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. 

Do You Know What Will Happen After You Stop Smoking?

What happens after you stop smoking? Aside from positive comments from friends and family, stopping smoking has immediate effects. You will be able to breathe easier and have an improved sense of smell and taste immediately after 20 minutes you stop; there are a lot more positive effects of stopping smoking and here are some of the most amazing:

    Lungs - what happens after you stop smoking? Will you be able to regain lung health that you had before you started smoking? Yes, you will be able to regain your usual breathing capacity after several weeks of quitting smoking; you will also be able to breathe easier during times of stress and exercise. Smoking is the cause of 1 out of 5 deaths in the United States according to the American Lung Association which is why it is recommended that a smoker quits as soon as possible.

Preparing Yourself With The Psychology For Quitting Cigarettes

The first thing you should know is that most smokers quit unsuccessfully several times before they quit for good. You will most likely not be successful your first time around - but you must keep trying! Each time you attempt to quit you come closer to finally quitting for good.

During or before you have your last cigarette, start to visualise yourself as a non-smoker. Visualisation is a very effective psychological technique not only for quitting cigarettes but for many other things as well.

There have been many scientific research studies to show how powerful visualisation can be. One that I recall, was a study done where athletes were wired to a machine used to measure muscle activity and asked to visualise themselves in the act of doing their event, say a 100 meter sprint. 

Health Effects Of Smoking - For People Wanting To Quit Smoking

Awful health effects of smoking are for the most part are always addressed whenever an article is written concerning facts about smoking. They emphasize that the smoke in cigarette contains poisonous nicotine drug and many other unsafe substances which are damaging to the lungs. The dreadful and scary statistics about death as a result of cigarette smoking is never missed to be included in these articles and reports to sway people away from smoking.

Yet smokers continue on inhaling this drug making it difficult for people who don't smoke to comprehend why. Well, besides being addicted to nicotine, people smoke tobacco to help calm themselves in dealing with difficult situations in their lives, such as peer pressure both for kids and adults, as their need to belong to group, and be perceived as cool and tough guy or gal; to name a few.

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.