Ways to Quit Smoking Tobacco

Smoking is a habit that can be life threatening. Eighty-five percent of people with lung cancer are smokers. Despite the health risks, people will still find smoking a hard habit to break. If you want to stop smoking, it may just be a matter of finding the right strategy that works for you. Family support, avoiding smoking situations and cognitive behavioral therapy can all help you quit.

Family Support

• Ensure that you have family support when you quit smoking. This could mean asking your family to have more patience if you are irritable or changing your home lifestyle so it is less stressful. If other family members smoke, ask them to not smoke in front of you or to smoke outside. If you choose to do more physical exercise as part of your stop-smoking program, make it a family affair such as bike riding or going to the park. Be sure to thank your family often for supporting you.

Avoidance

• If you are prone to smoke because of certain situations, part of your strategy should be to avoid those situations. If you tend to smoke whenever your friends take a cigarette break or if you go out with friends for a drink and they smoke, avoid those pastimes and let your friends know why. Suggest meeting them at the water cooler or going to restaurants that do not allow smoking.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

• With cognitive behavioral therapy, a mental health counselor helps devise strategies for you to behave, think and feel differently about a certain problem or situation. Smoking can be addressed in this manner. You could be taught to get rid of Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTs), which could provoke you to smoke. For example, if your ANTs cause high stress, which leads you to smoke, stopping the ANTs and replacing them with positive thoughts might make you less likely to smoke. If your thoughts lead you to high emotions that trigger smoking, cognitive behavioral therapy can lead you to reining in those emotions.