Friday, August 14, 2009

How do I Stop Smoking?

By Mike James

Once a person decides that it's time he/she quitted smoking, it is better to start sooner rather than later. However, how do you stop smoking, when you have been smoking for a very long time? Smoking is an extremely hard addiction to break as tobacco contains the compound called nicotine which is addictive to both the mind and body.

Recent studies have shown that each time you smoke a cigarette, it costs you about five to twenty minutes of your life. Apart from weakening the body, smoking leaves a person with bad breath, yellow teeth, wrinkles, lower bone density, fertility problems that will eventually affect the sexual health of both men and women and a higher risk of becoming infected with deadly diseases such as lung cancer. Smoking is costly and can shorten one's life by around ten years or even more.

Ways to stop smoking can be found in various places and there are also various types of medication that can be prescribed. Some smokers are prescribed nicotine replacements such as nicotine gums, nicotine patches, lozenges, inhalers, etc. But the problem with all these is that they deal mostly with the physical aspect of what smoking does to the body. The truth is that more than the body, it is the mind that becomes addicted to smoking.

The hardest part of stopping smoking comes when trying to deal with the mind. A smoker's mind usually becomes convinced that their happiness, enjoyment and leading a stress free life, all depend on smoking. Understanding the fact that this is just not the case is one of the pivotal issues in stopping smoking.

One of the most important things to keep in mind when trying to stop smoking, lies in breaking such connections in the mind. Smokers think that they have to have a cigarette to relieve them from their daily stresses. Once you are able to overcome this problem, in time your mind will learn to deal with daily problems without needing a cigarette.

A good piece of advice when trying to stop smoking can be to go to counselling classes and get advice from someone who is an ex-smoker, ie a person who has undergone similar experiences. Talking about your fears about stopping smoking and thereby relieving the doubts you have by going to such sessions can be beneficial to anyone who is trying to quit smoking.

If you have decided that you ought to give up smoking, don't hesitate, grab the bull by the horns and start stopping now. You will soon start to notice the difference to your health. Exercise will be easier, your fitness level will rise dramatically, food will taste better and your mouth will be more pleasant.

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