Benefits Of Quitting Smoking: Quitting smoking is challenging, but realizing the benefits it brings should outweigh the false well-being associated with this addiction. Making a decision is the first big step.
The benefits of quitting smoking are numerous, not only for your health but also for the health of others. Of course, quitting this bad habit improves your quality of life. It provides the opportunity to make significant lifestyle changes that will benefit you in the short, medium, and long term.
Smoking is a subject that requires reflection due to the associated consequences. Especially considering the link between this habit and cancer. A disease that grows as uncontrollably as the debt you will amass trying to beat it. To avoid companies like Medicredit that collect on medical debt, quitting smoking is your best option. Before you know it, your phone might receive a call from 800-823-2318, and then it will be too late.
Often when a smoker finds an ad on a cigarette pack that says to quit smoking, she ignores it. While these advertisements are intended to be attractive, they have not achieved the desired effect. So the most common “smoking kills” alert is still another accessory in the box.
Table of Contents
The Rise In Smoking In Numbers
There has been a significant increase in smoking among women in recent years, especially those under 18 years of age.
This is a young age. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 150 million adolescents smoke, so their number grows worldwide.
On the other hand, the WHO notes that smoking is a public health threat that needs to be addressed urgently because the following measures do not work as expected:
- Ban on tobacco advertising.
- Smoking bans in public places.
- Increase in the prices of tobacco products.
The worst thing about smoking is that smokers are aware of the risks associates with smoking, but cannot quit, even when they read about the benefits of quitting.
It is not enough to know what impact this has on health, the amount of human loss, and its effects on third parties (passive smokers), so it is necessary to develop and implement measures to help smokers with reliable alternatives that improve your quality of life.
It is well known how difficult it is to quit smoking, but it is about awareness, perseverance, and finding solutions. Proactivity and goodwill will be your best allies throughout the process. The benefits of quitting will appear gradually, some sooner than others. The main thing is to fight for your well-being and invest in yourself.
Perks Of Stop Smoking
Cigarettes contain around 4,000 chemicals, 400 of which are carcinogenic. The benefits of quitting smoking include:
- After 20 minutes without smoking, the blood pressure is regulated.
- 12 hours later, the carbon monoxide level in the blood returns to normal, but the next day it eliminates, and the lungs displace the remaining tobacco.
- After 2 weeks, lung function will improve a lot, so the person will no longer notice this feeling of suffocation. This can be noticed when walking or jogging.
- During the first 8 months after quitting, a person will notice less shortness of breath, less coughing, and less infected or recover from infections faster.
- Quitting smoking will lower your risk of heart disease after one year.
- After 5 years of quitting smoking, the risk of contracting various types of cancer, such as cancer of the throat, bladder, oesophagus, etc, decreases.
- After 10 years of quitting smoking, the risk of lung cancer can reduce (50% less).
Is There An Effective Way To Quit Smoking?
There is no single effective method to quit smoking, but many alternatives can be tried and applied depending on the individual’s goals.
In other words, quitting smoking is a strategy that must approach in a multidimensional way, using multiple approaches and not giving up in the face of difficulties. These are some of the best strategies for quitting smoking.
1.Psychological Approach
- Control the social and emotional factors that induce the urge to smoke (meetings or social events, coffee, etc.).
- Use cognitive strategies for psychological reinforcement. Perceiving yourself as a “non-smoker” is an important step. On the other hand, it is about informing love ones that you have abandoned this habit.
- Explore breathing exercises or choose techniques like mindfulness to deal with withdrawal symptoms.
- Offer the brain new stimuli (dancing, exercising, etc.).
2.Nutritional Approach
- Include purifying soups and broths (such as artichokes) in your diet.
- Avoid sweets as they can increase cravings for tobacco.
- Avoid or reduce your consumption of coffee, as it is a stimulant and increases cravings.
- Regulate your protein intake. It is not recommended to exceed your protein intake because your body’s metabolic capacity decreases when you stop smoking.
- Increase your intake of vitamin C., Especially when consuming fruits such as oranges, lemons, mangoes, kiwis, berries, grapefruits, and others.
- In case of severe anxiety, you can opt for an infusion that regulates anxiety: valerian, passionflower, cinnamon infusion, licorice, and others.
Smoking Cessation Products
To enjoy the benefits of quitting smoking, it is necessary to be persistent and even creative when applying one strategy or another, or the product that best suits the needs and offers the best results. It should be remembered that each person is different; therefore, it cant generalize.
In addition to psychological strategies and proper nutrition, a wide range of available products can use to quit tobacco use and reduce withdrawal symptoms.
With a few of these products, goodwill, and a proper mental and motivational approach, everyone can get ahead and quit smoking. Some of the most common products that can be used are:
- Nicotine gum: It can be a relief when it comes to quitting tobacco. Chewing gum can form of tobacco replacement, remembering that nicotine is absorbed through the oral mucosa.
- Nicotine lozenges.
- Mouth spray: This has a very specific advantage. This eliminates the need to smoke in just over a minute. We have to put a couple of sprays in our mouths, and Goodbye to cravings!
- Nicotine patches: They have the same objective as the previous ones. However, they do have the advantage of comfort: apply them to the skin to allow a controlled amount of nicotine to reach the bloodstream.
The person may relapse; this is normal. The key is not to give up and convince yourself that you deserve a long and healthy life, free from the ailments associated with smoking. The decision to quit smoking is the first and best of many possible steps. Focus on the benefits of quitting and take heart!