Even if you are an occasional smoker or have been smoking for many years, quitting smoking can be very difficult. It is one of the best fights, a real challenge, but from which you can emerge victorious.
Smoking turns into a daily routine very quickly, starting with a cigarette, two or three, and you wake up by the end of the day you have already finished the pack.
American Cancer Society estimates that every year, 1 out of 5 deaths in the US is caused by smoking.
Each year, more than 480,000 people in the United States die from illnesses related to tobacco use.
– American Cancer Society.
More and more people are starting to smoke very early. Teenagers have been smoking since the age of 12-16, when the brain is still undergoing significant changes.
Smoking very early creates long-term addiction and 40% of smokers between 30-45 years old smoke more than one pack a day.
I am sure that you are aware of the risks involved in smoking addiction: it affects your health (the toxins in cigarettes affect the whole body) and the health of those around you, babies, and children, but it also affects relationships with family members, friends, or life partner who are not smokers.
Despite all this information, you continue to keep this physical addiction and psychological controller because it is not so easy to get rid of it once it is in your habit.
SMOKING HAZARDS
You can consider tobacco a cocktail of thousands of harmful chemicals that the blood transports to every organ in your body. It is essential to know with which kind of substance you “feed” it; at least 70 of them cause cancer. The most common that can be found in cigarettes are:
Nicotine: it is a highly active neurotransmitter that stimulates the brain and produces addiction. Often, it is used as an insecticide.
Tar: known as a material for paving roads, it is a residual substance stored in the lungs. It contains over 50 carcinogenic chemicals.
Carbon monoxide prevents the body from obtaining the oxygen needed for optimal functioning and affects the oxygen that blood carries in the body.
Arsenic: Can be found in water, air, plants, animals, and soil but is usually a part of chemical compounds. Often, it is used in a rat poison.
Acetone: it is used in nail polish remover.
Naphthalene: it is an ingredient used in the manufacture of mothballs.
Toluene: it is used to manufacture paint.
Benzene is a flammable liquid found in gasoline and rubber cement, drugs, detergents, dyes, etc.
Butane: used in lighter fluid.
Ammonia: it is a component used in hair dye.
These are just a few of the substances that eat your body every time you feed it with cigarette smoke.
Smoking is awful to the nose, harmful to the brain, and dangerous to the lungs.
No wonder why smoking develops a wide range of disorders in your body:
- First of all, it affects your lungs, leading to lung cancer; 8 out of 10 cases are related to smoking. Breathing becomes more complex, and the cough and chest pain intensifies.
- It affects your heart health and leads to various heart diseases.
- Smoking affects your skin, accelerating the aging process and the appearance of increasingly prominent wrinkles. Smoking can even lead to skin cancer.
- It affects your genitals, leading to infertility, and cervical cancer can occur to you if you are a woman. Smoking men are prone to erectile dysfunction, which can lead to testicular cancer.
- Your gums can be affected by smoking, making them more sensitive and sometimes bleeding. Teeth coloring, chewing pain, and bad breath are symptoms that can lead to tooth loss.
- It affects your digestive system. Smoking can cause ulcers, pancreatitis, pancreatic cancer, and diabetes, which will affect your liver and the pancreas.
- Joints are affected in smokers who are prone to suffering from rheumatoid arthritis.
- Smoking can cause other types of cancers, too: for example, throat, mouth, cervical, blood cancer, etc.
I AM A WINNER. YOU CAN BE AS WELL!
I gave up, and I started smoking again, twice. I started smoking at a very early age, and I quit much later when I got pregnant.
Two years after giving birth, I started smoking again because of the stressful life.
Over the years, smoking addiction symptoms have become more and more intense.
- Besides having poor circulation, manifested by cold hands and feet, my immunity was deficient, increasing my risk of getting the flu. In this case, the recovery process was much more challenging to overcome.
- My skin color faded without brightness, and my sense of taste and smell decreased.
- Because nicotine is a stimulant that affects the brain, my sleep had become very restless, being able to sleep during the night for a total of only 3-4 hours.
When my health was getting worse, I decided to rehabilitate it, and I quit smoking again.
I had tried the electronic cigarette for two days, but the fact that the inhalation of the vapor gave me unbearable pain in my chest, more like a burn, I preferred to give it up.
So, in both cases, I was very determined to quit smoking in the “cold turkey” method. This is a direct method that involves the elimination of a full stop of nicotine without smoking any cigarettes.
In the second case, quitting smoking, my physical and mental support were yoga postures, meditation, and breathing techniques.
Practicing this discipline has helped me to stay smoke-free for six years without any intention or desire to return to the addiction.
If you want, you can! Anybody can kick the addiction!
It is enough to be determined, to give up excuses, to establish your reasons why you want to give up, and to have the willpower to keep you smoke-free.
BE A WINNER YOURSELF!
The withdrawal symptoms, in my case, were short but very strong.
Indeed, in the first three days, I was not good at anything. These days, nicotine leaves the body, and the process by which the body recovers makes me feel horrible instead of feeling better.
The condition I had, I can associate it with the flu state.
For three days, I was in bed with an intense headache, very irritated and nervous, and without appetite and energy because I felt complete pain in my body.
But my smoking cravings symptoms I kept them under control with the help of my profession. I told myself that my will to have a healthy life was more substantial than my cravings.
Yoga has helped me to deal with stress and tension, enabled me to maintain my figure, and not be affected by weight gain after quitting smoking. My health has been restored after the excess of tobacco, and especially, it still keeps me smoke-free.
The benefits of quitting smoking have shown their power. Besides the internal benefits it has brought to the body, I enjoyed the ease with which I could breathe, my skin regained its color and elasticity, and the food seemed to smell much better and had a much more pleasant taste. I regained my concentration because I no longer felt my brain like in the fog. I started to “see” things more clearly, which improved my creativity.
Do not forget to mention that quitting smoking helped me, as well, to save the money that I usually would have paid for cigarettes. And there was a lot of money.
If you are a smoker and have come so far in reading this post, you are interested in this topic. So, do yourself a favor to have a second thought about smoking.
Because nicotine is highly addictive (it can be as addictive as alcohol, cocaine, or heroin), the process of quitting smoking becomes much more difficult.
That is why psychologically different excuses are invoked:
- You realize that smoking is terrible, but you do not see it as bad as it is presented.
- You are afraid that if you quit smoking, you will gain weight. But every concern about gaining weight after quitting smoking has a solution.
- You have tried before but have not resisted the temptation because of the stressful lifestyle.
- You have been a smoker for many years, and you think it is a little late to quit. Every addiction has its excuse already.
Instead, in focusing on finding excuses, why not think about the reasons why you should quit smoking?
- Maybe because you want to improve your health and to breathe easier.
- You think of the health of your loved ones, especially if you have babies or children. You have to keep in mind that passive smoking also leads to heart and lung disorders.
- You want to save money.
- You want to remove the snoring.
- You want to regain your sense of taste and smell.
- You do not want to have a bad breath anymore.
And the list can go on!
Important is to be aware of how smoking affects your health and those around you. The decision to be healthy and as much as possible in the life of those you love is only in your hands and your willpower!
I quit smoking for my heart and the hearts of those I love.
I hope you have made the right decision for you, and I would love you to feel free to share your story as a smoker.
Till next time…
Do Not Forget: Life Is short, Make It Last!
Founder of Dare & Be.
Contact: support@dareandbe.com
Quitting smoking is something that my wife has been nagging on me to do for years. Lately I’ve been having chest pains in addition to coughing which has caused a big concern for me like never before, this has finally prompted me to quit smoking.
You have definitely given me some things to think about. If I’ve been smoking for 10 years and I quit now, how long does it take for my lungs to go back to normal, or does it ever go back to normal?
Hello Son,
Thank you for stopping by, and sharing with us your experience. Very good question. After smoking for a long time of period, your chest is congest or inflamed. The lungs clean themselves after quitting smoking. Can take more or less a month until your lungs function improves, and 9 months until they will heal themselves significantly.