Amresh Patel is the CEO of a large multinational company. Patel used to smoke 20 cigarettes a day, and had been doing so for 30 years. At 47, he decided to quit smoking. Today, at 49, Patel is still off the stick.

He stands out amidst hundreds who decide to quit, stay off for a few months and pick up the habit again. So what did Patel do that others can't? "I made up my mind," claims the erstwhile smoker. He says he followed a four-pronged strategy: making up his mind was the first step; then he gradually got used to deprivation and started treating his urge to smoke as an unfulfilled desire. Finally, he renewed focus on his health.

Making Up Your Mind

In Patel's case, his chronic cough, raspy voice and low levels of immunity led him to consider quitting. Moreover, it was disturbing to see his 13-year-old daughter aping him with a pencil dangling in her mouth and walking around the house. And that's when, during one of his trips to the UK, he tried hypnosis to quit.

We all know that hypnosis is concentrated relaxation and is the key to reach the unconscious by removing the barriers of the conscious mind. During hypnotherapy, the therapist slips past your conscious mind, enters the subconscious and re-programs it. He makes suggestions to your unconscious mind recommending you to reject your craving for tobacco. Your mind builds up new neural tracts triggering new ways of thinking and you begin to look at yourself as a non-smoker. As hypnotherapy directly worked with Patel's habits he did not feel deprived or unhappy.

Deprivation

Patel started by reducing the number of cigarettes-from 20 to six-seven a day so that he didn't feel he was being deprived. Another way, Patel says, is to start thinking of yourself as a non-smoker. This will make the urge a little more bearable.

Unfulfilled Desire

Here is Patel's advice to all smokers: We all have secret desires. Do we fulfil all of them? If we did, a lot of us would be in trouble. Similarly, treat the desire to smoke as an unfulfilled desire similar to wanting someone else's wife, job, money, body, hair or looks. The mument we know that we're in the state of "wishful un-fulfilment" our mind accepts this more readily.

Get Healthier

A few months after Patel quit, his cholesterol levels were back to normal, his high-density lipoprotein levels (good cholesterol that protects the heart) increased, his triglyceride levels (a type of fat found in blood) came down, and his cough vanished. Earlier, smoking was robbing his body off the nutrients that would make him healthier. Now his body absorbed nutrients from food more efficiently and he began to look younger. He gained three to four kilos, which he started losing once he began to work out regularly and have healthier food. Two years on, Patel has a healthy glow on his face, and that raspy voice has been replaced by an even-toned one.

As for his now 15-year-old daughter, her article on how her dad quit smoking just got printed in her school magazine, and the young girl roams around with a cheesy grin on her face. Time for you to follow Patel?

Reproduced from Outlook Business's Wellness Column by Rachna Chhachhi.