Tips That Will Help You Stop Smoking Once and For All
To give up smoking, one needs to be eager to do so and make a decision. It is difficult to get rid of an addictive substance but it is not impossible. It can be achieved through determination. In order to stop smoking, set a quit date for yourself and stick to it. Do not postpone.
-You can motivate yourself by writing down your reasons to give up smoking on a piece of paper and putting it somewhere you can see all the time.
-You can buy yourself a gift on the day you quit smoking.
-You must tell family and friends that you plan to quit and ask for their support. If there are smokers among them, ask them not to smoke when they are around you.
– Remove from your environment any product that might remind you of smoking such as packs of cigarettes, ashtrays, and lighters.
-At the end of a meal, which might remind you of smoking, you can leave the table immediately, brush your teeth, or eat fruits.
-You might want to change your drinks. Try drinking less coffee and tea, which may remind you of smoking, and drink more water instead. -If an activity in your home or workplace reminds you of smoking, you need to try focusing on the task at hand or take a break and keep yourself busy with something else for a while.
-If you have oral and tactile cravings, you can keep your hands busy playing with squeeze balls or pencils, chew sugar-free gums, drink water, or eat fruits when you want to have a smoke.
-During the first 2-3 weeks, you need to try and stay away from situations where others smoke around you. You can take up a physical activity that suits your age.
-If you find yourself asking “where is the harm in smoking just one cigarette”, you should never give into that thought.
If a person has a hard time when they try to quit smoking by themselves, they can use one of the clinically proven treatment methods. These methods include nicotine replacement therapies such as nicotine gums and patches, or orally administered medicines such as bupropion and varenicline. All three methods successfully decrease the desire to smoke and prevent symptoms of withdrawal. When used under physician control, effectiveness of these medicines will increase. The therapeutic activity must be conducted with patients who are willing to quit and by physicians specialized in this area on a repetitive basis and as long as necessary. Today, we see some non-medicinal methods that are being widely preferred (such as acupuncture, luxopuncture, bioresonance, IOS, Allen Carr method, laser therapy, e-cigarettes, nicotine cigarettes, etc.) but the effectiveness of these methods are not proven and they are not recommended.
So What Happens Once You Quit?
As soon as you quit smoking, you will start to experience the following physical changes:
20 minutes after your last cigarette: Your heart rate, blood pressure and body temperature returns to normal,
After 24 hours: The carbon monoxide levels in your blood reduce rapidly.
After 2 weeks – 3 months:
– Your effort capacity increases,
– Coughing decreases and diminishes in 3 months,
– If you have phlegm, it decreases by half in 2 weeks,
– Breathing gets easier,
– Your senses of smell and taste improve,
– Your immune system starts to get stronger,
– Yellow stains on teeth and fingers disappear.
After 1 year:
– Risk of having a heart attack decreases by 50%,
– Risk of apoplexy and vascular diseases in legs are reduced by 30-50%,
– Prevents the occurrence or halts the progression of lung diseases that might lead to respiratory failure such as COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.)
After 5 years:
– Risk of developing cancers of the mouth, throat, esophagus, bladder is reduced by half.
After 10 years:
– Within 5-10 years, risk of having a stroke drops to the same as that of a non-smoker,
– Risk of developing cancers of the lungs, mouth, throat, esophagus, bladder, kidney and pancreas continues to drop.
After 15 years:
– Risk of coronary artery disease and heart attacks drops to the same as that of a person who has never smoked a cigarette.
