Even if you are an occasional smoker, or have you been smoking for many years, quitting smoking can be very difficult. It is one of all the best fights, a real challenge, but from which you can emerge victorious.
Smoking turn into a daily routine very easy, starting with a cigarette, two, three, and you wake up, that by the end of the day you have already finished the pack.
American Cancer Society estimation is, that every year, 1 out of 5 death in US is caused by smoking. “Each year more than 480,000 people in the United States die from illnesses related to tobacco use.”
More and more people are starting to smoke very early.The teenagers smoking since the age of 12-16 when the brain is still undergoing major 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), the health of those around you, babies, children, but also affect 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 them to every organ in your body. It is important 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: prevent 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, soil, but usually is 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 and can be found in gasoline and as well in 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 “eats” your body, every time you “feed” it with cigarettes smoke.
” Smoking is hateful 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 and more difficult, 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, the appearance of wrinkles that become more and more prominent. 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, 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 have quit, much later, when I get 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 the fact that I had a very poor circulation, which was manifested by cold hands and feet, my immunity was very low, increasing my risk of getting the flu. In this case, the recovery process was much more difficult to overcome.
- My color skin became faded without brightness, and my sense of taste and smell decreased.
- Because the Nicotine is a stimulant that affects the brain, my sleep had become very restless, being able to sleep during the night, in a total only 3-4 hours.
When my health was getting worse, I had made the decision 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 nicotine, without smoking any cigarettes.
In the second case in 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 6 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. Because these days, the nicotine leaves the body, and the process by which the body recovers made me feel very bad, instead of feeling better.
The condition I had, I can associate it with the flu state.
Three days I was in bed, with intense headache, very irritated and nervous, without appetite, and without energy because I felt a complete pain in the 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 is much stronger than my cravings.
Yoga has helped me to deal with the stress and tensions, helped me to maintain my figure, not being 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, 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” the things more clear, which improved a lot my creativity.
To do not forget to mention: quitting smoking helped me, as well, to save the money which normally I would have paid for cigarettes. And there was a lot of money.
If you are a smoker, and you come so far in reading this post, it means that you are interested in this topic. So, do yourself a favor to have a second thought about smoking.
Because nicotine is highly addictive (can be addictive as alcohol, cocaine or heroine), the process of quitting smoking becomes much more difficult.
That is why, psychological different excuses are invoked:
- You realize that smoking is bad, 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 on gaining weight after quitting smoking has and the solution.
- You have tried before, but you 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 the 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 to be as much as possible in the life of those you love, is only in your hands and in your willpower!
” I quit smoking for my heart and the hearts of those I love.”
Hoping that you have made or will make the right decision for you, I have nothing left but to thank you for reading the article, and I would love, you to feel free to share your story as a smoker.
Till next time…
Don’t Forget: Life Is short, Make It Last!
~ Diana D. ~
Founder of 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.