What Happens When You Stop Smoking?
By Charlie Reese | August 14, 2008
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The Good and the Bad: What Happens When You Stop Smoking
When you are deciding to quit smoking you will probably weigh up the pros and cons of the situation. The pros would be all the health benefits that quitting smoking will give you. The cons would be the struggle that is quitting.
A lot of the time people put off quitting smoking because they never think that they will be the one to suffer the consequences of smoking. So exactly what happens when you stop smoking? There are both good and bad things that will happen when you decide to quit smoking.
Withdrawal Symptoms
The physical withdrawal symptoms that you experience when you decide to stop smoking are the result of nicotine residue in your body. A lot of the urges that make you want to light up are psychological. You feel compelled to smoke even though you don?t really need to.
You associate smoking with pleasant things such as having a drink with your friends or relaxing after work. These associations will make you want to smoke more when you have given up smoking. What happens when you stop smoking is an increase in irritability and anxiety.
The worst of it will soon be over however. Once your body gets rid of the nicotine residue you will stop feeling the physical withdrawal symptoms as much. This can take as little as two days. It depends on how much you smoke. The rest of the battle is purely psychological.
The Benefits
What happens when you stop smoking is not all bad. There are benefits that you feel almost immediately. What happens when you stop smoking is an increase in oxygen levels in your body, in eight hours you will find that the oxygen levels in your body have returned to normal and all the carbon monoxide has left your blood stream.
You will be amazed at what happens when you stop smoking in a relatively short time. Your energy levels will increase after about three days as your bronchial tubes relax and you can breathe more easily. All the breathing problems you experience due to your smoking will clear up in about three to nine months.
In the long term your health will also be benefit. A smoker?s risk of heart attack is higher than a non-smoker, a year after quitting you will reduce your risk of heart attack by half. After five years of being smoke free you will now have the same risk of stoke as a non-smoker. The road to recovery may be long but it?s worth it.
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How to Handle Cravings When you Stop Smoking
By Roy Whithouse | August 13, 2008
Quitting smoking will almost always bring on harsh cravings. There’s no single way to handle withdrawal that is effective for everyone. Everyone has a unique way of quitting and an equally unique reaction to the drop in nicotine levels. Yet there are some methods that are useful for many people.
Smoking cigarettes is a habitual behavior. Even after you quit, the habit is set and you want to continue. For the first two weeks, as you eliminate the chemicals that have built up in your body, it automatically tries to revert to normal. This biological mechanism can be triggered to work in a variety of situations.
Homeostasis is the technical term. Your body is attempting to sustain equilibrium. When it experiences a drastic change, it tries to revert to normal. If you can acknowledge that this is a built in mechanism, you can use it to your advantage.
The anxiety and guilt that often accompanies the effort is part of the reason quitting smoking so hard. We are unsure whether or not we can stick to our decision and often feel out of control. Stress increases, such as those seen with a perceived lack of control, which causes us to want to smoke to deal with the stress. This creates a pattern that’s difficult to change.
The first couple of weeks, as these physical changes begin to take place, are the most difficult. Realizing that these things are out of our control, though we are still responsible for the commitment, can help get you through that trying time.
Try to minimize all other stressors during this period of adjustment. Don’t try to quit smoking if, for instance, you’re beginning a new job. Don’t take this on if you are facing a crisis, like a child having a serious medical procedure.
Use every healthy diversion possible.
Keep small pieces of fresh fruit with you at all times. When you feel the urge to reach for that cigarette, pop one instead. Sharp, tangy fruit is better than fruit that’s simply sweet or, worse, bland. Choose your favorite, although pineapple or oranges seem to work best.
When you are craving a cigarette, try listening to music instead. Focusing on a song and keeping busy will take up that three or four minutes you would otherwise spend smoking. During this period, your favorite music can help sustain you. Be sure to choose something uplifting. Negative music should never be played while in a negative mood, as it only serves to reinforce those negative emotions.
Small exercises can keep your hands busy. This could be as easy as using a stress-relieving hand spring or squeezing a tennis ball. Eventually, you should aim for exercises involving the entire arm, shoulder and back. This has two benefits, as it both eliminates the harm caused by cigarettes as well as helps restore your circulatory system.
Engage in an activity which requires intense concentration and suits your personality and circumstances; such as trimming a beard, fixing your hair to perfection, drawing a sketch or solving a math problem. The activity should be short, but be sure to leave little room for stray thought - including thoughts about that cigarette that you so desperately want to smoke.
If you keep your focus, the cravings will diminish to a tolerable level. Over the next few months, at random, you’ll experience a recurrence of these urges from time to time. When the need arises, return to the rituals that got you through the first few weeks. Remind yourself of the healthy advantages that come with not smoking. In no time, you will see that it outweighs the short-term advantages of smoking.
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Top 10 Tips on How To Quit Smoking
By Gillian Rodenback | August 11, 2008
As soon as you tell people you’re thinking of quitting smoking, it seems everybody knows someone who stopped recently. and that you should try the stop smoking program that they used. The problem is what works for one person won’t necessarily work for you.
With so much “helpful advice”, it’s difficult to know where to turn and what to try, and with the feeling of information overload, it’s not hard to see why so many people simply give up on giving up smoking. Which is really sad, because with the right advice and some simple directions, you really can quit smoking.
Most people are readily aware that stopping smoking can improve their health, but learning how to really conquer the urges to smoke is not easy. With so many temptations circulating around, as well as the stresses of daily life it is easy to see why jumping into a pack of cigarettes seems like a good idea.
Tip #1 You need a good reason to quit. Simply deciding to quit because the sky is blue is not a sufficient reason. The need to quit smoking is obvious, but the desire to quit needs to come from inside in order for the process to be successful.
Tip #2 As you make progress, give yourself small rewards for your achievements. Quitting cold turkey is hard, so these rewards will help spur you on, and are great ways to boost your motivation.
Tip #3 Draw up a plan of action for your quitting strategy. Pick the stop smoking program that suits you best and be prepared to stick with it. Give your plan a six week run. If you haven’t quit after that, try another program or method.
Tip #4 Work to overcome your struggles. If you are smoking due to stressful things in your life, you need to deal with the stress before you can successfully quit. Regardless of the reason why you are smoking, it needs to be dealt with in able to quit for good.
Tip #5 Set up a punishment for yourself. For example, if you generally stop at Starbucks each day for a coffee you might consider skipping that on days when you have fallen short of your goals for smoking. Whatever punishment you select, make sure it is something that you care about.
Tip #6 Seek out help from your friends and family. You need support as you are trying to quit, and this will help you to ensure that you are not alone in the entire process.
Tip #7 Consider looking for a “quit buddy”. If you have a friend or partner who is giving up smoking with you, it can make the journey a lot easier, as you will both be accountable to each other.
Tip #8 Don’t let yourself get tired. If you’re not getting enough sleep, it’s going to make your task of quitting smoking even harder. You no doubt already know what it’s like to be tired. Don’t make giving up smoking any harder than it already is.
Tip #9 Make your plan to be to quit smoking for good. This may sound obvious, but by creating the right mindset from the start, you will subconsciously put more effort into achieving your goals.
Tip #10 Make of list of things you can do to take your mind of cigarettes. You know that when you have thought about cigarettes in the past, you thought about lighting up. You now need to get rid of those thoughts as quickly as possible by focussing your mind on other things.
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Quit Smoking the Easy Way
By Sara Mendez | August 10, 2008
Quit smoking programs using hypnosis are very involved when done correctly. Working to change behaviors that involve many parts of your life. If you were a hypnotist, you might have to put it all together. If you’re not a hypnotist, well, you get to enjoy the fruits of another’s labor. Nice, huh?
You’re the only one that knows what it’s like to experience and fight with your cravings. The cravings may very well feel like something nobody else can understand.
A well formed hypnosis program can address your unique cravings directly. It can de-fuse the emotional triggers so they no longer happen. If you’ve fought with smoking long enough, it might be difficult to even imagine what it would feel like to NOT have a craving.
But, that’s not good enough. It can be made even easier for you by beginning actual cravings for water, exercise, and fresh air. Distractions to fill-in this hour of free time you suddenly have. Time you used to spend smoking, if you had a regular-old pack-a-day habit. That sounds pretty complete, doesn’t it? Makes things easier for you?
What about the stress that would sometimes trigger a craving? Why not use hypnosis to reduce your stress too? Well, yeah.
Increasing your confidence would be nice to, right? A little hypnosis to build or re-build how you feel? In particular, building the confidence and belief that you CAN quit smoking this time, and feel great while you do it. (One of the ways we learn habits is repetition. I’m fairly certain this is not your first try to quit smoking. Did failing in previous attempts make a little doubt that it will work this time? Better use hypnosis with that also.)
Might as well use some hypnosis to strengthen healthy eating habits too. So you can rest easy that you’re not going to balloon while you stop smoking. Simply knowing you’ve covered this angle too should make you feel relaxed.
With all of that help in your corner, this time, to quit smoking will be a walk in the park. Which doesn’t sound so bad, does it?
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How to Stop Smoking
By Charlie Reese | August 10, 2008
Counting the Days and the Ways to Quit Smoking
Smoking is a nasty habit that can be difficult to break. Quitting smoking might seem like the obvious choice, but many people are reluctant to quit because they are aware of the many withdrawal symptoms that go along with quitting smoking. However, what these people do not know about are the many ways to quit smoking. Such a wide assortment of options for kicking the gross habit makes it easier for people to quit smoking once and for all.
Feeling Sick
People are often discouraged from quitting smoking because, regardless of the many ways to quit smoking that exist, the withdrawal can be a very difficult process. Your body becomes physically addicted to the nicotine and cigarettes, and it becomes used to putting things in the mouth. Employing one of the ways to quit smoking eliminates both of these factors, thus causing withdrawal.
People who experience withdrawal might have many different symptoms, including: cigarette cravings, irritability, frustration or anger, tremors, decreased heart rate, fatigue, restlessness, depression, increased appetite, constipation or upset stomach, anxiety or nervousness, difficulty concentrating, headaches, insomnia, and increased coughing. These symptoms can last anywhere from a few days to a few weeks after you first find a way to quit smoking.
Taking the Plunge
Though quitting smoking is difficult, it is important that you do so for your on health, and for the health of those around you. Today, there are many different ways you can quit smoking. One of the most common ways is medication of some sort. There are many nicotine and non-nicotine medications available, such as a nicotine patch, nicotine gum, and Varenicline.
If you do not wish to take medication, then there are other ways to quit smoking as well. Hypnosis, acupuncture, behavioral therapy, and nicotine vaccination are all alternatives to using medication in order to quit smoking.
Management Skills One you have found a successful way to quit smoking, then you will still have to manage the cravings that might occur in your daily life. This requires using psychological strategies. For example, remind yourself about why you decided to quit. Another idea is to keep busy, so you do not constantly think about smoking.
Other people find it helpful to brush their teeth or drink water when they experience a craving. The trick is finding the strategy that works best for you. Although quitting smoking is a very difficult task, once you have done it, you will have made a very big accomplishment that you and all of your loved ones can be proud of.
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