Editorial

Ditch the Smoking Habit

Smoking is bad for you! You cannot dispute that fact. If you are a man and smoke, you will most likely die early from various cigarette smoking related diseases such

  • PublishedJanuary 4, 2012

Smoking is bad for you!

You cannot dispute that fact. If you are a man and smoke, you will most likely die early from various cigarette smoking related diseases such as cancer and asthma. You are also unlikely to enjoy good health and so the quality of your life will be reduced. Your personal hygiene may also be in doubt as the smoke never leaves your clothes and your teeth are likely to be stained, while you may have a mouth odour, despite brushing your teeth regularly.

Do you need more reasons to convince you to quit smoking? If you are a smoker who wants to quit, there’s bad news; many people like you have unsuccessfully tried to kick the habit and ended up dead.

Chances are that you too could fail in your effort to kick the habit, unless you look carefully into your self and with finality decide you want to quit. But there is some good news that in spite of all the talk about smoking being one of the hardest addictions to give up, it is in fact the easiest because the addiction does not add anything of value into your body, but it leaves very harmful deposits. It is also an offensive and nasty habit because smokers tend to include people around them without their consent, in the process affecting their health.

Here are ways to help you quit:

Decide. You can give up smoking if you decide to make it a mental effort. You must make up your mind if you really want to give up the habit because if you haven’t, the likelihood of your returning to the habit is very high.

Find a substitute. Find something to do in place of getting out a cigarette, lighting and lifting it up to your mouth and puffing away. A possible replacement is water; drink water whenever you feel the urge to smoke because it is far much better to be addicted to water than tobacco. You can also use exercise as a substitute activity for smoking because the strenuous physical activity takes your mind away from the need to smoke as it handles the pressure exercise places on your body.

Remove the stimulant. If you are the sort of person that smokes when in the company of friends or drinking, then you need to choose your friends and activities well. If you must drink, avoid doing so with friends who smoke or do so in a smoke free environment. Better still, stay away from the bottle altogether until you are strong enough to drink without smoking.

Reduce. This works for some and not others because it also involves personal discipline. Start by reducing your daily cigarettes until you don’t smoke any more. It’s hard with several temptations around but is also probably the friendliest to your body, as it stops it from experiencing withdrawal symptoms.

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