It’s time you got together a plan to quit smoking for good. Learn these 7 effective tips to do away with smoking and move on with your life…
Have you made plans to quit your smoking habits multiple times and failed?
Do you lack a plan? A point of attack to rid yourself of your bad habit?
Like every difficult project, quitting cigarette smoking is also a tough task, and you must follow a string of rules before starting your ‘quit smoking’ movement.
1. Pick A Date & Stop Smoking With START
How are you planning to begin with the task of quitting your smoking habit?
To make sure that you stop for good, start your endeavors to quit smoking on a specific date. You can pick up any date that you want.
It could either be the start of the week, the end of the month, or on a day that is uniquely special to you. Setting a certain date allows you to have enough time to create a plan and gather people for emotional support.
We present you with a simple idea to START with your ‘quit smoking’ plans:
S – Set A Date: Choose a date at least a week from now to get all the preparations done. If you have the habit of smoking at your workplace, try to start to quit on the weekends.
T – Tell Your Friends & Family Members That You Have Planned To Quit Smoking: Include your loved ones in your plan to get all the necessary support you need to stay on your path to quit smoking.
A – Anticipate The Challenges: To plan to quit smoking and implement it, in reality, are two different things. You would be faced with the challenges associated with cravings and withdrawal symptoms that you need to foresee in the beginning only. Prepare yourself accordingly.
R – Remove Your Cigarettes From Everywhere: You must make efforts to get detached from every possible belonging that smells like cigarette. The more you stay away from it, the better you would be able to get control over yourself to not smoke.
T – Talk To Your Doctor: Consult your doctor to overcome your withdrawal symptoms and get the right prescription. You can also approach the local pharmacy to find products like gums, lozenges and nicotine patches to up your game against smoking powerfully.
2. Learn About Prescription Pills
Move forward with your ‘quit smoking’ regime by taking necessary actions to fight against withdrawal symptoms and cigarette cravings. These can be followed after taking proper advice from your doctor or physician. Two types of anti-smoking medications have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-
Nicotine Replacement Therapy: This requires you to replace your smoking with other nicotine substitutes like gum, patches, lozenges or inhaler.
It enables you to get little doses of nicotine minus the other harmful chemicals such as tar and poisonous gases that are present in the traditional cigarettes. It reduces the negative effects of withdrawal symptoms and helps you cope up with the cravings.
Non-Nicotine Medication: This method is also used to empower you to deal with withdrawal symptoms without the use of nicotine.
Different medications such as varenicline (Chantix, Champix) and bupropion (Zyban) can be utilized for short-term use.
3. Get Some Support To Stop Smoking
You can also take recourse to many other therapies that don’t require ingesting any medicines – these include:
Behavioural Therapy– It helps you to learn new coping skills to tackle the withdrawal symptoms in an easy way.
Motivational Therapy– Get motivated by listening and watching various videos, visiting great websites, and reading inspirational books to give up on smoking completely.
Acupuncture– In this type of medication, endorphins are released in your body that acts as natural pain relievers to feel relaxed.
Hypnosis– As opposed to the various drama that is shown on various media channels, hypnosis is actually a great way to get great results against your smoking habits. It helps you to strengthen your resolve to quit smoking and encourage your will in a powerful manner.
In addition to these techniques, you can also take the help of e-cigarettes as a support to quit smoking if you are facing too many difficulties to avoid impulsive smoking.
4. Avoid Alcohol & Other Triggers
There are many people who have the habit to smoke when they consume alcohol. Try to avoid drinking for the time being and take recourse to other beverages.
You can also try to visit those restaurants and hangouts where a cigarette is strictly prohibited. While consuming food, try to chew on nuts and sweet candy sticks to counter your cravings. There are many smokers that smoke after eating a meal.
Try to incorporate a small fruit or candy as your post-meal delicacy to avoid your mind from lighting up a cigarette. Try to be around your friends that don’t smoke and always motivate you to stop smoking as well.
5. Stay Busy & Stay Active
Are you feeling bored and eventually plan to smoke just one cigarette?
Generally, it happens when a person has nothing to do and all his mind could think of is smoking at least one cigarette. Indulge in an activity in your free time to stay busy and direct your attention completely off smoking.
You can choose to do a little meditation, yoga, chew gums, draw, paint, play thumb fight with your friends to keep your hands busy. Go for a quick jog or take your dog for a walk whenever you get an urge to smoke. You can also plan to go for an outing or a movie with your non-smoker friends and colleagues to help your mind gets freshened up.
6. Avoid Gaining Weight
You might fear gaining some extra pounds on your journey to never smoking again. Fret not; it is better to add on some extra pounds rather than putting yourself at risk of the dangerous heart and lung-related diseases like cancer and heart stroke.
Eat as many healthy fruits and vegetables as you can, drink lots of water to rejuvenate and cleanse your body from all the toxins from the inside, and make a daily routine to exercise or go for a walk for 10 minutes every day to reduce all your fears of getting fat after quitting your smoking habit.
7. Why Is It So Difficult To Quit?
Smoking is an addiction that takes all of your effort and ability to be stopped completely. Just like any addiction, smoking also creates difficulties for the person time and again. But just remember the positive results that it will lead you to once you are able to stop smoking completely. Even though it is a difficult procedure to complete, it is not impossible.
Try these preventive measures to quit smoking completely. We are sure that by moving forward with a bit of determination, you would be successfully able to quit smoking once and for all.
