Jun 052010

Stop Smoking Cigarettes

 

Tobacco smoking, a practice that has been in existence since 5000-3000 B.C. is sought-after(a) by many as it triggers a chemical reaction in nerve endings that is often associated with pleasure. In spite of the huge number of carcinogens found in cigarettes, people get addicted and fight to put an end to this habit. It is not a mere physical addiction that has to be put to an end, one has to work on the psychological dependency people have on it to make the effort to stop smoking cigarettes effective.

 

As a basic measure to quit smoking, identify the outrage it has on our body. Smoking is a major contributor to lung, bladder, pancreatic, mouth, esophageal, and other cancers, leukemia, impairs mental capacity, increases impotence, pulls down fertility level, increases the chances for heart disease and depression, leads to premature babies, affects taste buds, causes Alzheimer’s disease, results in high blood pressure, stroke, and other deadly diseases, and lot more. So, keeping it in the back of your mind, forces your mind to stay away from smoking and start a new chapter in your life.

To stop smoking cigarettes, one needs to prepare his mind to experience the new lifestyle. Identify the elements that generally lure to a smoke and slowly replace it with substitutes in your fight against smoking. There are nicotine gums that work immediately by slowly injecting small portions of nicotine that is free of carcinogens and providing you a solution to the withdrawal struggles of smoking. Over the period, it can wean you off the habit and force you to adapt to the changes considerably.

 

Adopt “cold turkey” to assist you in your effort to quit smoking. For example, you can mark your beginning when you are on a vacation as a different setting and a relaxed mood can make the job easier and less painful.

 

Many others prefer a slow progression in their attempt to stop smoking. The slow decline to the number of packs of cigarettes slowly takes them away from this habit. These people stay away from tobacco by keeping their mind and body busy during the times when they tend to smoke on a regular basis. Some stop smoking cigarettes by taking into account the savings they have made in their attempt and consider it as a motivation to fight tobacco.

 

Always move with a target date in mind after which place a complete stop to your habituation on cigarettes. Stop purchasing cigarettes and then, you will be forced to quit smoking, if your mind has adapted to this idea. Some smokers engage themselves in physical activities when the craving starts to pop its head up. Think of what motivated you in your past attempts to fight a difficult situation and identify a similar motivating factor to quit smoking. This can boost the self-confidence in your power to achieve the feat.

 

There are several prescription medicines that reduce the withdrawal symptoms of nicotine addiction and force the stimulatory function it performs in your brain like varenicline, bupropion, clonidine and nortriptyline. But, the dependency on these is to be short-lived to prevent any side-effects.

So, stop smoking cigarettes and live longer. It really is possible! My new Blog will help show you how. What are you waiting for? Visit http://www.stopsmokingsecretsthatwork.com and start on a smoke free future today!

 

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Posted by Smokes at 5:47 am Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Feb 052010

Many experts believe smoking is only about 10% physical addiction and 90% psychological. Your body will recover fairly quickly from nicotine withdrawals with the worst symptoms usually subsiding in about three days or less. But your psychological dependency on cigarettes can be much more difficult to overcome.

One way to combat this is to do a bit of self-analysis before giving up cigarettes.

Make a list with two columns. Label column one “Why I Started Smoking” and label column two “Why I Want To Quit Smoking.”

In column one, list all the reasons you can remember as to why you started smoking. Was it peer pressure? Rebellion? Did you think it made you look cool? Did it make you feel like a grown-up? Really try to remember the exact reasons why you started smoking and write them all down.

Now look over that list. Do any of those reasons still apply in your life today?

If you’re like most people, you will see that your reasons for becoming a smoker are no longer valid, and are easily outweighed by the risks to your health and your family’s well-being.

So let’s move on to column two…

Why do you want to quit smoking?

This one may seem obvious, but it can be a bit complicated. You really need to take some time and think about this. Don’t just list the obvious health reasons. You’ve been reading the Surgeon General’s warnings for years with little effect, so you need to come up with reasons that truly have meaning for you.

The things most people write down will NOT help you quit smoking…
– I don’t want to get lung cancer. – I don’t want to have a heart attack or a stroke. – I’d like to live long enough to see my grandchildren grow up.

Those are all good reasons to quit smoking… but they deal in “possibilities” rather than in specifics.

Sure you MIGHT get lung cancer, you MIGHT have a heart attack or a stroke, you MIGHT die young and miss out on seeing your grandchildren grow up.

Or, you MIGHT NOT! You’re not likely to break a strong psychological addiction based on what MIGHT happen. Your mind will work hard to convince you that it won’t happen to you! Instead, list health problems that you are already experiencing.

Your list should point out things in your life that you are unhappy about and are STRONGLY MOTIVATED to change. In order to break your psychological addiction, you need an arsenal of new thoughts and desires that are stronger than your desire to smoke.

Here are the types of things you want to put in column two…

Why Do I Want To Quit Smoking?

1. Health Reasons
– I get so out of breath when I exert myself even a little bit. Just vacuuming the house makes me pant and gasp.
– My feet are always cold. This could be due to high blood pressure and poor circulation associated with smoking.
– I have a nasty wet cough and I have to blow my nose way too often. Mucus build-up is the body’s reaction to all the toxins and chemicals in cigarette smoke and could be a precursor to serious respiratory disease. Even if I don’t get cancer, I don’t want to be one of those people who has to tote oxygen bottles around everywhere.
– I’m always tired. Could it be that my body is using up all its energy trying to eliminate the toxins and chemicals from cigarettes?

2. Vanity Reasons
– Smoking causes premature aging and drying of the skin. I don’t want to look like a wrinkled up old prune!
– My fingers, fingernails and teeth are all tobacco stained. Disgusting! How embarrassing.
– When I get on the elevator after a smoke break at work, everyone wrinkles their nose and tries to edge away from me because I reek of cigarette smoke. I feel like a pariah. It’s embarrassing to always be the big “stinker” on the elevator. I feel like I have no self-control.
– My breath is awful. Kissing me must be like kissing an ashtray. I spend a fortune on breath mints.

3. Financial Reasons
– If I save all the money I used to spend on cigarettes, I’ll have enough to take a vacation in Cancun every winter!
– I could use the money to pay off my credit cards!
– I could donate money to my favorite charity or sponsor a child. My cigarette money could make the world a better place!

4. Family Reasons
– My family can stop worrying about me.
– My spouse will have to find something new to nag me about.
– My children will be proud of me and hopefully they’ll never start smoking themselves, having seen first hand what a nasty destructive habit it is.

5. Cleanliness Reasons
– The walls used to be white. Now they’re a nasty dirty-looking brown.
– I stink, my car stinks, my house stinks, everything I own reeks of cigarette smoke. I can’t even lend a book to a non-smoking friend because they can’t stand the smell of smoke permeating the pages.

Do you see yourself in any of the items listed? You may have many more reasons of your own. Find as many compelling and emotional reasons to quit smoking as you can think of and write them all down.

If you can re-train your mind to think of smoking as a silly and self-destructive thing to do, then you’re almost sure to succeed.

Paul Wolbers
http://www.articlesbase.com/health-articles/how-to-beat-cigarettes-with-psychology-51531.html

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Posted by Smokes at 4:54 am Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Nov 022009

Are you concerned about your health? If you want to quit smoking, hypnosis is the healthiest method. Just think about it for a minute. A quit smoking hypnosis program will teach your healthy habits that you can use for life. But quit smoking drugs have potentially dangerous side effects.

But just as dangerous can side effects be? After all, a lot of the drugs have to be prescribed by a doctor. Doesn’t a doctor’s supervision automatically make taking drugs to quit smoking safe? And aren’t they worth it if the end result is that you don’t smoke anymore?

First, you have to understand that all drugs have side effects. And some of them are more serious than others. You’re already addicted to nicotine, which is a heavy-duty poison. Did you know nicotine has been used for centuries as an insecticide to kill insects?

Well, when you use a nicotine patch or nasal sprays that are compounded with nicotine, you’re still delivering that poison into your system. True, you’re getting doses small enough that they won’t kill you as long as you follow the directions carefully.

But a long-time smoking habit isn’t just about the physical addiction to nicotine. People who have smoked for a number of years to develop “smoking rituals”. Those are the small actions that get repeated every time you smoke.

They are small things, like the way you hold your hand when you smoke your cigarette. Do you hold your cigarette between your index and middle fingers? Or do you like to hold it between your thumb and index finger?

You keep your lighter in your pants pocket? How many times a day do you reach for your lighter? Do you think it’s a coincidence that when you reach for your keys in your pocket, you suddenly crave a cigarette?

It’s no coincidence. Putting your hand in your pocket has become part of a “smoking ritual” that triggers your urge to smoke. Even if you just finished smoking a cigarette a few minutes ago, when you put your hand in your pocket again, you’ll think about having a cigarette.

That’s where the nicotine replacement drugs, like the patch and the nasal sprays and inhalers, can become dangerous. They take care of the physical cravings, but they don’t address the smoking rituals. So a lot of people end up using the quit smoking drugs, smoking their cigarettes or cigars on top of it.

That puts them in danger of having a nicotine overdose. Just because you don’t drop dead on the spot from smoking a cigarette or cigar, doesn’t mean that you can’t overdose on nicotine. You can. Not only can an overdose of nicotine make you violently ill, it can kill you on the spot. Like a dead bug hit with insecticide.

And what about the quit smoking pills? You can’t get them without a prescription, so you would think that they would be safe. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Even under a doctor’s supervision, some of the drugs themselves are just not safe.

If you take the time to read the list of potential side effects that these drugs can cause, it will make you think twice about taking them. You want to quit smoking because you want to be healthy. But do you really want to risk damage to your heart, liver, kidney and other internal organs while you’re in the process of quitting smoking?

There are other safer methods to quit smoking that don’t have any kind of physical health risk at all. No, you don’t have to quit smoking cold turkey. Hypnosis has the best long-term success rate of any of the methods that people use to quit smoking. And the side effects of using hypnosis, long term are actually good for you.

A good hypnosis program will give you tools to help ease the nicotine cravings. You’ll also learn ways to deactivate those “smoking ritual” triggers. And that’s really important for long-term success.

Joanne Fallwater
http://www.articlesbase.com/health-articles/if-you-want-to-quit-smoking-hypnosis-is-the-healthiest-method-724076.html

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Posted by Smokes at 1:24 pm Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,