Set Your Goal
Smoking has robbed you of your health. Quitting smoking now will help you revive your health and give you a more positive outlook. Your greatest achievement will be to regain control of your life and be free from tobacco addiction. There are more reasons for you to quit smoking today than lighting that cigarette stick in your hand. You may want to consider these reasons:
- Smoking Affects Your Health – Smoking is dangerous to your health. You lose your sense of smell, and it gives you bad breath. It irritates your throat and makes it soar. And above all, it is bothering to be dependent on cigarettes.
- Smoking Makes You Look Ugly – Nicotine stains your teeth, gums and your fingers. It dries your skin and gives you more white hairs. Smokers look older than their age.
- Smoking Draws You Away from Your Love Ones – Smoking draws your non-smoking friends away. Non-smokers can’t stand the bad smell of smoke and would tend to stay away from it, aside from the fact that second hand smoke is more dangerous to a non-smoker’s health.
- Smoking is Expensive – Smoking robs you of your salary without you knowing it. A smoker spends thousands of dollars in his life time just to buy cigarettes, aside from the expenses a smoker spend for his insurance premium and hospitalization.
Ways to Quit Smoking Now
The habitual behavior of tobacco addiction has several similar features with obsessive-compulsive disorder or OCD, an anxiety condition in which a person has undesirable and recurrent thoughts, ideas, sensations, feelings, or behaviors. For you to quit smoking today you need to address two issues – first, you need to identify your reasons why you smoke and find a way to address them. And second, how to overcome your physical addiction to smoking.
Addressing the Psychological Issues of Smoking Addiction
If you want to quit smoking now, you first need to determine what to do in situations when you want to smoke. When you drink coffee, what do you do? Just drink the coffee. How about after eating a sumptuous meal? If you do not have the answers to these questions, it’s harder for you to quit smoking today. These techniques might help you quit:
- Avoid carrying matches or lighter.
- Avoid idle moments. Keep yourself busy to stop yourself from lighting the cigarette.
- Keep in mind the risks of smoking.
- Keep in mind the reasons why you want to quit smoking.
- Take deep breathes when you’re tempted to smoke.
- Water helps flush the toxins out of your body. Keep yourself hydrated.
- Avoid smoking areas.
- Your family and peers can help you quit.
Addressing the Physical Issues of Smoking Addiction
Quitting suddenly is very uncomfortable especially for heavy smokers because of the withdrawal symptoms that go with the quitting. During the smoking cessation treatments, depending on their case, patients may experience headaches, insomnia, bad temper, chills, shakiness or anxiety. Smokers may also experience dry mouth, racing heartbeat and excessive sweating.
Ways to Address the Physical Issues
- Quitting Cold Turkey – To quit cold turkey means to quit with no preparations at all. It’s like quitting out of the blue. This is a good technique if you’re a social to moderate smoker.
- Continuing or Gradual Quitting – This technique extends you misery but lessens your agony. You can set a time frame in which you’ll slowly reduce your cigarette consumption until you can finally quit.
- Using Nicotine Gums, Patches, or Lozenges – Smoking cessation products help lessen the cravings a smoker feels when quitting. These products deliver a small doze of nicotine or a substitute to the body that lessens the effects of nicotine craving.
It is never easy to quit smoking today and never will it be, but it is NEVER impossible. With the right motivation and support group a smoker can always quit the smoking addiction.
