Smoking to avoid sadness

Smoking to avoid sadness is the extra preset training type in Prana Breath app, available in Guru version. You can use it as positive reinforcement while quitting smoking.

Effects

• relieving cigarette craving
• cheering up
• rising endorphin level
• inspiring to start thinking about pleasant things

This pattern works great in case you search for a cigarette to avoid sad thoughts that happen to come to your mind, and if nicotine addiction is a common way of coping with loneliness and sadness.

Origin, history

This training type was developed by Simone Righini, the behavioral psychology student and the author of the “respira.re” method, read by over 140.000 people in 2016 (first Italian edition) and has been approved by top Italian psychologists.
The method takes inspiration from the book “The non-doing” (1973) by Itsuo Tsuda, a Japanese philosopher and a practitioner and teacher of Aikido and Seitai.
This training type is adapted even for people that don't do any meditative practice and/or don't have much time for practice but still need its effect.

Setting the training

1. Download this pattern if you don't have it yet.
2. Choose this pattern in Training tab or Control tab when you feel anxious.
3. Breathe according to the pattern guide.

Training process

1. Choose the comfortable position, but it is not obligatory, since the craving can manifest everywhere, but still best results come when you practice on open air and under direct sunlight.
2. Empty your lungs, breathing out gently, but with some effort ("Prepare").
3. Inhale deep and slow through your nose.
4. Exhale slowly and gradually through your nose.
5. Sustain your breath, concentrating on accepting the emotion you feel right now.
6. Keep breathing like this during first 10 cycles.
7. Starting from cycle 11, inhale and exhale through your nose slowly, but rhythmically till the end of your training session.
8. After you're done, feel the winning sensation of being closer to the bad habit being totally defeated. You deserve it!

• As you notice, this pattern starts with cycles with long air sustain phases, during what try to feel your sadness/loneliness as it is, without denying it. This phase gradually becomes shorter and shorter, giving to you the opportunity to switch to other emotions, optimizing the rhythm of inhaling and exhaling.
• This pattern is designed to have an average "one-cigarette-duration" (in this emotional state), but you may increase the training duration, or run the training once again if needed.
• Once you become familiar with the pattern, you can practice it in different situations, even without the usage of the app. Still, if you'd like it to appear in statistics, run it in the app.

Other questions

Got specific question about this pattern? Please contact Simone Righini directly to get the answer!
This pattern is a part of the training called “respira.re” (the Italian for “to breath”) that can be found in Simone's e-book on the website.