Music

Music is a wonderful way of getting your mind off that urge to smoke. If you have fixed times for getting a smoke like after meals or during the coffee break you could try playing something very soothing using a walk man and head phones so that you do not disturb others though you might attract attention. Another thing you could do is that you could play music on your computer if you have a work station all to your self.

  Music is a wonderful stress reliever. I do not want to emphasize on any particular type of music because tastes differ.

Meditation

Meditation is also an excellent way of helping you to get better control over your mind. It is not a very great thing too. Any body can learn the art with a little bit of practice. Now I hope you will pardon me if I digress a bit from our topic and give you a few essential points on how to meditate because this as I see it is the best method of helping you to gain better control over you mind and there by get over that urge to take in that puff of smoke.

The simplest method of mediation that you could practice by yourself would be to sit in a very comfortable position with your eyes closed. In the initial stages you may find your mind drifting but gradually you will learn to focus more and more. The idea behind meditation is not to cut out all the forces around you but to become one with them. I have seen people plug their ears with cotton to shut out sounds. But that is not the purpose that we wish to achieve. On the contrary we should focus on the sounds around us.

Be aware of them, listen to them. First listen to the bigger sounds around you like the traffic or machines or even loud music from your neighbor’s apartment. Then listen to the softer sounds like the drone of the refrigerator, or the A/C. And then bring your attention to the sound of your own breathing. If you can actually hear yourself breathing then you have arrived and this is what you have to keep doing.

It would be useful if you could try to focus on some inner picture that you could conjure up in your mind. By inner picture I mean an image that you can concentrate on for example the flame of a lighted candle or a single flower on a plant. Try and see how long you can keep your mind focused on such an image. If the image blurs immediately and is replaced by something else, then you need to work on it. Gradually you will see that you can keep your mind focused on the same thing for more than ten minutes.

That means that you have arrived. Once you have reached this stage and have begun to practice it without fail, you will see that it can give you immense mental strength. Then the next time you get an urge to smoke, all you have to do is sit put where ever you are, close your eyes and meditate. The urge will have vanished by the time you open your eyes. Meditation not only drives away the urge but gives you control over your mind.