Meet Subby - the manger of your smoking habit
Your smoking habit is an automatic behavior controlled by both your conscious and unconscious mind. It can be a complicated thing to untangle, but we'll simplify it here.??You have?your conscious mind, which?is thought to control your logical and reasoning functions. Your unconscious controls your involuntary and automatic functions.
Then you have your subconscious, which I nickname "Subby" for short. It's the part of your unconscious that controls your automatic functions?such as smoking.?This?automatic response function?is designed to simplify our day-to-day functions. It is first and foremost an automatic survival mechanism designed to react quickly to emergencies. It also manages many other automatic functions of our mind, such as brushing your teeth, eating with a fork, driving a car and yes, smoking. ?
?Why smoking is so hard to quit
What makes smoking so difficult is the subconscious nature of the habit. Here's why. Subby is trained to learn a set of rules or "values patterns" that you teach it over time. Once these patterns are established, Subby then learns to respond automatically.?For example if Subby learns that "a hot oven can burn you", it will make you very alert whenever you approach a hot oven. Once burned, when Subby sees an oven, it automatically gives you a signal: "caution!"
This automatic response function of Subby?is what allows you to not need to keep relearning repetitive tasks, such as walking, driving, or how to brush your teeth in the morning. If it weren't for Subby learning these automatic behaviors, you'd have to re-learn basic functions every day!?This is a key to why you can't seem to turn off the smoking urge.? Subby is just doing it's job by continuing the smoking habit that you trained it to do! It is the same automatic function?that compels you to brush your teeth in the morning, switch on the TV or drive to work each morning.
You may have changed your mind about smoking, Subby hasn't!
After teaching Subby thousands of times, dozens of times a day, that you enjoy a cigarette, it has powerfully learned that habit. Now you want to quit, but Subby isn't going along. Subby will override the conscious instructions you give it, because it has been trained to smoke on a powerful, engrained subconscious level. You may make up your mind and say, "I don't want to quit smoking anymore." You even throw away the pack of cigarettes. You may be fine for a period of time, but Subby thinks something is wrong when it is not smoking.
It is thinking, "Why hasn't she lit up a cigarette? Remind her! She is due to have a cigarette after breakfast, like she does every day! Plus, I miss that nicotine jolt." You will feel urges, cravings, anxiety, even small shocks to compel you to buy, or beg a cigarette or Subby will not be satisfied and will bug you continually until you do.
So don't think you are weak or lack willpower if you are having difficulty quitting smoking. The habit mechanism of your powerful subconscious is just doing it's job. Doing what you asked it to do over thousands of cigarettes over many years. Changing that automatic behavior can be done, it just needs to be done in a systematic way.
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