How to Stop Smoking & the Benefits
Quitting smoking may be the hardest thing you ever decide to do--and the most beneficial. While it takes most smokers multiple attempts to finally quit for good, their efforts are not in vain. Quitting enormously reduces your risk for numerous types of cancer: lung, throat, mouth, esophagus, bladder, cervix, kidney and stomach. It also lowers your risk for heart attacks, strokes, lung diseases, blindness and blood clots in the legs. On average, lifespans of smokers are shortened by 13.2 years for males and 14.5 for females.Things You'll Need
- Calendar
- Toothpicks
- Nicotine Patches, inhalers or lozenges
Instructions
-
-
1
Examine your life and upcoming commitments. Timing is everything. Don't to try to quit smoking during a stressful period of your life, as that will practically guarantee failure. Pick a time when you aren't experiencing a great deal of stress, work or uncertainty.
-
2
Pick up the phone. Every state has a free telephone service known as a "quitline" to help people kick the habit. Smokers who use a quitline are two times as likely to successfully kick the habit than those who don't. By using a quitline you can get counseling, methods for quitting, tips, pamphlets and a list of common mistakes.
-
3
Chew on a toothpick. Most smokers smoke out of habit, and often light up without thinking about it, comforted by the mouth to hand movement. A toothpick can easily distract you and help you to take that nervous energy out on something else. By not smoking, you're also not contaminating the air for non-smokers to be hurt by secondhand smoke.
-
4
Try Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT). NRT is exactly what it sounds like: it replaces the nicotine in your body from a source that won't kill you---like a patch, a piece of gum or alozenge. This helps smokers fight cravings that are obstacles in the process of quitting. By slowly tapering down the amount of nicotine you ingest during NRT, you eventually stop your addiction to nicotine and your reliance on cigarettes.
-
1