Smoking sure gives us pleasure but there are crucial reasons for us to quit smoking, because smoking causes serious health problems like cancer of the lung/s, throat, mouth, larynx, esophagus, pancreas, kidney, bladder, cervix, and stomach; leukemia, lung diseases, atherosclerosis ( hardening and narrowing of the arteries, heart diseases, stroke, gum disease and eye diseases that could lead to blindness. Smoking also makes illness last longer, cause more wound infections after surgery, makes harder to get pregnant for women and increases your risk of getting a hip fracture.
When you quit smoking, you will gain benefits like clean teeth, you could avoid halitosis, less skin wrinkles and better lifestyle.
Research has shown that these five steps will help you to quit for good:
Pick a date to stop smoking. Before that day, get rid of all cigarettes, ashtrays, and lighters everywhere you smoke. Do not allow anyone to smoke in your home. Write down why you want to quit and keep this list as a reminder.
Get support from your family, friends, and coworkers. Studies have shown you will be more likely to quit if you have help. Let the people important to you know the date you will be quitting and ask them for their support. Ask them not to smoke around you or leave cigarettes out.
Find substitutes for smoking and vary your routine. When you get the urge to smoke, do something to take your mind off smoking. Talk to a friend, go for a walk, or go to the movies. Reduce stress with exercise, meditation, hot baths, or reading. Try sugar-free gum or candy to help handle your cravings. Drink lots of water and juices. You might want to try changing your daily routine as well. Try drinking tea instead of coffee, eating your breakfast in a different place, or taking a different route to work.
Talk to your doctor or nurse about medicines to help you quit. Some people have withdrawal symptoms when they quit smoking. These symptoms can include depression, trouble sleeping, feeling irritable or restless, and trouble thinking clearly. There are medicines to help relieve these symptoms. Most medicines help you quit smoking by giving you small, steady doses of nicotine, the drug in cigarettes that causes addiction. Talk to your doctor or nurse to see if one of these medicines may be right for you:
Be prepared for relapse. Most people relapse, or start smoking again, within the first three months after quitting. Don’t get discouraged if you relapse. Remember, many people try to quit several times before quitting for good. Think of what helped and didn’t help the last time you tried to quit. Figuring these out before you try to quit again will increase your chances for success. Certain situations can increase your chances of smoking. These include drinking alcohol, being around other smokers, gaining weight, stress, or becoming depressed. Talk to your doctor or nurse for ways to cope with these situations.
Smoking sure gives us pleasure but there are crucial reasons for us to quit smoking, because smoking causes serious health problems like cancer of the lung/s, throat, mouth, larynx, esophagus, pancreas, kidney, bladder, cervix, and stomach; leukemia, lung diseases, atherosclerosis ( hardening and narrowing of the arteries, heart diseases, stroke, gum disease and eye diseases that could lead to blindness. Smoking also makes illness last longer, cause more wound infections after surgery, makes harder to get pregnant for women and increases your risk of getting a hip fracture.
When you quit smoking, you will gain benefits like clean teeth, you could avoid halitosis, less skin wrinkles and better lifestyle.
You know that you need to quit smoking in order to feel healthier and live longer. No big secret, right? But many people don’t know how to kick the nicotine habit. Many have tried and many have failed and become frustrated with the entire process.
Quitting smoking is the best thing you can do to improve your life and health. Any attempt to quit smoking will make you stronger. It’s never too late to reap the benefits, some of which happen within the first few days. With the right combination of practice, determination and support, you will be able to stop smoking for good!
Quit smoking and you’ll start feeling better within 24 hours. The minute you stop smoking, your body will begin cleansing itself of tobacco toxins.
Cigarette Smokingis a serious problem, even more than one can actually think it to be. It is a powerful addictive drug but with the right approach, one can overcome the craving. Therefore one should get all the Free Stop Smoking aid that will help him to stop smoking completely.
1. The First Stop Smoking Aid has to be one’s will and determination. Although it may sound silly but if one is not strong enough to stop with stop smoking stress and if he is not determined to quit for a long time, then no Smoking Aid will help him. If one is ready to Quit then all the Smoking aids will work beautifully.
2. Cord Turkey is one of the main methods to quit smoking as it requires quitting without any help from any source. It is quitting smoking abruptly without going slow. Many people have quit successfully with the help of Cold turkey method. The main advantage of this method is that majority of nicotine comes out of person’s body within few days. In it physical withdrawal is short but discomfort can be intense for some people.
3. Support from family and Friends is a very essential free Quit smoking aid. It is well researched that people who get support from their friends and family are much more likely to succeed. If one is reluctant to discuss with family regarding smoking, then make sure that their friends know about this and they can also consider a professional counselor or other adult they can trust. And if one is having difficult time to get support from friends and family or nearest relative, there are many support groups whether online or otherwise available which will help you.
1. A schedule: One can schedule a stop date in advance which will give enough time to the smoker to prepare himself for upcoming changes. This will also allow him to start some medical treatment.
2. Throwing the cigarettes: The second tip is throwing all the cigarettes on the stop smoking day. This will have the huge psychological impact on the smoker.
3. Smokers’ places: Then avoiding all the places and situations that will prompt him to light the cigarette.
4. Patience and believing: One should have patience and believing as Smoking is 70% connected with the mind and 30 % with one’s body.
There are several websites which cater to the ways to stop smoking. This can be is very useful for persons who have taken a decision regarding quitting smoking.
Smokersusually smoke first thing in the morning after they woke up, after having a drink, after having a coffee or when they are at their computer. Therefore, Quitting Smoking is much more than just not smoking anymore. It is about breaking a cycle in one’s life.
One should know that smoking cigarettes is a habit and habits are very difficult to shake.
That is the reason Quitting Smoking is also referred to as “Kicking the habit”. We all are creatures of habit. It’s like treating yourself to a chocolate cake when one is on a diet. One has to come up with all the nicotine withdrawals symptomsand craving if he has to be successful. He needs to beat the smoking habit and change his lifestyle completely.
1. Overreaction: Anger and short temperedness is a common symptom with nicotine withdrawal. Quitting smoking can cause a person to overreact as he will be living in a life edge for a little while.
2. Lack of concentration: The main after-effect of quitting smoking is that there is lack of concentration as mind starts playing games with you. Along with this, there are mood swings, loneliness, stress, self-pity and general crankiness that come with quitting smoking.
3. Mild depression or sadness: One of the major side effects of smoking is mild depression or sadness. For some persons quitting smoking is like messing with the mind.
4. Sensitive digestive system: You might get a stomach pain and sour stomach with stopping cigarette smoking as there is sensitive digestive system for a little while.
5. Coughing: There is wheezing, shortness of breath, coughing for a little while as the body is getting ready for years of tar and build up tissues.
6. General pain: There is always general pain all over the body that includes stomach cramps, pain in chest and overall pain everywhere. As the person’s body and mind are going through a healing phase, these symptoms remind the body of what it is missing.
7. Shaking & sweating: The other symptoms might include shaking, sweating and feeling cold.
8. Insomnia: Insomnia is a very common problem that comes with quitting smoking.
9. Headache: Headache and general heaviness also come when a person starts to stop smoking cigarettes. This happens because sinuses of the person clear out.
1. Personal reasons for quitting: You need to discover your personal reasons for quitting. You should determine your personal goals. You must get rid of all the temptations that would be a hindrance to your stop smoking program. You should understand what you need to do to stop smoking.
2. Taking a decision: Then, take a decision to stop smoking. The main factors which determine your success in quitting smoking are your will power and firm mindset. You must have the desire to stop the smoking habit and also create a strong will in case of relapse.
3. Start “your own Quitting Plan”: The key to quitting cigarettes successfully is proper planning and preparation. You need to prepare your body and mind before quitting.
4. Take the guidance of professionals: There are various options available in the market. However, not all the people get the same results with these. You might need to take the guidance of professionals while quitting smoking.
5. Cold turkey or gradually quitting: Cold Turkey is one of the most common methods to quit smoking. In this, smokers quit smoking abruptly or at once without slowly trying to taper off. You should find the method that works best for you: cold turkey or gradually quitting. If one doesn’t work then try another method.
6. Start Exercises: Exercises are usually incompatible with smoking. Exercise helps in relieving stress and helps the body recover from year of damage from cigarette use. You can start with 30 to 40 minutes of rigorous activity doing 3 to 4 times a week.
Although you know that smoking is addictive and harmful, you probably do not realize how addictive it is. You should quit the smoking habit not just for your own sake but for the sake of your loved ones. Harassment and pressure from loved ones who do not understand the smokers mind is often unhelpful.
Tobacco contains many toxin chemical substances including nicotine. Nicotine is a highly addictive drug which enters the smoker’s bloodstream through his lungs when the smoker inhales smoke. It is a stimulant that increases the activity in the brain just like coffee. Nicotine works differently for different parts of the brain. When body gets used to nicotine, then it needs certain level in order to function normally otherwise one would feel snappy and edgy.
These are the reasons why so many people find it so hard to quit smoking. Even if they quit, most of them relapse due to nicotine dependency and other social/psychological reasons.
If asked a smoker for the reason why he/she smokes, most of them replied that it increases their concentration and helps them to relax. Small majority reply that they actually enjoy the habit of smoking.
Here are some of routines related to the smoking habits. Let’s look on the smoking cigarettes habit – A lot of smokers smoke in any daily action or situation!
They smoke when they are:
• Happy OR sad
• Exited OR relaxed or bored
• Nervous OR calm
• Tired or too energetic
• Frustrated OR normal
• A smoker smokes at various point of time like when eating dessert, after eating or during drinking alcohol.
Why do people start smoking? Smoking is not just an individual health behavior but it is seen as a group phenomenon. Almost ninety percent of smokers start smoking when they were minors. The main problem is that young people underestimate the addictive power of nicotine. There are several reasons why a person start smokingincluding peer pressure:
1. Smoking Environment – Many children are living in an environment where they see relatives – i.e. parents, brothers and siblings smoking. They start smoking to act like them or they smoke if their friends have tried it.
2. Rebellion – Other children smoke to act out of rebellion against their parents or any person of authority.
3. Low self esteem – Some people smoke because of the low self esteem. They want to be a part of “in crowd” or want to be accepted by their peers.
4. Smoking cigarettes is legal – In addition to the above reasons, smoking cigarettes is legal and the smokers do not feel that they are using a dangerous addictive drug.
1. How many are sold/die – About 10 million cigarettes are sold every minute and ironically someone dies every eight second in this world from smoking related diseases.
2. 50% chance of killing the addict – The addiction to smoking has about 50% chance of killing the addict which is almost three times more than playing the game of Russian roulette.
3. Toll of death – Tobacco Smoking is a mood altering drug that has killed about 200 million people worldwide including 500,000 Americans each year.
4. A costly pleasure – Smoking is a well known irritant to the human body causing many lives threatening disease but it is a costly pleasure as well. Cigarette Smoking costs about $400 billion each year.
5. Yearly deaths – According to the latest WHO estimates, smoking leads to killing of about 4 million persons every year, this number is expected to rise to 10 million by 2030.
6. Preventable death – Cigarette Smoking is the main reason for preventable deaths in the whole world, out of which women accounts for 39 % of smoking related deaths.
1. Heart diseases – Cigarette Smoking is responsible for about 40% of the heart diseases and about 25% of the cancer related deaths.
2. Second hand smoke – It has been reported that about 3000 persons die due to the second hand smoke in US every year. The second hand smoke has been classified as carcinogen since 1992.
3. Non smoker’s blood – It is a dangerous fact that there are residues of cigarette smoke in about 90% of the non smoker’s blood.
4. Nicotine addiction – According to the latest Centre of Disease control list, Nicotine is the world’s most addictive substance.
5. Infertility – Cigarette smoking causes infertility in women if taken more than half pack a day.
6. Early menopause – Smoking may also lead to early menopause among women as compared to non smokers.
7. Pregnant Women – Pregnant women who smoke have the higher risk of babies born with birth defects and they pass chemicals to the unborn child through the placenta.
Let’s take look at the history to learn some interesting facts about smoking:
1. Rolling tobacco leaves in a paper – The interested fact about smoking is that Brazilian people invented Smoking 2000 years ago by rolling tobacco leaves in a paper.
2. “Nicotine”? – A French Ambassador by the name of Jean Nicot brought tobacco to Portugal saying that it is useful in treating wounds, cancer and asthma, the word Nicotine comes from his last name.
3. WW1 & WW2 – The soldiers were given tobacco as part of their ration in both World War I and World War II.
4. 1st death linked to smoking – The first reported death linked to smoking use was published in the year 1859.
It is estimated that several trillion cigarette butts are littered worldwide every year. That’s billions of cigarettes flicked, side by side, one at a time, on our sidewalks, beaches, nature trails, gardens, and other public places in each and every single day. In fact, cigarettes are the most littered item in America and the world. Cigarette filters are made of cellulose acetate tow, NOT COTTON, and they can take decades to degrade. Not only does cigarette litter ruin even the most pleasing setting, but the toxic residue in cigarette filters is damaging to the environment, and littered butts cause numerous fires every year, some of them fatal.
A new pack ofcigarettesgives one a pleasant feeling. A full, firm pack in the hand signifies that one is provided for, and gives satisfaction, whereas an almost empty pack creates a feeling of want and gives a decidedly unpleasant impression. The empty pack gives us a feeling of real frustration and deprivation.
During the seventeenth century, religious leaders and statesmen in many countries condemned the use of tobacco. Smokers were excommunicated by the Church and some of them were actually condemned to death and executed. But the habit of smoking spread rapidly all over the world. The psychological pleasures derived proved much more powerful than religious, moral, and legal persuasions. As in the case of the prohibition experiment in the United States, repressive measures seem to have aroused a spirit of popular rebellion and helped to increase the use of tobacco.
If we consider all the pleasure and advantages provided, in a most democratic and international fashion, by this little white paper roll, we shall understand why it is difficult to destroy its power by means of warnings, threats, or preaching’s. This pleasure miracle has so much to offer that we can safely predict the cigarette is here to stay. Our psychological analysis is not intended as a eulogy of the habit of smoking, but rather as an objective report on why people smoke cigarettes. Perhaps this will seem more convincing if we reveal a personal secret: We ourselves do not smoke at all. We may be missing a great deal.
This is the reply of most smokers when they are offered a brand different from their own. Brand loyalty among smokers is strong and persistent. Individuals smoke one brand consistently, so that they become identified with it. A guest who discovers that his host smokes the same brand considers this a personal flattery. If a young lady changes to the brand of an admirer, he understands that he has surely made an impression. Here is the experience of one young man, and his interpretation of it: “I was very fond of a girl. She was giving a farewell party before leaving the country. I didn’t have any idea how I stood in her affection. The only clue was that at her party she had my brand ofcigarettes. I always felt that that was in deference to me.” “My brand” has a special significance, as if it were a part of the smoker’s credo and personality.
Much of this guilt feeling can be tread directly to one’s firstcigarette, which the older generation remembers as a forbidden and sinful thing. Their fathers considered the habit an educational problem, whereas many parents nowadays have adopted a “modern” attitude toward smoking. Here is what one such father said: “I told my son I thought he was a little young… He is seventeen. It might not do him any harm to wait another year or two. Then I remembered my own first cigarette and what awful stuff I had to smoke in secret. In a way, my son is lucky to be able to start with a good cigarette without running the danger of ruining his health. I gave him a pack of the brand I smoke.”
Most of us remember vividly the first cigarette we smoked. “I certainly remember my first cigarette,” said one of our respondents. “We were a bunch of boys on our way to a football game. I had trouble lighting my cigarette, and at that moment a man passed by and yelled at me: ‘Throw that cigarette away, you rascal!’ I was so shocked and frightened that I obeyed his command without hesitation. But only a few minutes later, I lighted another one just to demonstrate to myself that I was not afraid.
Despite all the millions spent on comparing the potentially harmful effects of different brands of cigarettes, our respondents seemed very little concerned about this matter. But all of them, even those who do not smoke excessively, worry about the quantities they smoke. Scientific and medical studies on the physiological effects of smoking provide a confused picture: Some conclude that smoking is harmful; others deny it. This same confusion prevails among smokers themselves. Nevertheless, all of them worry about smoking too many cigarettes, as shown by the fact that nearly everyone has tried, at one time or another, to “cut down on” smoking. “I’ll tell you something I do,” one smoker confided. “I give up smoking cigarettes every year for one month, and I say to myself that I’ll prove to myself I can still do without them.” Periodic abstemiousness of this kind indicates an underlying feeling of guilt. Such individuals really think that constant smoking is not only harmful, but also a bit immoral. Efforts to reduce the amount of smoking signify a willingness to sacrifice pleasure in order to assuage their feeling of guilt.
The mind has a powerful influence on the body, and may produce symptoms of physical illness. Guilt feelings may cause harmful physical effects not at all caused by the cigarettes used, which may be extremely mild. Such guilt feelings alone may be the real cause of the injurious consequences.
