Smoking can harm your health, and alter your lifestyle. It affects how you look, stains your teeth and makes your clothes smell. The worst part is that it harms you physically. It is possible to undo all the damage caused by smoking by simply quitting. For people who are unsure how to quit, this article provides useful advice.
Reward yourself for passing milestones on your journey. For instance, if you go a whole week with no smoking, go to a movie. After one tobacco-free month, reserve a spot at a restaurant that you rarely get to enjoy. After this, slowly increase your reward until the point has been reached that you don't think about smoking anymore.
Develop a good understanding of where and when you smoke the most. Figure out what tempts you and makes you want to smoke. This will help you to develop a winning strategy for quitting. Knowing what your triggers are will help you come up with a plan for avoiding them or dealing with them successfully.
Thinking in a positive way and being motivated are key parts in quitting smoking. Try to imagine how fulfilled your life will become when you finally quit. Think about how much better you and your home will smell once you've made the change to stopping smoking. While it is good to know the many negative impacts of smoking, for many people, remembering the positive benefits of quitting can be even more helpful.
To help quit smoking, find an item you can play with in your hands to replace a cigarette. For instance, you can place a toothpick in your mouth as a substitute. Gum, candies, nuts and seeds are also a great alternative. But, do not use food as a replacement as this could cause weight gain.
If you struggle with quitting smoking, try using nicotine-replacement therapy. This has been shown to give you twice as good a chance of quitting smoking when you use it along with behavior change therapy. Nicotine patches, lozenges and gum can help. You should not, however, use these products if you are still smoking.
If using medications that aid in quitting the smoking habit, aren't an option you wish to try, you may want to consider acupuncture. Acupuncturists place needles in strategic locations on your body to help you reduce cravings or unpleasant emotions associated with quitting. You may be fearful and skeptical of this approach, but acupuncture is time tested and painless.
One of the best things you can do when stopping smoking is to live day-to-day. Take one day at a time when quitting smoking. Sometimes having a shorter timeline makes things easier on you mentally and physically. After you feel like you have been successful with your short term commitment, you can try to set goals for long term compliance.
Make your home a smoke-free zone during the period when you're decreasing your daily smoking limit. Quitting smoking tends to be easier if you are inconvenienced each time you crave a cigarette. Going outside where it's cold, without a computer or television, could help you in stopping the habit sooner.
Treat smoking cessation like kicking any other addiction: as a series of days of sobriety. Quitting is a process. Because of this, it's counterproductive to think too far ahead. Just keep your mind and body in the present and take it by the day while trying to get rid of your nicotine habits in the here and now. This will change the outcome of the future.
If you have struggled time and time again with quitting smoking, consider scheduling an appointment with your doctor. He can advise you about prescription medications available to help you and may even recommend things such as antidepressants to help with emotional withdrawals. Aside from informing you of various smoking cessation medications, he or she can also let you know about support groups and other resources in the community that may be useful.
Practice becoming a good quitter until you can permanently quit smoking. You must stay motivated, as it is possible to fail at first. When you decide to quit smoking, take it day by day. If you start again, immediately pick a new date to quit. Each time, make sure to extend the period between cigarettes an additional week. Eventually, you'll get so good at it that you'll quit one time and just not go back.
Learn some deep breathing techniques to help you resist cravings. To a count of ten, inhale through your nose. Hold the breath and then release it through your mouth while also counting to ten. Doing these exercises will help reduce your cravings and the stress associated with them by refocusing your attention on the breathing exercise, not your cravings. The deep breathing techniques will also help to show you how your lung function improves every day.
Make sure you get lots of rest if you are quitting smoking. Most people have more intense cigarette cravings late at night. There are usually fewer people around late at night to help you stop yourself from taking just one more smoke for the day. Obtaining a full eight hours of sleep nightly allows you to maintain your motivation and your ability to combat cigarette cravings.
If you are ready to quit smoking, try hypnosis. Many smokers have had a good success rate with the help of a licensed hypnotist. The hypnotist can put you into a deep trance and provide you with positive affirmations that stay embedded in your mind. These affirmations will be in your subconscious, which will aid you on your way to quitting smoking.
Tell everyone you know that you are going to stop smoking, so that they can help support you. The continuous support and encouragement of your friends and family is a motivational tool that cannot be topped. Ask them to help remind you why you are quitting smoking when times get hard.
Let loved ones and friends know, that you wish to quit smoking. If you let those around you know of your intent to quit, they will be able to motivate you, and keep you away from any temptation. They may give you the extra nudge that you require to keep you focused on your goals.
Your family and loved ones offer the greatest motivation for quitting. They can be affected by not only your possible illness or death, but also by negative health consequences from being around your smoke. Statistics prove that one in five deaths in America are related to smoking. Avoid becoming a statistic!
Smoking habits are hard ones to break, but with the help of the advice that you have read here, quitting might just become a little bit easier. Your life is worth being free from nicotine addiction. Take any opportunity you find to be free of this powerful addition. You will reap the benefits of this decision each and every day with better health, vitality and a lot more change in your pocket
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