How to Quit Smoking
Thinking about how to quit smoking and how it will benefit you and your loved ones?
From Quit Stop Now, the people who have been helping smokers quit since 2014.
Quitting smoking will improve your health, lower your risk of many diseases, save you money, and set a good example for your children and grandchildren. You can write down your reasons and keep them handy as a reminder of your motivation.
Choose a method that works for you and suits your lifestyle. There are different ways to quit smoking, such as going cold turkey, cutting down gradually, using nicotine replacement therapy, taking prescription medicines, or getting counselling and support. You can also try the QSN Stop Smoking Program, which has helped thousands of smokers.
Prepare for the challenges and rewards of quitting. Quitting smoking can be hard, but it can also bring you many positive changes. You may experience some withdrawal symptoms and cravings, such as irritability, anxiety, insomnia, headache, or hunger. These are normal and temporary, and they will fade over time. To cope with them, distract yourself with other activities, drink plenty of water, exercise, or seek support from others. On the other hand, you will also notice some immediate and long-term benefits of quitting, such as improved blood circulation, lung function, taste, smell, mood, and energy levels. You will also reduce your risk of many diseases, such as heart disease, stroke, lung cancer, and diabetes.
Get support from others who understand what you are going through. Quitting smoking can be easier and more enjoyable if you have someone to share your journey with. You can ask your friends, family, co-workers, or health professionals to help you quit, or join a support group or online community of other quitters. You can join the Quitters Facebook Group here for free. Having support can help you stay motivated, cope with challenges, celebrate your successes, and prevent relapse.
Clean up your environment and get rid of anything that reminds you of smoking. This includes cigarettes, lighters, ashtrays, matches, and tobacco products. You can also wash your clothes, clean your car, and freshen up your home to remove the smell of smoke. This will help you avoid triggers and temptations and create a smoke-free space for yourself.
Find healthy ways to cope with stress and negative emotions. Smoking can be a way of dealing with stress, boredom, anger, sadness, or anxiety. However, smoking is not a healthy or effective way of managing your emotions. Instead, you can try other strategies, such as meditation, yoga, exercise, music, hobbies, or talking to someone you trust.
Reward yourself and celebrate your milestones. Quitting smoking is a big achievement, and you deserve to be proud of yourself. You can reward yourself with something that makes you happy, such as a new hobby, a trip, a gift, or a treat. You can also celebrate your milestones, such as your first day, week, month, or year without smoking. You can use the money you save from not buying cigarettes to fund your rewards and celebrations. This will help you reinforce your positive behaviour and enjoy the benefits of quitting.
Learn about the how to quit smoking and know about the health improvements your body makes over time after quitting smoking. According to the web search results I found, here are some of the benefits you can expect:
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- Within 20 minutes, your heart rate and blood pressure start to drop.
- Within 12 hours, your blood oxygen levels improve and the carbon monoxide in your body decreases.
- Within 5 days, most of the nicotine has left your body.
- Within 1 week, your sense of taste and smell improves.
- Within 2 to 12 weeks, your risk of heart attack is reduced, your circulation is improved, you find exercise easier to manage and your lung function is more effective.
- Within 1 to 9 months, you are short of breathless frequently and you cough less.
- Within 1 year, your risk of heart disease has decreased to about half what it would have been if you had continued to smoke.
- Within 5 years, you have reduced your risk of having a stroke or developing mouth cancer, throat cancer or cancer of the oesophagus.
- Within 10 years, your risk of developing lung cancer has decreased to about half what it would have been if you had continued to smoke, while your risk of developing bladder cancer, kidney cancer and pancreatic cancer has also decreased.
Remember, knowing how to quit smoking is one of the best things you can do for yourself and your loved ones. Now you just need to take action.
It may not be easy, but it is possible and worthwhile.
You have the power and the potential to quit.
We believe in you. Good luck!
If you need our help, get in touch here.😊
PS – You probably don’t need anymore motivation to quit smoking than you already have. But if you did, we have 18 reasons that will leave you more motivated than ever to quit smoking:
- Lifelong tobacco smokers lose at least 10 years of life on average.
- With every puff of a cigarette, toxins and carcinogens are delivered to the body, at least 70 of the chemicals are known to cause cancer.
- The risk of developing diabetes is higher in smokers.
- Smoking is a risk factor for dementia, a group of disorders that result in mental decline.
- Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia, and an estimated 14% of Alzheimer’s cases globally can be attributed to smoking.
- Women who smoke are more likely to experience painful menstruation and more severe menopausal symptoms.
- Menopause occurs 1–4 years earlier in female smokers because smoking reduces the production of eggs in the ovaries, resulting in a loss of reproductive function and subsequent low estrogen levels.
- Tobacco smoke reduces the delivery of oxygen to the body’s tissues.
- Tobacco use restricts blood flow which, if left untreated, can lead to gangrene (death of body tissue) and amputation of affected areas.
- Tobacco use increases the risk of periodontal disease, a chronic inflammatory disease that wears away at the gums and destroys the jawbone, leading to tooth loss.
- Tobacco smokers are at significantly higher risk than non-smokers for post-surgical complications.
- Tobacco smokers are harder to wean off mechanical ventilation. This often lengthens their intensive care unit (ICU) and overall hospital stay, potentially exposing them to other infection.
- Smokers are likely to experience gastrointestinal disorders, such as stomach ulcers, inflammatory bowel disease, associated with abdominal cramps, persistent diarrhea, fever and rectal bleeding, and cancers of the gastrointestinal tract.
- Smokers are more likely to lose bone density, fracture more easily and experience serious complications, such as delayed healing or failure to heal.
- Components of tobacco smoke weaken the immune system, putting smokers at risk of pulmonary infections.
- Smokers with a genetic predisposition to autoimmune disorders are at an increased risk of several diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease, bacterial meningitis, postsurgical infection, and cancers.
- Smoking also puts immune-compromised individuals, such as those living with cystic fibrosis, multiple sclerosis or cancer, at a higher risk of disease-related comorbidities and premature death.
- The immunosuppressive effects of tobacco put people living with HIV at an increased risk of developing AIDS. Among HIV-positive smokers, the average length of life lost is 12.3 years, more than double the number of years lost by HIV-positive non-smokers.
Credit for these 18 bullet points.
