How to break the habit of smoking - Essay Example

How to break the habit of smoking Smoking is one habit that hundreds of thousands of people around the world want to break. It is not only an expensive habit, but also potentially hazardous for health. “A stimulus that is followed by a particular response will, upon its recurrence, tend to be followed by the same response again. This stimulus response connection gains in its full strength on one trial” (Guthrie cited in Ormrod, 1999). In order to break the habit of smoking, it is imperative that the smoker controls the desire when it occurs.

The desire to smoke occurs on almost the same time at which the individual had smoked the day before. If the individual does not smoke when the stimulus occurs, the same stimulus would either not occur altogether the following day, or will be very less in its intensity as compared to the day after smoking. The first and the foremost thing required to break a habit is will power and determination. Will power provides an individual with the self-control that is required to resist the temptation to smoke.

Once the stimulation has been resisted, the next thing that is required is consistency. Although the temptation in successive sessions is significantly weaker than before, yet one needs to show consistency of resistance in order to be able to overcome the habit of smoking. According to Edwin Ray Guthrie, it takes just one trial for the stimulus to convert the temptation into a habit. Accordingly, one trial of resistance and self-control breaks most of the habit down. References: Ormrod, J. E. (1999). Human learning (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.