Your Stop Smoking Blog

You know you’re not doing yourself any favors by continuing to smoke, yet despite your best intentions, the first thing you do each day is light up a cigarette. If you’re wondering whether you’ll ever be able to quit, consider this. Smoking – nicotine – is addictive, and with any addiction, quitting brings with it withdrawal symptoms. You can conquer these.

There are many ways to quit smoking. There is the “cold turkey” method where you simply decide to stop. You throw away your cigarettes and you just quit – cold turkey. This method is appealing to many people because they seem to be able to get it over with quickly. Withdrawal symptoms will occur, but as long as their mind is firmly focused on the desire to quit, it is very successful.

There is also the “cutting back” method, in which you set a timeframe during which you will smoke less than you have been in the past. Once that time period has ended, you decrease even further and proceed incrementally through more timeframes at lesser and lesser amounts of smoking until you finally reduce the amount you smoke to zero.

At first glance, this cutting-back method may seem like the easiest way to quit, however it may be harder than it looks. Studies have found that often when a person has cut back, they eventually go back to smoking as much as they were before the quit attempt started.

Another way to stop smoking more easily is to use stop smoking aids – or nicotine replacement – in order to manage the cravings for this addictive substance as the smoking decreases. Nicotine aids popularly come in the form of stop-smoking gum, or nicotine patches that apply to the skin and supply small amounts of nicotine through the skin into the bloodstream.

More recently, there has become a stop smoking aid available in pill form that helps to block the receptors in the brain, decreasing the need for nicotine. There are potential side effects to this pill, but it appears to be very effective in helping smokers quit the habit.

So, what steps can you take to make it easier to quit smoking? Keep a journal of any activities, events, or stresses that seem to trigger a need for a smoke. For instance, when you find yourself absolutely craving a smoke, make a note of what things you were focused on leading up to the event. Then on a regular basis keep track of what seems to trigger this behavior.

Once you have chosen a method to quit smoking, whether cold turkey, cut-back, or through the use of a stop smoking aid, keep another journal in which you describe the results. Have the symptoms or cravings improved? Are they worse?

If you are taking a stop smoking aid, keep a record of what you take and when. Is it helping with the cravings? Are there any side effects? Keep track of when side effects occur and how severe they are. Having this information handy will give you an objective view of how this aid is assisting with your efforts to stop smoking.

Setting up journals like the ones described here is easy to do. You can use a paper worksheet, a computer word processing program, or even a spreadsheet program like Excel.

You owe it to yourself to take an active role in managing your own health. Smoking is not simply detrimental to your health. It has the ability to kill you in so many different ways, that is has become one of the greatest poisons of all time. With a proper approach, it can be controlled and eliminated, but you need to use every tool at your disposal to be successful in quitting smoking.

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Quitting smoking is considered to be one of the most difficult things to achieve. Many people try to give up a few times before succeeding completely. Smokers generally have both physical and psychological dependencies on cigarettes. The physical attribute can be related to the nicotine cravings that many people have when they have not had a cigarette for a certain period of time. This amount of time differs between various people and how much they smoke. The psychological part can have many influences such as peer pressure or simply the enjoyment of lighting up.

If you are thinking about quitting the habit but still have some doubts in your mind then it may be worth considering the effects of smoking cigarettes. Smokers face a greatly increased risk of heart disease, and cancers of lungs, mouth, throat, stomach and pancreas. About half of smokers die of the habit. As well as all of this smoking causes bad smell of clothes and breath and the yellowing of teeth and nails. Smoking is also one of the leading causes of the early aging of skin. Smokers often claim cigarettes causes their nerves to calm down. In fact the exact opposite is true and smokers generally tend to be more nervous.

It is never too late to quit smoking as the health benefits are immediate. The best thing to do is to give up smoking entirely. However this is not the easiest method. Some people prefer to cut down on the number of cigarettes and then to give up completely. If this is the case then should have a written plan on how you are going to cut down. If you do decide to quit the habit, then you must be aware that it requires strong will and patience. You must be prepared to face a new challenge and a change of lifestyle. However look back at all the associated health benefits and the costs associated with smoking and you will immediately be put at ease. Make sure to choose a right time frame of giving up. If you decide to give up during a difficult period of life then in turn giving up smoking may also be more difficult.

There are a few steps that must be taken before quitting completely. On day of giving up you must make sure that you do not have any cigarettes lying around. The temptation of having a single cigarette is enough to make you want give up ‘giving up’. It is also worth staying away from any friends or colleagues who are smokers for a short while. The fact that you see them enjoying a smoke and the breathing in of their second hand smoke may be enough to make you give in.

Many people enjoying smoking at the same time as having an alcoholic drink. If you are such a person then steer clear of any bars or drinks for the first few weeks. Find a different way to socialize or a different activity to keep you preoccupied. Remember quitting smoking is a change of lifestyle and it can also be a great opportunity to get involved in sports and exercise. Combining a healthy diet and moderate exercise levels to start off with, help with the faster restoration of the body to a healthier state and ease the tension from not smoking.

If you find the cravings too difficult then it is worth having a pack of chewing gum ready. Chewing gum does not ease the cravings; however it does slightly reduce the stress of not having a cigarette. It is also a convenient substitute for the habit. Other alternatives include using nicotine patches for those with more cravings.

The first few days are always the most difficult. After the first week you will suddenly feel much more energetic than usual. People may have symptoms ranging from breathing difficulty in the mornings to sudden mood swings. However this is normal and after a few months, you will start to think why you had not given up smoking earlier!

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