How To Quit Smoking?

Did You Know?

Cigarette smoking causes 87% of lung cancer deaths.

Smoking is bad for your health. It harms nearly every human organ and leads to various health issues such as lung disease, stroke and cataracts, heart and blood vessel disease. It can worsen asthma or can cause ear infection in teenagers.

Once you quit smoking, you can start experiencing its benefits immediately. You will experience better heart rate and blood pressure, sense of smell and taste gets, and the risk of lung disease, cancer, and heart disease reduces etc.

Tips to Quit Smoking

• Set A Date – Set a date for yourself to quit smoking, such as within two weeks or one month. This will provide you enough of time to prepare yourself without losing your motivation to quit. It will also provide you enough days to adjust to the change.
• Take Help Of Your Family And Friends – Involve your friends and family in your plan to quit smoking. Their continuous support will encourage you more and more to quit smoking. You can also look for a quit buddy who also wants to stop smoking. You can help each other get through the rough times.
• Add Healthy Snack Food To Your Diet – Make sure to have a healthy diet. You can also add sunflower seeds, carrot, or celery sticks to your diet. Replace your every cigarette with nuts – eat four nuts in place of one cigarette. This will help you quit smoking and will improve your health.
• Drink Herbal Tea Whenever You Feel Craving For Smoking – Slowly sipping hot herbal tea will offer the same stress relief similar to a hit of nicotine. You can also carry cinnamon-flavored toothpicks, suck them whenever you’ve a cig craving hits.
• Create A Smoke Free Zone ­– Throw away all of your cigarette packs, lighters, ashtrays, and matches. Wash your clothes and freshen up every that smells like smoke. Moreover, don’t allow anyone to smoke in your home, car, or even while sitting/standing next to you anywhere.
• If You Relapse, Just Start Again – Don’t get dishearten! Remember, some people have to quit as many times before they are successful.
• Talk To Your Health Care Provider – Your doctor can prescribe medications that can help you with withdrawal symptoms. You can also go for some over the counter alternatives such as nicotine gum, nicotine lozenges, and nicotine patch etc.

Why it’s Hard to Quit Smoking?

Nicotine is a strong drug. Your body becomes addicted to nicotine when you smoke. Whenever you try to quit, you may suffer from some withdrawal symptoms ­ – sleeping disorder or eating disorder. These symptoms usually lasts for few weeks after quitting smoke. In addition to it, the routines and habits that go along with smoking also make it difficult for people to quit smoking.  Some people often smoke a cigarette when they drive, after a meal, or when they’re on the phone and smoking becomes a part of these routines. After you quit smoking, these habits can be a trigger to make you want to smoke again. It’s important to separate smoking from these routines when you quit.