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Quit Smoking Timeline

The quit smoking timeline shows the positive results of quitting smoking on the person’s health and well being. Even if quitting poses so many challenges, the benefits are immediate and noticeable in as little of 20 minutes. The timeline below will help you understand the transformations that occur in the body after you quit smoking.

In 20 minutes the heart rate decreases and so does the blood pressure. More blood is pumped towards the extremities, so that your hands and feet become warmer.

In 8 hours the carbon monoxide level in the blood gets to normal. Carbon monoxide interferes with the blood’s ability to transport oxygen. Once there is less carbon monoxide, the oxygenation of the cells improves all over the body system.

After 24 hours of quitting smoking, the risk of suffering a heart attack drops.

After 48 hours, the sense of taste and smell improves.

Between 2 weeks and 3 months, the blood circulation improves and so does the energy level. You’ll be walking without panting or feeling exhausted. The lung functions change for the better, and by now the phlegm production will have dropped.  Coughing and wheezing gradually go away.  The improvement continues for the following nine months as the lungs regain normal function.

After 1 year of staying nicotine-free, the quit smoking timeline looks even more promising. The risk of coronary heart disease and heart attack is 50% lower than that of a smoker.

Between 5 and 15 years after quitting, the risk of stroke lowers to that of a non-smoker.

In 10 years, the risk of lung, mouth, throat, bladder, kidney and pancreas cancer decreases considerably. Nevertheless, for lung cancer the risk still remains higher than for people who have never smoked.

In 15 years, a former smoker has almost the same life expectancy as a non-smoker.

What does this quit smoking timeline mean to you?

It is difficult for a heavy smoker to quit because of the physical addiction on nicotine and the psychological dependency on the smoking habit. This is probably the reason why so many people don’t pay too much attention to the above mentioned benefits resulting from a cigarette-free life.

Unless you have the desire to quit and you act on it RIGHT NOW chances of actually quitting smoking are really low. Only someone who’s become convinced that his/her life is not going in the right direction and that personal health is decaying with every single cigarette will be strong enough to quit.

It’s not going to be easy, but it’s doable. There are millions of people who’ve succeeded to quit smoking successfully, and have significantly improved their health condition.

How to succeed in the Quit Smoking Timeline

There is not one single success formula. Yet, what seems to be of paramount importance is that you get psychological and emotional support from your therapist, your family and a therapy group eventually.

The struggle is difficult but there are lots of aids along the way that you can make good use of. Then, you’ll start experiencing on your own the benefits in the above quit smoking timeline.

Smoking Cessation Programs

There are various types of smoking cessation programs, yet what really matters is that people should know how to make the right choice. Statistics indicate that a large percentage of smokers who begin a quit smoking program actually give in to the nicotine addiction again during the first three months. Another category is that of smokers who try several times before actually quitting for good.

According to studies, the best quit smoking programs are those that include one-on-one or group therapy for a period longer than two weeks. A quality program usually lasts around six weeks on the average, and during this period the patients learn how to stop smoking and stay off cigarettes for at least a year.

Complementary therapies as part of smoking cessation programs

Acupuncture therapy is used pretty effectively in the fight against the nicotine addiction as well as against various other health problems. Through acupuncture, energy blockages are removed, and the organs gain a better capacity to support the detoxification process that accompanies quitting smoking.

Various herbal formulas are effectively used to reduce the withdrawal symptoms or quitting smoking side effects. Lots of supplements are available on the market, yet you should go for a natural blend that is prescribed specifically to you by a professional herbalist.

Neuro-linguistic programing supports cognitive-behavioral therapy, and allows one to break the smoking habit a lot more efficiently. Positive thinking, on the other hand, totally completes the psychological transformation that is required for lifestyle and health improvement.

Group programs or personal programs

Some people prefer personal smoking cessation programs, while others consider that group therapy is a lot more supportive. Attend a program that is led by a mental health professional or a social worker, because the person guiding you ought to be reliable.

As part of any quit smoking program, you should gradually develop understanding and self awareness, to the point that it becomes obvious why you’ve taken up smoking, why you smoke and why it is so difficult to quit. Managing cravings, dealing with stress and developing a positive mindset are the main goals of professionally designed quit smoking programs. Such a therapeutic approach has the highest chances of success. That’s for sure!

A personal plan often sounds like the best idea for the individual, because everybody uses smoking for such versatile purposes that a general approach is difficult to create. Therefore, your action plan may be different from a friend of yours who’s chosen the same type of therapy. Creating an individual plan, does not exclude the option of working within a smoking cessation group program. The leader of such groups actually helps every member figure out the best individual strategy to stay away from cigarettes.

Evaluate costs

While some programs are financed by the government or local healthcare institutions and hospitals, others are private and require payment. Unfortunately there is little insurance coverage for quitting smoking. The costs usually depend on the specificity of the program and its extent. Check the information available for various smoking cessation programs to make a good choice.

Quit Smoking Side Effects

By quit smoking side effects we generally refer to the withdrawal symptoms that accompany the deprivation of nicotine. Experts point out to the most important aspect that often passes unnoticed when you first take up smoking, yet which remains the one that gives you the hardest time when trying to quit: your MIND. Nobody takes up smoking because one is addicted to nicotine: you make a choice, and it’s mental.

Quit smoking side effects on the mind

Mild depression and sadness because you can no longer use cigarettes as a quick fix or a stress relief.

Anxiety is often associated with the perspective of staying completely nicotine-free for a lifetime.

Anger and short-temper usually appear because of the changes that the body goes through, when it gradually becomes nicotine free. Your reactions are not explained solely by the deprivation of nicotine, but also because of the stress on the system.

Boredom is the most common of quit smoking side effects because you are forced to break the habit, and there remain gaps to be filled up throughout the day.

People who use smoking as an aid to deal with negative emotions such as sadness, loneliness, depression and so on, will experience more intense psychological quit smoking side effects, because cigarettes won’t be there for ‘support’ any more.

Physical Symptoms and Quit Smoking Side Effects

The following list of physical nicotine withdrawal symptoms is not exhaustive, but it includes the most common physical side effects associated with quitting smoking.

• Sweating, shaking and feeling very cold.
• Headaches appear because the sinuses clear out.
• Flu-like symptoms due to the detoxification that the body is going through;
• Insomnia affects a large number of people who quit smoking. The stressful situation can lead to sleep problems.
• The digestion sometimes changes completely for a while. It is possible to even experience stomach pains and sour stomach.
• Tiredness.

The healing crisis is pretty serious particularly for heavy smokers. Not only that you have to break the addiction, but the body system needs to detoxify and clear out all the waste. This is why you may experience all sorts of other pains and problems that are not mentioned on the above list.

How to deal with nicotine withdrawal symptoms

Behavioral cognitive therapy is the most successful way of fighting the smoking habit and breaking the psychological addiction. This is your chance to find out why you smoke, why you think you need cigarettes and what strategies to use to put your life in order. As part of the quit smoking process, you’ll find out how to deal with negative emotions and the challenging situations in your life without falling into an addiction.

For the physical symptoms of nicotine withdrawal, it is recommended to use some quit smoking products: pills, gum, lozenges, trans-dermal patches, herbal supplements or electronic cigarettes. The various aids available reduce the urge to smoke or help you gradually lower the amount of nicotine in the body.

Combine various psychological and physiological methods in order to successfully counteract the unpleasant quit smoking side effects.

Quit Smoking Tips

Ex-smokers often share their quit smoking experience in the form of quit smoking tips. They author articles for websites, they give advice in forums and they help friends through the tough first months of returning to a nicotine-free lifestyle. Suggestions, information and shared experience often prove vital for a smoker to actually defeat the addiction.

Where to turn to for quit smoking tips

If you have a friend or a family member who’s gone through the quit smoking experience, consider yourself fortunate because you can enjoy all the needed support.

Therapy groups and counselors represent the most reliable source of quit smoking tips that one can think of. First of all, within a therapy group former smokers support each other sharing their experience and offering help to those who struggle with emotional problems, stress and various other life challenges that favor the persistence of the addiction.

There are also lots of e-books and books available for smokers interested to quit. Self-awareness and self-determination make the quit smoking process smoother because you have a superior understanding of the way your mind reacts to the nicotine. Becoming aware probably represents the most important personal achievement that leads to a nicotine-free life.

For your own good…

Quit smoking today! Do not decide to quit tomorrow, next Christmas or on your birthday. You should not wait for special occasions to make the change. Somebody who pushes the decision in the future, wants a delay and he/she is not fully convinced of the importance to quit.

Mindset matters enormously. People who have a positive attitude towards life, who enjoy their body and love it in its beauty, are less likely to take up smoking. And when they do, it proves easier for them to actually quit. Athletes, fitness instructors, nutritionists, yogi and all sorts of therapists are less likely to smoke because of the higher body-mind awareness. Yet, exceptions do exist here.

The more balance you achieve in your life, the easier it becomes to put various quit smoking tips into practice.

Improving your existence

If together with quitting smoking you also learn about effective ways to deal with stress, manage time and solve emotional problems, the quality of your day-to-day existence will improve considerably. And you’ll notice the benefits right away!

Relaxation techniques, regular sports activity, a balanced diet and a positive environment both at home and at work create the right premises for a smoker to be successful in the quitting experience.

Beware of tricky advice

Some words of advice that you may come across online are actually serving some marketing strategy meant to support one quit smoking product or another. Before, you follow someone’s advice to try a certain quit smoking aid, you should talk to the doctor if it’s a medication or oral supplement, and most importantly check all the usage instructions.

This means that if you sense something wrong or inadequate in the various suggestions you get, you should check other quit smoking tips and not follow the queer ones.

Ways to Quit Smoking

It is highly advisable to check various ways to quit smoking before taking pills or joining a quit smoking program. Yet, the most important factor in the equation is your willingness to quit. Nobody can become nicotine-free unless he/she really wants it.

Medication

Zyban is often a popular choice prescribed by doctors from among other pharmaceutical formulas designed to provide help for people who wish to quit smoking. If you take Zyban while participating in patient support programs, chances are to stop smoking for good. Zyban helps control both withdrawal symptoms and the urge to smoke.

Cutting down gradually

Some smokers prefer to begin reducing the number of cigarettes they smoke a day so that they reach the point where they stop smoking altogether. Experts point out that your quitting day should not be later than two weeks from the day you start cutting down. As compared to other ways to give up smoking this one sounds doubtful mainly because there are so many factors that could make you smoke heavily again.

Ways to put this strategy into practice is to drastically cut down the number of cigarettes and delaying the time for the first cigarette with one hour every day. The method remains ineffectual if you don’t support it with behavioral therapy or some other form of psychological support.

Nicotine therapy is widely used to help smokers resume a healthier lifestyle. The market has been flooded by a huge number of products that reduce the unpleasant symptoms of nicotine withdrawal. The nicotine dose is a lot lower, yet, it allows one to go through the quit smoking process more smoothly and painlessly.

Going cold turkey is a much dreaded possibility and few people actually take this path. Giving up smoking abruptly causes the most severe withdrawal symptoms, yet they are bearable and pretty manageable with a bit of determination. Eating sweets, drinking lots of water and doing lots of sports helps the body purge the toxic waste and get over the nicotine addiction more easily.

Understanding the various ways to quit smoking

Before you decide on what approach to take, you need to understand your options, and the various methods used during the treatment. In the case of prescription-based medications you should be aware of the side effects and the impact of drugs on your health.

The success rate is one other aspect to have in view. Very much depends on the determination you show during and after the treatment. You can turn to all sorts of aids but still not be successful because you lack the vital element: the actual desire to quit.

While there are many ways to quit smoking, there is just one decision to make and stick to!

How to Stop Smoking

You may have read supportive materials or participated in anti-smoking campaigns or programs, but it’s a long way from acknowledging the bad habit (addiction) to actually quitting. Many smokers try to give up smoking several times before they actually manage to remain nicotine free. For some, it will remain a life long battle to fight…

Simple Tips

Going cold turkey

This is probably the hardest way to quit smoking: one day you decide not to touch a cigarette again, and you quit without any aid whatsoever. The period following this decision, when you remain nicotine-free after a long period of time, will turn into a nightmare. You’ll face high intensity withdrawal symptoms with cold sweats, limb shaking, nervousness, depression, insomnia and a huge appetite for sweets. And on top of these all, you can’t stop thinking about how a cigarette, just one, would make you feel better!

Quitting smoking cold turkey is an act of great courage that will test your will power and self-control ability. But you have to feel sure that you’re going to make it through!

Nicotine-based products

For those who need to learn how to quit smoking the easy way, cigarette substitutes help with the withdrawal symptoms. You can choose from:

• nicotine chewing gum;
• nicotine transdermal patches;
• nicotine sprays;
• nicotine pills.

All these contain a smaller amount of nicotine than cigarettes, they have no side effects on the health of  the lungs and they make the quitting process a lot easier. Basically, you give the body an ever lower amount of nicotine, and with this gradual decrease, you bring it back to an addiction-free state.

Nicotine-based products have a variable rate of success from individual to individual. While for some, they are highly effective, for others they bring no consistent improvement whatsoever.

Specialized programs

For people who have troubles giving up smoking because they use cigarettes as a stress relief, a more complex approach is necessary. It’s unlikely that you’ll know how to quit smoking on your own, if you don’t have serious knowledge of stress management, neuro-linguistic programming, positive thinking, meditation, breathing techniques and so on.

Psychological counseling is necessary to get one rid of the addiction because it helps you eliminate the emotional function or meaning that is unconsciously attributed to cigarettes. What smoker hasn’t felt the urge for a cigarette in times of peak tension: whether at work or in personal life? With a cigarette it’s like taking a break from stress. Well, this is a vicious circle that you can’t break that easily! The more stressed you are, the more you feel the urge to smoke…

With counseling and therapy, the smoker learns how to make use of other instruments, strategies and techniques to deal with personal and professional problems, without using cigarettes to alleviate the internal tension.

Therefore, I suggest you check out seriously and find out what programs there are available for smokers in your neighborhood.

Quit Smoking Help

There are lots of ways to get the help you need. You can start off by going through the following tips.

Join a support program!

An important part of the transformation process to help somebody aware of the implications of his/her addictions is to focus on major health problems. Lots of quit smoking programs expose people to pretty ‘indelicate’ pictures of smoking-diseased lungs. In some cases, to create an even bigger shock, the smoker is shown real lungs taken from people who’ve died from lung cancer, for instance.

Within a program the person who wants to quit smoking works with a personal counselor as well as with a therapy group. The importance of group therapy is often emphasized by specialists as a key factor since it brings the personal emotional support from other people who share a similar experience.

This kind of help enables one to become more in control of personal life, both at the physical and psychological level. You learn strategies and methods to reduce stress and improve the quality of life without turning to cigarettes in order to reduce tension or the intensity of emotions.

In lots of experts’ opinion, professional quit smoking help gives one the best chances to remain nicotine-free for a lifetime.

Products

Pharmaceutical companies have created a number of nicotine-based products that are meant to help with the withdrawal symptoms that accompany quitting. Chewing gum, trans-dermal patches, sprays and pills can sometimes prove successful in helping one quit smoking. However, experts warn that without serious motivation and psychological support, chances are that after a period of time you return to the bad habit.

The main question is how you can handle the pressure of personal, professional and social environment without using nicotine.

Family support

It often happens in the family that both partners smoke. They are often smoking partners. Unfortunately, it’s more difficult for only one of them to quit. Statistics indicate that the highest rates of quit smoking success are in families where both spouses decide to quit smoking at the same time. They can then support each other a lot more effectively.

Problems appear when only one person in the couple is determined to quit smoking. The chance of relapsing into the nicotine addiction is higher due to the emotional involvement with another smoker. This influence remains predominant, and one has to fight a much tougher battle to remain nicotine free in such a family environment.

Quitting smoking and over-eating

It is pretty common for lots of smokers to over-eat when trying to eliminate their nicotine addiction. This situation frequently appears when smoking is a form of stress relief or stress management method. You give up smoking only to substitute smoking with another bad habit (or addiction): emotional eating. Such a solution is hardly an aid at all. This is why a therapeutic approach becomes so utterly important for a smoker to quit for good.

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