Quit Smoking

The first 30 days as an ex-smoker are the hardest. You have a lot of hardship to cope with. If you make it through the first 30 days, it will get easier from that point on. Let's take a look at a "plan of attack" to help you quit smoking in just 30 days. There are a few elements:

* a well devised plan (very necessary)

* a few aids (not necessary)

* a lot of motivation (very necessary)

Let's talk about each one of them:

The plan:

You need to plan exactly what you schedule will be and what activities you plan on having during these next 30 days. This is critically important because you want to insure that there are as little surprises and stressful events as possible. Every time you go through stressful event you are at risk to start smoking again. Also, do not plan any diet or other radical life style changes during this month. You will have enou...

Many people have tried to quit smoking and failed. What most of them don't know that most smokers will fail several times before they quit completely. There have been many studies that have shown that cigarette smoking is as hard to break as a cocaine addiction. Some people have found it beneficial admitting to themselves that they are powerless over nicotine, before starting their journey to quitting smoking. If you admit that you are now smoking because you are addicted and not because it is a personal choice may help motivate you to making the next steps to quitting smoking.

Surprisingly about eighty percent of people try to quit smoke without help. Ninety five percent of those people fail. So getting help to quit smoking is a must. Do not try to do it by yourself. Seek help with programs and there are even meetings for people who are trying to quit smoking to help gi...

The mishmash of physiological and psychological effects provides many positive reinforcements that smoking quickly becomes an established habit. As the term tolerance implies, a smoker actually becomes accustomed to having a certain level of nicotine in his or her body. In fact, research studies have shown that (without realizing it) smokers regulate the number of cigarettes they smoke in order to maintain their own personally preferred level of nicotine. For example, smokers who are given a very high nicotine cigarette will puff less often than usual, so they don’t take in more nicotine than their preferred amount. Likewise, with a low nicotine cigarette, the smoker will take more puffs than usual, in order to get that preferred amount of nicotine.

To ease these withdrawal effects of nicotine after quitting smoking, many smokers must continue to take in their usual amount of ni...

I don’t rightly know of any positive reasons for smoking, but there sure are a lot of negative ones out there: It’s deadly to your health, it stinks to high heaven, it costs a fortune to smoke (double that for quit-smoking remedies and then starting up again), it’s forbidden everywhere you go and you’re frowned upon if you do. So, tomorrow just might be a good day to quit. Yeah, that’s a good idea--tomorrow.

Day 1: Today is the day - supposed to quit smoking. But darn, if I don’t have that presentation to prepare for. Can’t blow that now, can I? The boss would kill me!

Day 2: I really need to relax today. Let go of some stress. Not a good day to try that quit smoking thing. I’ll do it tomorrow for sure.

Day 3: Going-away party for Joe tonight. I’ll be putting a few away. Drinking and quitting smoking don’t mix well, you know.

Day 4: I’m rea...

The word empower is a buzzword that is popular with social and political movements. The meaning of the word, to me, has been that somebody wants to take money from people that have it, and give it to people that don’t have it, for the purpose of being popular with the highest number of people. That way, they get those votes and acquire power. I don’t think I am being cynical, just realistic.

But it now has another meaning to me. One that is more personal, and directly affects me in a positive way. In a very real sense, quitting smoking has empowered me with the ability to really change things that I always intended to change, but had never gotten around to any of them.

To say that quitting smoking is a hard thing to do is like saying Switzerland has some nice hills. I have already commented on some of the difficulties, and will do so in the future. But, as hard as it can b...

Smoking has suffered the slings of ridicule and the romanticizing of the movies. You can almost tell when a movie was made by how many people in the movie smoke and whether the smokers are the good guys or the bad guys. But in real life, smoking has always been the bad guy, long recognized as an unhealthy habit. So how can you quit smoking naturally?

The downsides to smoking are numerous. They include:

· Higher risk of cancer
· Higher risk of emphysema
· Discoloration of teeth
· Desensitization of taste and smell
· Effects on blood pressure
· Heart and lung disease

Smoking brings about an increase in carbon monoxide and a decrease of oxygen in the blood stream. The introduction of nicotine, one of the primary ingredients of tobacco, temporarily increases the smoker’s heart rate and increases her blood pressure by constricting blood vessel...

Still smoking? Stopping smoking was very hard for me. I was very ill and had to give up but just could not do it. I was on the nicotine gum, nicotine patches and smoking cigarettes at the same time! Still, looking back, there was one saving grace that helped me. I have never enjoyed a cigarette in my life. Not the first, not the second, not the last, never. It was simply a drug I had to take to function normally in my abnormal life. It made life tolerable and often quite pleasant.

Then one day, I was ready to give up smoking for good. I was hypnotised, and it worked for two years. Then something terrible happened to me and I smoked again. This time, I solved my life's biggest driver to smoke and there was no need to smoke again.

I now specialise in helping others quit smoking for good. When I first started, I was a mere hypnotherapist with some NLP skills and al...

I have been rethinking all of my old attitudes about smoking, and most of them are changing. One that hasn’t changed is that smoking is a gamble. I always thought of it as such, so my attitude in that respect is the same. However, before I just didn’t care to ponder it very much.

If you have ever been to Las Vegas, or seen pictures of it, you have seen some amazing sights. The city is on the go all twenty-four hours every day. The strip has some of the most incredible buildings in the country. There are pyramids, skyscrapers, castles, and even an Eifel Tower. At night the lights of the city make the desert glow like a diamond from a hundred miles away. The city is growing so fast, with so many new buildings, it’s hard to keep up with it all.

The one thing that fuels it all is money. The cash flows into the city like water over Niagara Falls. And the flow of money is sustai...

When you want to quit smoking and give up forever it isn't easy. What you need is a powerful motivator and the fear of major incapacity or even death is about as powerful as it gets. In my own circumstances, I had been smoking cigarettes for around twenty years, and regularly smoking over 20 a day. I did want to quit smoking and give up forever but what I really needed was the kick in the backside to make me do it.

It came like this - and this is what enabled me to quit smoking and give up forever:

"Mr. Fisher, I'm sorry to have to tell you, but the x-ray shows you to have a tumour in your bladder."

Now those words are not ones you want to hear. The world turns upside down and after the consultation, my wife and I sat outside in the car and cried and hugged, not knowing what our future looked like anymore.

When I met with the Consultant Surgeon wh...

If you are finding a bad time to quit smoking then it’s probably time to get some support. Where are you going to find quit smoking help?

Well, there are four primary sources:

1. Things you can do by yourself.

   There are many things you can do by yourself to quit smoking. If you need strong help, you can find some in many quit smoking products. They include nicotine patches, nicotine gums and quit smoking lozenges. These products replace the body’s desire for nicotine with an alternative source that does not do harm your health. There are now on the market new drugs that replace the desire for nicotine with a desire for a less addictive drug which lessens over time, allowing for a reversal of the addiction. Of course they are an easy route, however remember to consult your medical doctor to avoid misuse.

2. Quit smoking help you can get from people nea...

There are many books and articles written about quitting smoking and most of them have one thing in common -- they talk about how difficult it is to stop the smoking habit. They mention how addictive nicotine is and how tightly smoking is tied to daily events in your life, events such as the first cup of coffee in the morning, driving the car, talking on the telephone, stressful happenings and on and on. They discuss at length the withdrawal symptoms and side effects you may experience when you stop smoking. Any negative part of the process of becoming a non-smoker is discussed ad nauseum. Is it any wonder that many people fail when they try any of the methods available to help them quit?

When you decide that you want to become a non-smoker begin to prepare your mind for it. The mind is more powerful than the addiction and you can engage it to help you become successful in your ...

The interesting thing about quitting smoking is the dichotomy between withdrawal and healing. Both aspects can demand as much attention as, say, wrestling alligators. Often at the same time. But in entirely different ways.

Withdrawal has a wide range of characteristics. It can be subtle and work on you at the subconscious level. Or it can be as obvious as a big, slobbering dog and just hammer you physically. Either way, it makes itself evident in many unpleasant ways.

Healing is not necessarily subtle, but it is gradual, and takes time to accumulate. It works as a function of time and metabolism. Your body will not repair all the damage you have done to it, but it will do its work as best it can. You have to pay more attention to the healing because it is not as vigorous as the withdrawal.

It does not take long, once you quit smoking, for both aspects to manifest the...

It is now a fact that smoking harms nearly every organ of the body, causing many diseases and reducing the health of smokers in general. It is also a fact that quitting smoking has immediate as well as long–term benefits. Smoking cigarettes with lower machine-measured yields of tar and nicotine provides no clear benefit to health.

Cigarette smoking causes lung cancer. In fact, smoking tobacco is the major risk factor for lung cancer. People who smoke are 10 to 20 times more likely to get lung cancer or die from lung cancer than people who do not smoke. The longer a person smokes and the more cigarettes smoked each day increases the risk for developing lung cancer.

People who quit smoking have a lower risk of lung cancer than if they had continued to smoke, but their risk is higher than people who never smoked.

You Can Quit Smoking! If you have tried to quit you know ...

The easiest way to quit smoking is a solution every smoker seeks. It is the holy grail.

The vast majority of smokers who try to quit go through a torrid time. They suffer from stress, anxiety, frustration, temptation, self-doubt and massive mood swings.

However, it doesn't have to be this way. In fact, it should be completely the opposite. Quitting smoking should be easy, relaxed and a lot of fun to do. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest that hundreds of thousands of smokers can kick cigarettes with utter simplicity when they choose the easiest way to quit smoking.

The easiest way to quit smoking is using hypnosis. Don't be alarmed at that suggestion. Hypnosis does not mean having to go into a deep trance. In fact, you can be hypnotized from the comfort of your own home by simply reading a book or listening to a CD.

Hypnosis is widely misunderstoo...

Are you that guy?

You know, the one that just keeps puffing away like it’s no big thing- smoking up the whole place. Even though the entire room is filling with your second hand smoke, it doesn’t bother anyone, right?

Are you kidding me?! This is one of my biggest pet-peeves! To be in a room with a smoker is one of the worst things that could happen to me. I absolutely cannot stand when individuals smoke like chimneys in public places- this is indoor air pollution at its worst.

Whether it’s a restaurant during lunch time or a bar at night, it still irks me beyond reason. I mean, why should I have to be directly subjected to your bad habit? On top of that, its been proven that second hand smoke causes cancer.

This so-called “cool” habit was passe years ago. It’s time to have some respect for your fellow man and for yourself.

Check out some of the many con...

Pills for stop-smoking treatment flood the news as millions of smokers who want to quit search for a cure.

There is a new wonder pill that the newspapers are getting very excited about. And the highly-acclaimed clinical research says it worked for about 50% of the cases. Great!

Hold on a minute...

That's about a 50% failure rate!

Would you really call something that has only a 50/50 chance of working a Wonder Drug, a Miracle Cure?

Yet not only do many hapless smokers fall for this hype, but all these Wonder Drugs have side effects.

A newly-emerging field rapidly gaining recognition is that of Energy Psychology. This involves removing the psychological reasons why someone smokes plus re-balancing the body for a long lasting result free from side-effects.

So where are the figures, I hear you say?

Most stop-smoking Energy Psychology ther...

Tip 1: Reason to stop smoking

Why do you need to stop? Perhaps it’s because of your children. Or do you seek to survive to be able to enjoy the presence of your grandchildren? Are you sick of the odor? Whatever your reasons are, record them in a regular diary and bold the title of every cause you have for quitting. List things like health reasons, expense, inconvenience, terrible breath, or new reasons and have the listing as long as you can think of. Also be certain to name how you WILL feel and experience when you've manage to quit.

Tip 2: Take a stand and overcome the cravings.

Picture that cigarettes are crutches and that you had these crutches to depend on and shortly, it becomes inconceivable to walk without them. The significant matter is that as soon as you walk on your feet again, they'll rapidly recover power. It may be a less famous fact, but about half of...

Are you avoiding or delaying to quit smoking? If you think that the only disease contracted from smoking is lung cancer, you may be wrong.

Apart of lung cancer, cigarette smoking is also one of the leading cause of heart disease.

The chemicals in cigarettes and tobacco and cause:

* Hardening of the arteries

* Damage to cells that line coronary arteries and other blood vessels

* Increase in blood clotting.

* Decreased oxygen to the heart.

* Increased blood pressure and heart rate.

Also, one of the following diseases will increase the risk of having a heart attack:

* High Cholesterol (blocks arteries, including the arteries of the heart)

* High Blood Pressure (commonly referred to as hypertension)

* Diabetes (impairs circulation)

* Obesity

* Couch potatoism (otherwise known as a "sedentary lifestyle")

In...

Quick Tip 1

You must believe that you can quit smoking and make it a conviction. Imagine a difficult task that you have endured and overcome in the past. How did you deal with it? How did you overcome it? How did it feel to finally accomplish it? You will soon realize it’s just a matter of willpower and determination.

Quick Tip 2

Write down on a list why you want to quit smoking such as the benefits: better health, able to live longer, feel better, more energy, sleep better, for the love of your family, save money, do not stink, and so on. Also write down the bad effects of smoking and put it on a piece of paper and read it daily.

Quick Tip 3

Ask your friends and family to give their support for your decision to quit smoking. Request for their honest, non-judgmental support to give their opinions and to even scold you even if you ever think of smoking aga...

While you are trying to quit smoking by Nicotine Replacement Therapy, Hypnosis or the Cold Turkey method, below are some hints and strategies in aiding you to stop smoking. The more you practice these methods, the chances for you to quit smoking increases as it becomes easier to put the cigarette away. It is entirely up to you.

Hint 1

Becoming a smoker is like putting stabilizers on your bicycle wheels, of which you may find it hard to balance without smoking. So when you do smoke, the balance is reached again.

Now when one smokes, more than half of what they he or she breaths would be fresh air, from the cigarette right into the lungs. This can be overcome by taking in deep breaths. Start to start three deep breaths. Whenever you are doing this, you are pumping more oxygen into your blood stream. Taking deep breaths can also change the way you feel almost immediatel...