How to Time Symptom Improvement After Quitting Smoking

When you quit smoking, your body begins recovering its health right away. The benefits start within minutes and carry on for the rest of your life. Smokers who quit find that their health improves within days or weeks, and those who remain nonsmokers can reduce their risk of disease significantly within a year. The longer you go without smoking, the greater the benefits of quitting.

Instructions

• 1

  Count 20 minutes after your last cigarette. This is how long it takes for your heart rate and blood pressure to return to normal levels.

• 2

  Count 12 hours after your last cigarette. This is how long it takes for the carbon monoxide level in your blood to return to normal.

• 3

  Mark your calendar for two to three weeks after your last cigarette. Around this time, your lung function and blood circulation will improve.

• 4

  Mark your calendar for nine months after your last cigarette. By this time, coughing and shortness of breath should no longer be a problem. The cilia in your lungs will have regained normal function, meaning your lungs can once again handle mucus, clean the lungs and fight infection.

• 5

  Mark your calendar for one year after your last cigarette. You have cut your excess risk of coronary artery disease in half.

• 6

  Observe long-term anniversaries. Five years after you quit, your risk of stroke is significantly lower--possibly as low as a nonsmoker's. Ten years after you quit, your risk of lung cancer death is half that of a smoker's. Your risk of other smoking-related cancers, such as cancer of the mouth, throat, bladder, cervix and pancreas, decrease as well. Quit for 15 years and you've reduced your risk of coronary heart disease to the level of a nonsmoker.