How do I Stop Smoking?
Once a person decides that it’s time he or she quitted smoking, it is better to begin sooner rather than later. However, how do you stop smoking, when you have been smoking for a number of years? Smoking is an extremely difficult addiction to break as tobacco contains the compound called nicotine which is addictive to both the mind and body.
Recent studies have shown that every time you smoke a cigarette, it costs you about five to twenty minutes of your life. Apart from weakening the body, smoking leaves a person with bad breath, yellow teeth, wrinkles, lower bone density, fertility problems that will inevitably affect the sexual health of both men and women and a higher risk of being infected with deadly diseases such as lung cancer. Smoking is costly and can shorten one’s life by about ten years or even more.
Methods to stop smoking can be found in many places and there are also various types of medication that can be prescribed. Some smokers are given nicotine replacements such as nicotine gums, nicotine patches, lozenges, inhalers, etc. But the real problem with all of these is that they mainly treat the physical aspect of how smoking affects the body. The truth is that more than the body, it is the mind that becomes addicted to smoking.
The hardest part of stopping smoking comes when trying to deal with the mind. A smoker’s mind frequently becomes convinced that their happiness, enjoyment and leading a stress free life, all depend on smoking. Understanding the fact that this is just not the case is one of the pivotal issues in quitting smoking.
One of the most important things to keep in mind when trying to stop smoking, is the breaking of such connections in the mind. Smokers believe that they need a cigarette to help them cope with daily stresses. Once you are able to overcome this dependency, in time your mind will learn to deal with daily problems without requiring a cigarette.
A good piece of advice when trying to stop smoking can be to go to counselling sessions and get advice from someone who is an ex-smoker, ie a person who has undergone similar experiences. Talking about your fears about quitting smoking and thereby relieving the doubts you have by attending such sessions can be helpful to anyone who is trying to stop smoking.
If you have decided that you should to quit smoking, don’t hesitate, grab the bull by the horns and start stopping now. You will soon start to notice the difference to your health. You will find that exercising will be easier, your fitness level will rise dramatically, food will taste far better and your mouth will be fresher.
