have/understand "don't"s and "not"s. It creates feeling or it doesn't (when not mentioned). It's a bit similar to saying "try to not think about yellow elephant" - well, you did and "not" part didn't really contributed to not thinking about it. Ie. "I don't want to smoke" would be very bad mantra. But you used "Don't want to die" which is emotionally read as "Death.", which evaluates to "fear", which is ok - "fear", "pain" any feeling of discomfort or in general negative feeling is ok/equivalent to usage of "don't"s. Hope it makes sense.