4 Free Yoga Tips to Quit Smoking & Break Addictions
Stop Smoking Tips
Free Help to Quit Smoking
Looking to quit smoking? Really, the following free tips and techniques will not just help you stop smoking, but will actually help you break any bad habit or addiction. In fact, I can go even further and say, that not only will these tips help you break bad habits, but will also help you stick to good ones, such as sticking to a weight loss diet, waking up early, exercising daily, etc. So regardless of whether you are looking to cease smoking or looking to make or break other habits, these tips will be very useful to you.
Specifically with regard to smoking, the problems caused to your health are now widely documented, but specifically from a yogic perspective, smoking can be particularly problematic and negative. This is primarily because your capacity to do pranayama (yoga breathing exercises), which are the primary source of bringing in prana (chi/life-force) into you entire system, can be severely impacted by smoking. For effective pranayama, you want your lungs and respiratory system in optimum shape, and this system is the one most impacted by smoking. So quitting smoking is certainly a worthwhile challenge to undertake from a yogic perspective.
In addition, the ultimate aim of yoga and meditation is to set you free from attachments, so being dependent on smoking is certainly not in sync with this objective. Below I will give you 4 free tips to help you quit smoking. They are easy to understand and follow. It’s just a matter of getting down to incorporating them into your life. The wonderful thing about yogic techniques, is the widespread benefits they offer. So in following these tips, you will not just quit smoking, but at the same time will enjoy other profound benefits they offer as well.
4 Free Tips to Help you Quit Smoking
1. Kundalini Yoga Breathing Exercise to Stop Smoking and Break Additions:
This is a great yoga pranayama from the powerful school of Kundalini Yoga that is excellent for helping you quit smoking or break any other bad habit. Even though it appears to be an easy and simple technique, the golden rule with pranayama is never to over strain and always to build up your capacity slowly over time. Please also check the following guide if you are new to yoga breathing exercises: Beginner’s Guide to Yoga Breathing Exercises (Pranayama).
Here is a quick list of other benefits this breathing exercise bestows in addition to smoking cessation:
- Calms the mind and bestows peace and tranquility.
- Good for treating panic and anxiety attacks.
- Fights stress.
- Helps you break any addictions and ingrained habits.
- Helps you develop the ability to establish good habits.
- Develops your respiratory system and lung capacity.
- Expands your pranic body and strengthens your nervous system.
Quit Smoking Breathing Exercise Instructions:
- Sit in any comfortable posture and close your eyes. You may also lie down, but sitting is better. If you are sitting, try to keep your back and spine straight.
- Take three long, deep, slow breaths to help relax you.
- Now with your right thumb block your right nostril and breathe in long and deep through the left nostril only. Hold your breath in now for as long as comfortable.
- Next block your left nostril with the ring finger and pinkie of the right hand, and breathe out the right nostril only. This time hold your breath out for as long as comfortable. Remember not to over strain.
- Then again, block your right nostril and breathe in through your left and hold your breath in. Continue as above. So you are breathing IN through LEFT nostril only – holding your breath – then breathing OUT through RIGHT nostril only – then holding your breath – and repeating this pattern.
- You may practice this pranayama from 1 minute all the way up to 31 minutes in a single sitting.
2. Exercise to Develop Willpower to Quit Smoking:
As stated above, these free tips and techniques do a great deal more than just help you stop smoking and that is certainly true for this next exercise. To develop willpower, yoga recommends to build the Navel Chakra center, and no exercise does that as well as Kundalini Yoga’s famous Stretch Pose. So to help you break habits and addictions, developing this center is very helpful, as developing willpower is very key. Below is a link to the free article which details Stretch Pose and gives illustrations for beginner and advanced versions of this very helpful exercise.
In addition to helping you break your smoking habit, Stretch Pose will also help you strengthen your abs, tone your stomach, improve your digestive system and increase energy and vitality.
Kundalini Yoga Stretch Pose to Build Willpower
3. Consciousness Exercise for Smoking Cessation:
In addition to the above tips, one sure way of weakening and breaking habits is by bringing consciousness or awareness into the mix. The way to do this is that whenever you see yourself being drawn into the habitual behavior become intimately aware of all the actions, thoughts and feelings that are taking place. Just observe dispassionately, how you withdraw the cigarette, how you tap it, how you smoke, what you feel, what you think, everything. Just keep watching very carefully. This awareness is enough to start to break up the pattern that is set in your body and mind, and pretty soon you will see it weakening and falling away.
4. Daily Yoga/Meditation Practice for Quitting Smoking:
I will post below the real life testimonial of a reader who quit smoking and simply attributes this to begin committed to a daily yoga and meditation practice. His is not the first such report, I receive many such testimonials. Of course there are plenty of additional benefits from such a practice, and you can read about those in the following article: Benefits of Yoga for Weight Loss, Depression, Migraines, Smoking & Other Real Life Stories. You can also read about other real life testimonials regarding the benefits of yoga and meditation here: Reader Testimonial Regarding Yoga, Meditation & More.
Yogi’s Testimonial Regarding How He Quit Smoking:
Wow….yes. I quit smoking 3 years ago, after struggling with it for such a long time. I had quit many times, even for more than a year once, but always slipped back into the old habit. Nothing worked, and I thought I was doomed to a life of filth and disease. Then I started a yoga routine and a daily sitting practice, and without even trying, I just stopped smoking. I just didn’t like it anymore, now that I had an understanding of how good my body could feel again. I haven’t smoked since, and I often try to explain how I quit to others who are struggling with little luck. So, to see it mapped out like this is very exciting for me. thank- you.
Summary for Quit Smoking Yoga Tips
So there you have it, 4 free tips from the great science of yoga on how you can quit smoking, get healthy and live a great life. If you need more guidance on yoga and meditation, please feel free to check out the free online yoga and meditation classes offered here:
Great post! I have also this problem.
Thanks for your tips !
John.
Sir i really want your help in breaking my addiction on viewing porn . Sir i know u possibly like to neglect this comment but sir it would be very thankful if you give a reply. Sir i am wriggling in this quagmire for years. Sir i tried to stop it through meditation and all other techniques but all in vain. I stopped it for a year but again started doing it masturbating and wasting my precious energy. Besides this i know that my karma are increasing like wild fire. Sir please help me
great post. Actually several of your steps listed in your post are very similar to hypnotherapy processes. I have seen great results with hypnosis to stop smoking.
Yoga is definitely an enormously helpful technique in the quest to become a non-smoker. Many people with stress issues want to find out how to stop smoking effectively and permanently through improving their well-being and life-style.
Hello Anmol Mehta, I wish I knew about this tips when I quit cold turkey 5 years ago. I have never done Yoga in the past but I keep hearing lots of thing. Maybe I should give a try and see if I can get a few pounds off. lol Thanks for the quit smoking tips and I hope people put them to practice and they too become cigarette free.
This is a great post !
Yoga does help greatly in improving not only the mind but also stress relief.
One of the reasons why smokers turn to cigarettes is because of the relaxation and tiredness… but the thing is.. it harms the body while doing so.
Yoga breathing techniques not only helps to replace that relaxation through the proper breathing technique.. it also helps to improve health and overall wellness… =)
Indeed, yoga do really work for stopping a lot of bad habit. For me it would be the best combine with hypnotherapy, because i did tried it.
The nicotine and positive feelings they have attached with smoking make it a difficult habit to break, which is why many turn to hypnotherapists to help them stop the habit. Feel free to learn it here.
If one can powerfully develop equanimity to our cravings and aversions through meditation, it stands to reason that one can then apply this same ability to getting rid of any other addictions like smoking, eating, excessive exercising, uncontrolled raged or emotion etc. Thanks for your sharing.
Nicotine addiction is often seen as a stumbling block to quitting but it doesn’t have to be. Yoga would be a great way of preparing to quit as any meditation practive prepares the mind to be receptive. There are more great tips and a free report here
Pointers enumerated here would really help someone having second thoughts on quitting smoking. With just reading the tips I can feel that my chest is unclogging. And it really feels good.
Great post! I quit smoking a few years ago with a different method (without yoga). However, I’m sure your tips would work beautifully. My girlfriend does yoga, and she swears by it. Like the comment before, I agree that it’s great that it’s natural. People really need to get away from using drugs to get off drugs. Done correctly, quitting smoking really is easy… Gotta try yoga myself one day
Cheers
I like this blog for one simple reason.
It focuses people’s attention on the simple yet proven method of smoking cessation naturally. That’s right – no substitutes whatsoever, just real natural, yet radical change – FAST!
Great work!!!
I have done a small amount of yoga in the past and really enjoyed it. I also used to be a smoker and really didn’t enjoy it, that’s why I stopped! I feel I have to take issue with tip number 2 though. Smokers very frequently tell themselves and others that they have no willpower which is why they continue to smoke even though they want to stop. If these people are low on will power they are likely to struggle to stick to a yoga routine aren’t they?
Also I believe that trying to stop smoking through the application of overwhelming will power is fundamentally the wrong approach. People who stop smoking through will power would often kill for a cigarette 20 years after stopping and every day is a struggle of will power over desire. Surely it is much better to change your attitude towards smoking so it doesn’t have to be resisted through will power but can be ignored or forgotten about. I did this through hypnotherapy which I got into because of my yoga experiences years back. The breathing and focus aspects are very similar in both diciplines.
Great post on how to use yoga to reduce feelings of craving of quitting / stopping smoking great job
Hi Casey,
I meant Navel Chakra, thanks for pointing that out, you have a good eye ;-). I have corrected the article above as well.
All Good Wishes,
Anmol
Hello Anmol,
I was searching your blog for advice on overcoming addiction, when I stumbled across this page. I will be incorporating your tips into my daily life, as now is a time in which I am in true need of assistance.
I have only one question: under step 2, you state that building the third eye chakra is useful for developing willpower, yet you link to the stretch pose, which builds the navel chakra. Does the stretch pose also build the third eye chakra? Or were you actually referring to the navel chakra as the center for the development of willpower?
Thank you for the guidance, Anmol.
Namaste,
Casey
Great tips thank you.
Great post! The benefits of yoga are still unknown to many people. Different types of yoga have different effect on our health. However, it is important to understand the yoga basics so that the practitioner can perform the asanas perfectly and experience the benefits of yoga.