Are You Trying to Quit Smoking? Don't START, Be SMART

If you're thinking about quitting smoking and you've spent any time looking on the internet for information to help you quit, you may have run across the START acronym. It's a handy little tool for remembering five things you can do that might help you quit.

If you haven't seen it before, here's a quick summary of it:

    Set a quit date
    Tell friends, family and coworkers
    Anticipate and plan for the challenges
    Remove cigarettes from your home, car and work
    Talk with your doctor

How To Quit Smoking - Even If It's An Important Part Of Your Life

So you have been smoking for decades, it's a part of your life, you never go anywhere without your precious smokes and you certainly make sure that you never run out of cigarettes.

So how can you quit smoking when it's such an important part of your life. In fact it's more than a habit. It's a friend who comforts you when you are lonely or upset. It's a comfort to you in the middle of a cold dark night.

When you are bored it's there to give you something to do to make your life better. Cigarettes certainly make food taste better, and you wouldn't consider a fine wine or a boutique beer without a smoke to richly enhance the flavour.

10 Tips to Quit Smoking

Tip #1: Choose a strong, personal reason to quit

"Because it's bad for you" isn't good enough. To have the will power to quit and stay quit you need a powerful and personal reason to quit. Maybe you have small children and don't want to expose them to second hand smoke. Perhaps you have a family history of cancer and are deathly afraid. Come to a conclusion of what is the best reason for you to quit. Something that is mightier than the urge to light up.

Tip #2: Don't Just Go Cold Turkey

We've all heard of people going "cold turkey". It sound tempting to just throw out your cigarettes but going cold turkey is very difficult to do and I don't recommend it. 

How To Quit Smoking When You Suffer From Depression

It can be hard enough to quit smoking at the best of times, but if you want to know how to quit smoking when you also suffer from depression you are going to need to get support on several fronts.

Depression has both organic and emotional components. The emotional can be assisted by professional therapy, such as cognitive behavioural therapy. The organic aspect is usually well managed with specific selective Serotonin reuptake inhibitor medications such as Zoloft, Prozac and Paxil.

A person with depression will need the support of their medical specialist to assist and monitor their medications and their emotional state when they quit cigarettes.