Free Quit Smoking HelpWhy Quit Smoking?
You hear people often say smoking is not good for you, perhaps even while you’re smoking one. You initially feel like saying, Mind your own business”, perhaps. It’s understandable to be defensive.
You know already that it is not good for you, but it’s not that easy, and so many people smoke. It can’t be all that bad, you may say to yourself. Well, this person may be rude, but despite the denial, it’s true.
You need to know how harmful it really is to your very life. The US Surgeon General has said, "Smoking cessation (stopping smoking) represents the single most important step that smokers can take to enhance the length and quality of their lives." It may sound too profound, but it’s too true!
Stopping smoking is a real challenge. However, YOU CAN STOP SMOKING! If you have never tried to stop in the past, you definitely need to know all about what you will be facing. You need to know all the options, and which one is going to work for you personally. You will need to know who/where to go to for help in tackling this smoking monster. The information will be provided here for you.
Why isn’t it easier to quit smoking? The great wit and author, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) quipped,
"Quitting smoking is easy. I've done it a thousand times." Maybe you've already tried to quit. Why is quitting, and quitting forever so difficult? The cause of all this suffering is no one’s friend. It’s name is NICOTINE.
Nicotine is a drug in tobacco, and it is as addictive as alcohol or cocaine. In time, you become physically and emotionally addicted to nicotine. The physical addiction causes severe withdrawal symptoms when you try to stop smoking. The emotional and mental addiction cause much anguish at times while you do your best to stay away from nicotine after you quit. Studies have shown that smokers must cope with both the physical and emotional dependence to quit, and then stay quit forever.
You may wonder where this nicotine goes into your body, and how can you finally be rid of it! Whenever you inhale nicotine in the smoke goes deep into your lungs. There it is readily absorbed into your bloodstream and carried throughout your body. Nicotine affects all of your body: your cardiovascular system, your hormones, your body processes (metabolism), and your brain. Nicotine inhaled in cigarette smoke enters your brain faster than drugs that enter the body thro intravenously (IV).
A woman smoker will have nicotine in her breast milk, and even in mucus from the cervix. During pregnancy, nicotine passes through the placenta, and has been found in amniotic fluid and the umbilical cord blood of newborn infants. It causes chronic problems in that child’s life before s/he has a chance to breathe the first breathe of air in the outside world.
Different factors will affect how long it takes the body to remove nicotine and its by-products. Usually, regular smokers will still have nicotine and all its by-products, such as cotinine, for about a few days in the body after stopping.
Why is nicotine so addictive? Simply, nicotine stimulates pleasant feelings, and keeps the smoker from any unpleasant feelings in an every day life. This makes the smoker crave another smoke. Nicotine is a depressant. It interferes with the flow of information between nerve cells. An additional dilemma is that if you smoke, as you smoke cigarettes, you tend to increase the number of cigarettes that you smoke as the nervous system adapts to nicotine. This, therefore, increases the amount of nicotine in your bloodstream. As you smoke more and more cigarettes, your arteries become harder, and are forever constricting more with each cigarette. The cancer, and other diseases, become ever-increasingly more likely to hit you. It is said that each cigarette that you smoke cuts your life by two minutes.
After a while, if you are a smoker, you will develops a tolerance to the drug. Tolerance means that it takes more nicotine to get the same effect that the smoker used to get from smaller amounts. This leads to an increase in smoking with time. The smoker reaches a certain nicotine level and then keeps smoking to keep the level of nicotine within a comfy zone. Next thing you know, that four dollar pack of smokes, is $12 per day, and ever increasing in quantity and price!
When a person finishes a cigarette, the nicotine level in the body starts to drop rapidly. The pleasant feelings wear off, and the smoker notices wanting a smoke. If smoking is postponed, the smoker will feel irritated and surly. Usually it doesn't reach the point of real withdrawal symptoms, but the smoker gets more uncomfortable as time marches on. Finally, the person smokes a cigarette, the pleasant sensation returns, and the cycle continues.
When smokers try to cut back or quit, the lack of nicotine leads to withdrawal symptoms. Withdrawal is both physical and mental. Physically, the body reacts harshly to the withdrawal of nicotine. Mentally, the smoker is faced with giving up a habit, which calls for a huge modifying of behavior. Both the physical and emotional factors must be faced for the quitting process to work.
Those who have smoked regularly for a few weeks, and abruptl stop smoking, or even reduce the amount smoked, will have withdrawal symptoms. Symptoms start within a few hours, and peak a few days later, when most of the nicotine and its by-products are finally out of the system within the body. Withdrawal symptoms can last from a few days to up to more than a month. They will get better daily, as you stay smoke-free.
According to the American Cancer Society (Guide to Quitting Smoking), withdrawal symptoms can include any of the following:
• Dizziness (which may only last 1 to 2 days after quitting)
• Depression
• Feelings of frustration, impatience, and anger
• Anxiety
• Irritability
• Sleep disturbances, including having trouble falling asleep and staying asleep, and having bad dreams or even nightmares
• Trouble concentrating
• Restlessness or boredom
• Headaches
• Tiredness
• Increased appetite
• Weight gain
• Constipation and gas
• Cough, dry mouth, sore throat, and nasal drip
• Chest tightness
• Slower heart rate
Once the above symptoms hit you, it can spurn you to cigarette smoking again. Consult your doctor if you need to have any medications you are taking changed, once you stop smoking. Good luck! It may do well to share your experiences with the smoking withdrawal. When the experience is shared with others, it will yield benefits from the support by them.
Citing:
“Guide to Quitting Smoking”, no author, 2011, American Cancer Society, http://www.cancer.org/Healthy/StayAwayfromTobacco/GuidetoQuittingSmoking/guide-to-quitting-smoking-why-so-hard-to-quit
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