Nine Weird Ways To Quit Smoking

Have you ever felt like you’ve already tried all the conventional quit techniques and nothing works? Many smokers get into a quitting rut where they’ve tried to quit so many times that even the best techniques are currently serving to remind you of a previous failure. This can lead to a bad demoralisation cycle which only makes smoking more likely, not less. However, the ‘standard ways’ aren’t the only techniques available to you and, to be honest, ex-smokers have tried some pretty crazy things to quit, and it’s even more surprising to learn what worked. While everyone is a little different, if you feel like you’ve tried absolutely everything and nothing keeps your quit for good, consider trying something weird instead. Simply shaking up the way you think about the quit could be that final extra push you need to succeed and quit for good. Here are 9 weird ways to quit smoking for you to try.

Start Setting Fires

If you love the fire, the glow, and the smoke of smoking cigarettes, we’d like to point out that nicotine isn’t the only thing you can light on fire and is, in fact, one of the most expensive ways to deal with your minor case of pyromania. Instead of carrying around a $40 pack of cigarettes (prices may vary), grab a $2 pack of matches or a $5 pack of incense and burn that instead. You can still go on your ‘smoke’ breaks and take an excuse to walk around outside for a few minutes, just burn something else to please your love of fire and smoke. Best case scenario? You find something even more fun (but safe) to burn and forget all about cigarettes.

Accept Bribes

While it’s wrong to abuse a position of power by taking bribes, there’s no law, moral or federal, that says you can’t take a bribe to quit smoking or a dozen bribes for that matter. One way to do this is to simply accept one when offered or you can turn around a loved one’s worried pestering about your smoking habit by challenging them to pay you for it. The idea is that once you take the bribe, you are honour bound by the rules of bribery to deliver what was paid for. Alternately, you can do it more like a bet and take payment for reaching a certain number of days or months without smoking.

Get a Teeth Cleaning

You know how you’re supposed to clean everything in your house and car when you quit? If you didn’t, this could very well be your backslide problem. Vaporized nicotine in the smoke spreads into any room you smoke in and settles on everything. Your sofa probably smells faintly of cigarettes, and most ‘smoking’ homes have slightly yellow-tinted walls from the built-up nicotine. Even once you get your walls scrubbed and have steam-cleaned the floors, furniture, and car, your teeth might still taste vaguely like cigarettes. Get an official complete dental cleaning after your quit to get rid of this final hiding place of craving-causing nicotine particles.

Take Up an Outdoor Sport

Much of the appeal of smoking is control and change of your breathing behaviours along with a mild high that comes from a combination of slowed blood flow and nicotine. However, there’s an entirely different way to get high on breathing that many people overlook. For a combination of distraction and a great excuse to take in big lungfuls of oxygen, try an outdoor sport like hiking or mountain biking and spend your time surrounded by as many trees as possible.

Wear a Sign

If you’re the kind of serial-quitter, who tends to fail because you forget not to take an offered cigarette or not to buy them on your way home from work, try wearing a sign. Like ‘Kick Me’ or ‘Please Send Home to Mother’ only this time you’ve written it for yourself. Make a sign politely asking others not to give or sell you cigarettes and wear it pinned to your shirt or taped to a hat. This unusual quit trick alone is enough to win you laughs and free drinking straws to chew on instead.

Start Blogging about Your Quit

Most people don’t know until they try it but there’s a certain kind of exhilarating addictive quality to writing your own blog that can help provide you willpower for your quit. Start blogging keeping a blog journaling your quit, why you’re quitting, and telling the story of your quit adventure. After even one or two readers look and comment, that feeling of having ‘an audience that needs you’ can drive you to keep your quit if only to avoid telling your loyal readers that the story doesn’t end in triumph.

Get Hypnotized

If you believe in the power of the subconscious, and the power of hypnotists to do anything about that, then hypnotism might work for you. It’s true, the vast majority of smokers who have tried a hypnotist say that it doesn’t really make a difference, the hypnotists claim that not everyone can be hypnotised or that some people just mess up their craft. If you happen to be one of the apparently very small percentages of people who can be hypnotised into not smoking, then hey. Whatever works for you, right?

Hang Out at No-Smoking Places

One of the best ways to stop yourself from taking smoke breaks is to spend time in places that don’t have a smoking area and where you are legally not allowed to smoke within ten to fifty feet. This will make it much more of a hassle to go find a place to smoke and eventually it can become simply not worth your while to even think about it taking a fifteen-minute walk for a five-minute smoke.

Treat Yourself at Mile-Markers

Finally, and perhaps this tip isn’t so unusual, remember to treat yourself to a big mile-markers. Don’t worry too much about quitting forever at first, just focus on maintaining your quit day by day. If you usually give up after the first week, promise yourself a nice reward after week two to help you stretch your normal quit time to double. Then another at a month, two months, and so on. Just remember to keep your promises to yourself to maintain the motivational power.

For more interesting, unusual, supportive, or totally standard tips on quitting smoking this year, contact us today!