How To Quit Smoking – What It Entails, The Benefits, and The Best Ways to Quit Smoking

How to Quit Smoking

In order to quit smoking you need to be aware of the bad effects of smoking and must have a desire to give up the habit.     A personal plan for how to quit smoking must be drawn out and your mind and body should be prepared to follow it. Your total commitment is important.

Writing down your personal goals, pinning down the reasons why you should quit smoking and getting rid of the temptations that may prove a hindrance should be clear.  The next step is actually getting down to action. This involves stopping the deadly habit.  This can be done in the following ways:

An unassisted method includes abrupt cessation of using nicotine products.  Alternately, smoking a decreasing number of cigarettes helps as well.

Following stop smoking programs set up by physicians and other health care providers is seen to help people to stop smoking.  The intervention by physicians is seen to increase abstinence among smokers more than self help.

One on one counseling sessions, their increased number and intensity, reduced cost of cessation therapy, were all seen to reduce smoking among addicts. Effective follow-up by physicians that allowed the smoker to see the immediate effects of quitting and the impact of tobacco use is seen to encourage abstinence.

Using over-the-counter stop-smoking aids are seen to help. Whereas some of them help to reduce the cravings for nicotine, there are others that address nicotine withdrawal symptoms.

Nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) is used for cessation of smoking.  Five medications have been approved by the USFDA that deliver nicotine in form that does not pose the risks of smoking.  They are used in the form of patches, gums, lozenges, sprays, and inhalers.  Combinations of medications are also used.

Community interventions have helped smokers to stop smoking for longer periods.  Declaring public places smoke free, education of public on the ill effects of smoking, increasing price of tobacco products, and mass communication media campaigns do help positively.

Attending support group sessions with other smokers who genuinely want to quit, gaining knowledge of benefits from smokers who have quit the habit is seen to be very effective.  Decide to stay on course as a quitter. The cravings can be effectively curbed through breathing exercise programs, understanding and managing nicotine withdrawal symptoms, etc.

Nicotine withdrawal symptoms include restlessness, insomnia, depression, nicotine crave episodes, anger, irritability, hostility in some cases, increased blood pressure, pulse rate, and temperature, to name a few. Many of these symptoms can be managed with medication, intervention of health care professionals, breathing exercises, yoga, and meditation.

Benefits of Quitting Smoking

In about two days after you stop smoking, anger and irritability peak tend to peak.  After about three days time there is peaking of restlessness and crave episodes are experienced.  This reduces within 8 to 10 days of stopping.  However, serious time distortion can occur in the ex-smoker and minutes may seem like hours.

Within a fortnight, insomnia, depression and restlessness due to cessation of smoking usually end.  Blood circulation in gums and teeth resemble that of a non-smoker.  In a span of one year after cessation, the risk for CAD and stroke reduce to less than half of that of a smoker. Between 5 and 20 years of cessation, your risk of developing cancer, stroke, and CAD equal that of a person who has never smoked.

Best Ways to Quit Smoking

There are many ‘best ways to quit smoking’ including going ‘cold turkey’ or abrupt cessation, NRT, hypnosis, medical intervention, use of the prescription antidepressant Wellbutrin, counseling sessions, etc. Each individual is different physically and emotionally and it has been seen that one should choose a winning combination from these methods that suits them best.

What is Smoking?

Smoking refers to the practice of inhaling a smoked substance. This article focuses mainly on smoking of tobacco. Alternately, smoking may also refer to inhalation of smoke from other substances for which the body has developed psychological dependence.

How Does Nicotine Cause Addiction?

A recent scientific report says that more than 20% of adult men and women in the United States smoke cigarettes. More than 80% of adults light up a cigarette every day. Now why is smoking and quitting smoking such big issues after all? Tobacco contains a chemical compound called nicotine, known to act as a stimulant in mammals. This has been cited as an important factor in the dependence forming properties of tobacco smoking. In short, repetitive tobacco smoking causes nicotine addiction. It has also been seen that the nicotine content in cigarettes have increased over the years in most major markets of cigarettes. This too has contributed to increased addiction to the compound all over the world.

Nicotine addiction is among the toughest of addictions to get rid of. Nicotine addiction is characterized by behavior and pharmacological implications that is similar to heroin and cocaine addictions. Though most of the nicotine in a cigarette is easily burnt, enough smoke is inhaled to cause a pharmacological effect in the body.

Nicotine easily enters the bloodstream in the body and crosses to the brain in a matter of 10 to 20 seconds. The body is known to eliminate nicotine in about two hours’ time. Nicotine is also known to easily penetrate the skin. The amount of nicotine absorbed by the body depends on factors that include type of tobacco, the method of ingestion, etc. For example, chewed tobacco, inhalation of snuff, etc., have been shown to release more nicotine than smoking.

The action of nicotine increases levels of certain neurotransmitters such as dopamine that causes a feeling of euphoria in the individual and leads to eventual addiction.

Bad Effects of Nicotine Addiction

Addictive effects of nicotine are known to lead to various types of cancers. Though it directly does not induce development of cancer in healthy tissue, it is known to slow down a bodily process called apoptosis, which is a method the body uses to get rid of unwanted cells in the body. Thus a favorable environment for development of cancer is aided by nicotine. Nicotine is also known to raise blood pressure and serves to narrow blood vessels. It is also known to increase release of cholesterol and fats into the bloodstream. Nicotine is thus linked to circulatory disease and known to cause strokes. Women who use nicotine during pregnancy face an increased risk of having babies with birth defects. Other health risks include depression, diabetes, infertility in men and women, harmful effects on bones and joints, etc.

Though quitting smoking can be a very hard decision to take, it is worth it. To quit smoking successfully, addressing the habit of smoking and addiction and dealing with the withdrawal symptoms of nicotine are both crucial elements in learning how to quit smoking

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