According to the American Cancer Society, 91% of America’s ex smokers have quit smoking cigarettes without the use of any other aid or substance. Although the market is flooded with quit smoking cures and quick fix schemes that mostly end up hindering the quitting process, you should not ignore your logic and choose breaking the habit cold turkey. Even if quitting cold turkey is the most effective way to go, it’s still a long and hard road that requires a great deal of dedication and will power. So with the goal of making this process as efficient and successful as possible, here are some tips and helpful advice taken straight from the experience and lessons learned by previous cold turkey quitters.
The first and most important rule to quit cigarettes cold turkey is to commit yourself to never taking another puff of cigarette smoke ever again. While nicotine detox is rather quick, leaving your body within 72 hours of the last smoke inhaled, just one more puff will set you straight back to the beginning. And to administer a drug to an addict will cause his body to re-establish chemical dependence upon said substance. This is known as the Law of attraction, and it’s the one thing you should never forget during your new life as a non smoker, which brings us to our second piece of advice. The moment you decide to quit cigarettes, you become a non smoker and should think about yourself as one. It’s important that you remember you have an addiction, and it’s not just one more nasty habit you are trying to avoid, like picking your nose. It is an all or nothing type of situation and to see it as anything less than that is a recipe for relapse.
The first few days after quitting up to the first few months are the hardest this endeavor is going to get. During this period of time your body is cleaning itself from this substance and you will feel the strong desires of your habit trying to win over your determination. It is very important that during this period of time you try to enhance your motivation as much as possible. Keep yourself informed about smoking and all the consequences it has on your body. Do anything you can to maintain the same attitude towards the substance that made you want to quit it in the first place and don’t let yourself be intimidated by the side effects of your addiction as it tries not to die. Cultivate your patience overall and remember that all these negative repercussions are just temporary. Your body is hard at work to mend all that needs mending and all it asks from yourself is to stay strong and give it time.
Don’t wait until you have gone through 5 years of non smoking to declare a victory over your addiction. It is important that you work to adopt a “one day at a time” quitting philosophy and see every passing day without a cigarette as a victory in the battle of you against your habit. You can reward yourself after your first week, your first month, and your first trimester. Put some of the money you are saving from cigarettes aside and use it to treat yourself to something you really want. If you keep winning the battles, you will eventually win the war. And the earlier you start, the earlier you will conquer over your addiction. The best time is always right now, so Just Quit Cigs.
If you’ve already read about all the negative consequences smoking can have on your health, but you are still not motivated enough to try quit cigarettes cold turkey, perhaps you want to consider the following: Smoking takes a great toll not only on your health but financially as well. Smoking cigarettes has a great financial consequence in the long run. It has been proven that smokers tend to pay more for insurance, dry cleaning and teeth cleaning too. Also, they earn less and receive less in pension and Social Security benefits. Not to mention that any resale they do on a car or a home usually comes with a drop on the resale value due to the stench of the cigarette smoke. Most smokers enjoy lighting up while on the move. And without consistent and thorough cleaning, the side effects of smoking in the car will start to show very quickly. Not only will it reek of cigarette smoke, the cigarette butts can cause burn holes to the interior.
Smoking can also cause you to lose your job. According to a survey done by the Society for Human Resource Management, 5% of employers prefer to hire non smokers and even 1% do not hire smokers period. Several renowned companies have stopped hiring smokers for full time positions and sometimes perform nicotine tests on employees and applicants. This tendency has been increasing drastically in the last years and it doesn’t come as a surprise, seeing as smokers cost the economy a whooping figure of $97.6 billion a year in lost productivity. (Based on the number of working years lost due to smoking related premature deaths) Each American household spends $630 a year in taxes due to smoking.
On a more personal level, the numbers aren’t less impressive. With a pack of cigarettes pricing around $4.50 to $5, a person that smokes a pack of cigarettes a day, burns through $31 dollars per week, which adds up to $1,638 a year. Add up another $50 a year for a weekly pack of gum or mints. Plus a minimum of $200 for a teeth whitening per year and $144 more for extra dry cleaning on just one suit per month. The figures speak for themselves. And this is without considering other products typically used by smokers like smoker’s toothpaste, cough sweets, breath freshener, hand-care cream for stained fingers and lip balm. All of this spent to support a habit that is killing you at the same time. Other than the cost of the actual pack of cigarettes, a smoker will pay almost a third of the same cost on smoking related expenses.
Having in mind the figures to which these numbers add up, all the money being spent yearly on smoking and its related costs could easily be used to make a hefty house payment or spent on a joyful vacation with the family by a non smoker. Putting all this money in any sort of savings plan could help you through retirement or pay for your children’s higher education. Reconsider the great dent smoking puts in your personal finances and Just Quit Cigs.
Quitting cold turkey is the best way to quit cigarettes. It is the path chosen by most people that have been successful at quitting cigarettes. A study conducted by Simon Chapman at Australia’s Sydney University showed that approximately two thirds to three quarters of successful ex-smokers stopped smoking cold turkey. Quitting smoking cold turkey is usually shown on studies to be almost twice as effective as using any other method to quit. And the truth is that while other methods might work too, smokers have been constantly told since the 1980’s that the whole process of quitting cigarettes needs to be medicated in some way or another and they have been led to believe they need a pharmacological solution to successfully quit smoking.
But quitting cold turkey means that you will put down your cigarette and never pick one up again. This needs to be accomplished through willpower and discipline and requires lots of dedication and mindfulness. Also, it means you will stop smoking without the help of any aids or other substances. It may sound harsh and a little extreme, especially for those with a serious chemical dependence to nicotine. But the rewards are greater than any other method you might choose. One of the lighter sides of the nicotine dependence is that it does not cause any health issues when it is dropped 100%, as opposed to an addiction to alcohol or heroin, where quitting the substance in an advance stage of addiction could be harmful for your organism. So this gives your body the advantage of being capable to start mending the damage of smoking as soon as you quit.
It’s true that quitting cigarettes cold turkey is a plan that has backfired on many in the past. Even though your body starts its healing process as soon as you quit cigarettes cold turkey, the habit of smoking is really hard to break. You will soon find yourself noticing your addiction is much more powerful than you have previously considered. But this should be all the more reason to set your mind on non smoking and defeating that great beast of addiction that seems to be greater than you. But sometimes, using other products will make the process of quitting smoking harder than necessary too. And the good thing about quitting cold turkey is that because the nicotine will start leaving your body right away, you will see this great addiction slowly die a little bit each day. With every breath of fresh air you take, you will miss inhaling toxic fumes a little less.
So take all this information into consideration and make up your mind about the changes you need to do in your life regarding your health and the health of those around you. Change your mind set to that of a non smoker and you will see the how the psychological grip from your smoking habit will start to let loose and fade away. It’s time to exercise your free will according to your best interest and Just Quit Cigs.
Why would I want to quit cold turkey when there are other options available such as the patch or products like Chantix? Well if you’re not scared of iffy side-effects from a newly pushed to the market pharmecudial products feel free to take the pills, and products like the patch or chewing gums keep your body using nicotine anyways. Here are some simple tips to help one kick the habit via quitting cold turkey. A cigarette smoker is addicted both physically and psychologically making this habit a true battle to fight. According to experts, numerous factors depend on ones chances of success, not just a person’s willpower. “It really depends on your personality,” says Norman Edelman, MD, chief medical officer at the American Lung Association. Really in the end, everything adds up, one needs the support of friends and family along with willpower and the desire to better their life. What is important to remember is no matter how many times you’ve tried in the past you can always try again when it comes to quitting cold turkey.
There are many benefits from quitting cigarettes cold turkey that increase greatly over time. It is really amusing to see what the human body is able to mend and repair when treated right. Combined with a healthy diet and exercise, quitting cold turkey will greatly increase your quality of life, your energy levels and your overall well-being. And although this effects increase as time without smoking or ingesting nicotine goes by, the benefits from quitting can be felt and seen right away. Just by going about 20 minutes without having a cigarette, the blood pressure in your body along with your pulse rate and the temperature in your limbs will go back to their normal states. Within just one day of having quit, the nicotine in your blood will experience a reduction greater than 90%. Blood oxygen increases and carbon monoxide levels will have dropped
Just before the 5 days mark has hit, the effects on the body without nicotine or cigarette smoke are amazing. Some of the nerve endings that have been damaged from smoking start to grow back. This has an effect on smell and taste senses, which will go back to normal. The lung’s bronchial tubes will relax and this will cause breathing to become easier and lung functionality will start to increase.
From this point on to around 3-4 weeks after having quit cold turkey, the ex-smoker will probably be experiencing the worst effects from cession related cravings and episodes. Anxiety and cravings may be at their peaking point, but is important to note that the body is rapidly and thankfully readjusting to its normal functions and great recovery has already taken place. After 4 weeks, it is common that all anger, anxiety, impatience, insomnia, restlessness and depression related to quitting cigarettes have ended. After three months of abstinence, your chances of suffering a heart attack start to drop. Circulation of the blood improves greatly after this point, and any troubles related to physical activity should become easier. Any chronic cough is likely to have disappeared
After three months and up to a year, benefits from quitting start to accumulate. Sinus congestion, fatigue and shortness of breath related to smoking will have considerably decreased. Your lungs will be clean and free from infections due to cilia having been re-grown in them. The risk of stroke, heart attack or coronary disease should have dropped to less than half that of a regular smoker and within the next 3-5 years it will become the same as that of a non-smoker
After this and up to 10 years of quitting cold turkey, risks from being diagnosed with lung cancer will have reduced by 50-70% when compared to a regular smoker and death from lung cancer will become 50% less probable too. Also, risk from pancreatic cancer will return to that of a non-smoker and other types of cancer like cancer of the mouth, the esophagus and throat will also have reduced. When compared to the benefits you could be getting from smoking, it is clear that they are outweighed by the benefits from quitting cold turkey. So consider all the positive changes your body will start making and Just Quit Cigs.
