Smoking

Smoking is considered to be one of the hardest addictions to quit, thanks to the power of nicotine.

Nicotine works by altering the balance of two chemicals - dopamine and noradrenaline - in your brain. This quickly lifts your mood and concentration levels and reduces feelings of stress and anxiety. 

The trouble is, your body gets used to the changes, so very quickly you have to smoke more to get the same effect; the net effect throughout the day is actually more stress and anxiety.

At the same time, addiction changes your brain function so that you find it easy to justify your behaviour. Researchers in the 1970s found that smokers often develop a cognitive distortion to support the habit – such as clinging on to how someone we knew smoked their whole life and lived to 100. It’s a fantastic bit of neurological jiggery-pokery. 

But the damage smoking can do to your health is substantial; smoking just one cigarette a day leads to a risk of heart disease that is halfway between a smoker and a non-smoker.

Part of the problem is that smoking plant materials such as tobacco cause a build-up of carbon monoxide in the blood which prevents it from carrying oxygen around the body and to the brain. 

One of the things Beeja does fastest and best is reduce stress. This immediately reduces our craving for cigarettes.

Our technique is also renowned for reducing anxiety, which can be at the heart of the need to puff. 

Often we hide behind a cigarette in social situations when we’re feeling nervous or restless. But the need to divert ourselves is much reduced when we meditate; we become much more comfortable and confident in ourselves.

Beeja meditation also oxygenates the brain by opening up blood vessels. This results is an improved level of brain and body functionality.

For example, Beeja meditation is remarkably good for reducing cardiovascular issues that may have built up as a result of smoking. The meditation helps open up your veins, arteries and capillaries (a phenomena known as peripheral vasodilatation), it calms your heart rate by an average of 5 bpm and has been shown to result in an overall 87% reduction in cardiovascular disorders in those at risk.

Beeja meditation is also good for helping heal the lungs after years of the inhibiting effects brought about by smoking. In the largest study ever carried out on meditation, it led to a 73% reduction in respiratory disorders amongst those who practice.

And most importantly of all, Beeja meditation helps to free us from the addictive state of consciousness that underlies all addiction. So instead of merely kicking one habit, and replacing it with another, we are freed from addiction for good.

Infamous radio DJ Howard Stern spontaneously ended his 70 cigarettes a day habit within one month of learning to meditate. 

A two-year study of 324 adult smokers found that 4 in 5 meditators reduced their intake of cigarettes and half quit completely, which was far in excess of the control group. A subsequent study showed almost identical results.

Harvard trained psychologist, Charles Alexander, reviewed 19 studies over a 22-year period.  In 17 of the studies, there were significant reductions in the use of cigarettes, alcohol and recreational drugs amongst all age groups, ethnicities and demographics when they practised the Beeja technique. And the more people meditated, the better the outcome.