That's a very good question. Macrophage literally means 'big eater' and are giant cells that do everything you might imagine a white blood cell would do. They have long rippling membranes that they extend like feet. When the find something that they want to eat, they extend these feet around the substance, engulf it and excrete lots of digestive chemicals into the substance and break it down. When we breathe in, we inhale millions of tiny particles of dust, chemicals and other substances. As they travel towards our lungs, they form a type of whirlwind and get stuck on a sticky layer of mucus on the edge of our windpipe. There are also lots of tiny hairs on the edge of our windpipe, which beat continuously and waft the mucus back upwards. Some particles obviously get trapped or go further in than normal. The macrophages act like hoovers and try to clean these up. However, sometimes the macrophages get a bit frustrated when they can't break them down, and so the particles get added back into the mucus to be either spat out or swallowed. It is interesting to note that people who smoke not only have higher rates of lung cancer, but also bowel cancer. It isn't immediately obvious why this is, but it's due to many of the particles being swallowed instead of spat out.

An LED is a Light Emitting Diode, and is a semi-conductor device which will glow if you pass a current through it. A semi-conductor is a material which in it's natural state won't conduct electricity well, but if you add tiny quantities of other materials it will conduct quite well.

Normally each atom in the semi-conductor has 4 electrons and there are none free, but if you add a few atoms with 5 electrons there are some extra electrons which can move easily and carry a current (an N-type semi-conductor). Similarly if you add some atoms with only 3 electrons and then you get some gaps which other electrons can move into (a P-type semi-conductor). The electrons can now move a bit like the tiles in a sliding tile puzzle, but it is easier to think of a positively charged hole moving through the semiconductor.

.A diode is made if you join a lump of P-type semi-conductor to a lump of N-type. If you make the N-type region negative and the P-type positive, electrons and holes will move towards the junction and there are plenty of charge carriers there and a current can flow.

But if you make the N-type region positive and the P-type negative then electrons and holes will be pulled away from the junction leaving the junction with nothing to carry current, so it becomes insulating and a no current can flow.

So what has this got to do with LEDs?

if a current is flowing through the diode, you will get both electrons and holes in the same part of semi-conductor, this means that they can meet. When they do the electron can fill in the hole, releasing some energy, In an LED this is in the form of light.

The energy and therefore the colour of this light is fixed by the type of semi-conductor you are using, so normally it is all one colour, this is why LEDs are traditionally coloured. In fact it is much easier to make LEDs at the red end of the spectrum than the blue which is why blue LEDs have only recently become common.

White light is of course  a mixture of colours and if you were to use LEDs on their own you would need 3 LEDs to make white light. Manufacturers have a cunning way around this problem, they use phosphors, these convert high energy blue light into lower energy colours such as red, yellow and green. So  by covering your LED with phosphors a blue LED can appear white.
 

The thing about the hypnotised mind, like any other mind, is that nature abhors a vacuum. If you take someone back to before they were born and then say, 'who are you?' one answer might be 'I'm no-one because I haven't been born yet'. However, the nature of the question itself implies that there is an answer. The brain is very fertile and this is the reason why police don't use hypnotism to obtain details from witnesses. Asking someone about a robbery and the car number plate is fraught with danger. People think they are answering truthfully but have in fact constructed a story from lots of things in their brains. I could tell you a story about being a Dutch girl but it doesn't mean I ever was. By turning off the reality centre in the brain, your threshold for telling that what you are saying is nonsense is reduced. Another analogy that might be helpful for memories in general is to think of islands poking through a lake. Occasionally as memories fade, it is as if an island has subsided a bit. With a little judicious lowering of the lake level, maybe you could get them to poke through. If you do that in any big way, you get irregularities from the bottom of the lake that never were genuine memories. As they start poking through people think they are remembering something even though it's totally fictitious. Unfortunately, there's no way of telling the difference.

I've taken a lot of people off cigarettes in my time. Using hypnosis to get rid of this nasty habit is quite effective in the short term. Usually people have to be fairly motivated, but I think with chronic bronchitis your motivation is probably rising. You have got this fear of getting rid of something that is giving you pleasure and so I suppose that is going to be something you will need to think about a great deal. However, using hypnosis can help with your motivation. I also just want to say something not related to hypnosis. There is a peak in desire when you want to have a cigarette. If you can look at your watch when you want a cigarette and wait for five minutes, you may find that after five minutes the peak of that desire has actually gone. You have then saved yourself one cigarette, and that has nothing to do with hypnosis. I don't recommend going longer than five minutes because there's something inside us that makes us feel deprived, thus making us want it even more. As for your chronic pain, hypnotism can help if you go to a properly qualified practitioner. You could find that it could help with smoking and pain. To find a hypnotherapist, go online and do a search for BSECH. They have a website with names of properly qualified practitioners.

The idea of being back on cigarettes just by smoking a bit is very common. I used to think that New Year celebrations were the most dangerous thing for recovering smokers because people have a few to drink and are in a smoky atmosphere. However, it is only one incident. You have proved that you can give up for a whole year and so I would have said that you should put that one cigarette behind you and start again. Slipping back into smoking is very common, but as you were so successful using hypnosis the first time, I would recommend that you try it again.

Hypnosis can help with anxiety, although sometimes the thought of going to a hypnotherapist can make them anxious. However, they have nothing to be nervous about if they go to a properly qualified person. Among professionals, we always say that someone shouldn't treat someone with hypnosis if they wouldn't be competent to treat it without hypnosis. With an anxiety problem, you would probably be thinking about going to see a psychologist. If that psychologist knows how to do hypnosis, he may think about using that as an additional tool. This can help with the effectiveness of the treatment normally given. There is nothing harmful about hypnosis in itself as long as you go to someone properly qualified.

That's great!

Stress can definitely exacerbate tinnitus and I know because I have tinnitus myself. There is a lot that can be done with hypnosis to allay anxiety and stress reactions. It's definitely worth a try.

To my mind, the hypnotists missed out an important thing at the beginning. It's well worth telling people that hypnosis does not produce odd feelings. People can get up and open their eyes if they wanted. It does not do magical things.