Planning to quit smoking. Advice/guidance required? -
As we are approaching 2010, I am making a resolution to quit smoking. I would love ex-smokers to help me out with this. Also others who have hit upon this subject anywhere please help.
thanks in advance and help me to be smoke free from 2010
1. Deep breathing, perhaps the single most powerful - important technique: Every time you want a cigarette, do the following. Do it three times.
Inhale the deepest lung-full of air you can, - then, very slowly, exhale. Purse your lips so that the air must come out slowly. As you exhale, close your eyes, and let your chin gradually sink over onto your chest. Visualize all the tension leaving your body, slowly draining out of your fingers and toes, just flowing on out.
2. Taking In Fluids: The first few days, drink lots of water and fluids to help flush out the nicotine and other poisons from your body.
Remember that the urge to smoke only lasts a few minutes, and will then pass. The urges gradually become farther and farther apart as the days go by.
3. Stay away from alcohol, sugar - coffee: Do your very best to stay away from alcohol, sugar and coffee the first week or longer, as these tend to stimulate the desire for a cigarette. Avoid fatty foods, as your metabolism will slow down a bit without the nicotine, and you may gain weight even if you eat the same amount as before quitting. So discipline about diet is extra important now. No one ever said acquiring new habits would be easy!
Nibble on low calorie foods like celery, apples and carrots. Chew gum or suck on cinnamon sticks.
Stretch out your meals; eat slowly and wait a bit between bites.
After dinner, instead of a cigarette, treat yourself to a cup of mint tea or a peppermint candy.
4.Taking an oral substitute: One can use cinnamon sticks, chewing gum or artificial cigarettes as a substitute. You will mostly find that after the first week of being a non smoker, you would not even need these.
5. Get Exercising: Go to a gym, sit in the steam, exercise. Change your normal routine– take time to walk or even jog around the block or in the local park.
6.Pamper Yourself: Go ahead and join a yoga class or maybe reiki– they are great! Get a 1 hour massage, take a long bath - pamper yourself. Get yourself involved in a hobby.
7. Ask For Support: Ask for support from co-workers, friends and family members. Ask for their tolerance. Let them know you are quitting, and that you might be edgy or grumpy for a few days. If you do not ask for support, you certainly would not get any. If you do, you will be surprised how much it can help. Take a chance- try it and see!
Ask friends and family members not to smoke in your presence. Do not be afraid to ask. This is more important than you may realize.
8. Destroy All Your Cigarettes: On your quit day, hide all ashtrays - destroy all your cigarettes, preferably with water, so no part of them is smoke able.
9. Write It Down: Write down 10 good things about being a nonsmoker - - then write out 10 bad things about smoking. Do it. It really helps.
10. Do not pretend: Do not pretend smoking was not enjoyable– it was. This is like losing a good friend– - it is okay to grieve the loss. Feel that grief, do not worry, it is okay. Feel, - you heal. Stay with it - you can do it!
11. Affirm yourself: Several times a day, quietly repeat to yourself the affirmation, -I am a nonsmoker.- Many quitters see themselves as smokers who are just not smoking for the moment. They have a self-image as smokers who still want a cigarette.
Silently repeating the affirmation -I am a nonsmoker- will help you change your view of yourself, -, even if it may seem silly to you, this is actually useful. Use it!
12. Holding out: Here is perhaps the most valuable information among these points. In Phase 2, the period which begins a few weeks after quitting, the urges to smoke will subside considerably.
However, it is vital to understand that from time to time, you will still be suddenly overwhelmed with a desire for -just one cigarette.- This will happen unexpectedly, during moments of stress, whether negative stress or positive (at a party, or on vacation). If you are unprepared to resist, succumbing to that -one cigarette- will lead you directly back to smoking.
Remember the following secret: in these surprise attacks during Phase 2 - and they will definitely come - do your deep breathing, and hold on for five minutes, and the urge will pass.
This was a bit of help I could provide you as I was very concerned about my father-s smoking habits - these steps really did help him.
Finally, I wish you too a very happy new year - I thank you a lot for the great feedback to my answers.
First of all, you can-t just stop one day, and say, -I am done with smoking for the rest of my non smoking life!- it-s impossible. it-s like learning to walk, first you have to know how to stand up and put all your weight on your feet, then you have to know how to transfer your weight to each one without falling. You just have to smoke less each day. It really depends on how much of a smoker you are. If you don-t smoke that much, just keep one pack with you as long as you can, don-t smoke until you really need to, and try to avoid being around smokers. You also need someone to be there for you, helping you end this decision you made. That someone needs encourage you on your amazing choice (which is quitting smoking) and be there to beat your butt when you try to smoke one (not literally). Try those patchs and gum, but don-t get addicted to chewing something, since you don-t want to be addicted to chew or gum either. Tell yourself, when I-m dead, do I really want to know that I wasted my life killing it, instead of enjoying the beauty and greatness of life? You can also tell yourself to be strong. If you keep smoking, you will be a coward. I mean, you were so weak that you couldn-t even stop a little thing called smoking, that isn-t only killing you, but killing everyone and everything, including the earth (I-m not joking at all what I said including the earth), around you! If you don-t want to quit smoking for yourself, do it for everyone around you. be a good influencer to the people influencing.
I-m not a smoker or a past-smoker but my advice might help you a lot, maybe.
First bit of advice:
Attend/call a smoking helpline.
Second bit of advice:
Wear a rubber band, so when you get the urgent to smoke a cigerette then you pull the rubber and it will hit your wrist and then over time it will give you a lot of control over the smoking situation.
Well, I-ve never been a smoker so I can-t speak from personal experience but I got my brother this as a Christmas present in the hopes that he-ll quit.
They have a new device called an e-cigarette. The way it works is it looks just like a real cig but is all electronic. The tip lights up when you inhale and has the battery that you recharge in a case that looks like a cig box. It has a vapor cartridge that has flavored water vapor that looks just like smoke so when you inhale it-s like you-re really smoking but without all the poisons. I got him this because a lot of smoking is the actual motion and being able to go and hang with other smokers and such so I-m hoping he-ll use this instead of real ones. They cartridges are refillable in various flavors and with several nicotine levels so you can step down like the patches do.
It costs about $60 for a good starter kit and you buy refill cartridges but they each last as long as several packs of cigs so the actual cost isn-t that bad. I got him the Blu E-Cigs that you can search for but any e-cigs would do the job.
If you click the source link, it has a video that explains better than I could about how it works.
*claps.
*pats on back
=D
like diets, you can make a log for every ciggerate you take,
look back at it, than be ashamed, that should REALLY motivate
you to quit. once you realize how much money and time your wasting,
you should probably buy that gum patch thingy-s.
you could get addicted to something else other than
cieggerates, like normal gum? bag of chips?
or something from the corner store,
so everytime you go in there for ciggerates,
instead, by the other thing. (chips, gum or a snack)
it might lead to weight gain.. but that takes a couple of weeks to fix.
you can make a deal with a family member,
everytime you smoke a ciggerate you have to do something
for the person you made a deal with..like,
my dad did this, and it didnt work Btw.
every time he smokes, i get a bag of hot cheetohs.
it lasted for a month, when i say -lasted- i mean, he stopped buying the chips.... -.-
you should burn all the ciggerates you have right now on you.
throw them away or drop them in water.
i heard with every ciggerate you smoke,
thats one day gone from your life.
im pretty sure its not true...
good luck
(sorry about the spelling,im 13, its 1:47 am, and im tired, PeAcE)
as a matter of fact i will have 6 years nicotine free on the first of the year..and i did it with the help of ex-smokers, and those who are quitting!! hows that for an answer.. good luck, and i hope welcome aboard!!
the good news is that i now have been quit for over 5 years.. i quit trying to quit alone, and joined a support group.. i attend nicotine anonymous meetings both locally and on line.. on line voice meetings are he as close as your computer, and you can attend while still smoking, before actually attempting a quit.. however you decide to quit good luck, there is simply no wrong way to quit!!
Nicotine Anonymous is a Non-Profit 12 Step Fellowship of men and women helping each other live nicotine-free lives. Nicotine Anonymous welcomes all those seeking freedom from nicotine addiction, including those using cessation programs and nicotine withdrawal aids. The primary purpose of Nicotine Anonymous is to help all those who would like to cease using tobacco and nicotine products in any form. The Fellowship offers group support and recovery using the 12 Steps as adapted from Alcoholics Anonymous to achieve abstinence from nicotine.
Yay you! I MADE my boyfriend quite smoking. Don-t get me wrong, he wanted to, but I pushed and shoved him to. Some people need that.
1. Don-t do that - After this last one - crap. If you-re going to do it, do it. Your probably doing it right now. Isn-t it sad that your life is enslaved to that plant. Show it who-s boss in your life! YOU ARE!
2. You need support. A loved one, significant other, whatever. If your around people who smoke, forget it. I-m not saying dump your friends because they smoke, but until you become a confident quitter, you don-t need to be -hanging out- with them alone because its just going to entice you.
3. Don-t become dependent on something else to cure another dependency. Go ahead and get some of that fancy gum. At first. But you should really only use one pack. After that, try something else to calm your physical cravings. I-ve heard many people have success with Big Red or similar gum because it mimics the tingling sensation of anti-smoking gum. Also if you get the gum, make sure you read and follow the directions. Its not as easy as just chewing it.
Good Luck
I-ve tried just about every method there is out there and there is only one I can recommend - NLP! It eliminates the cravings.
Gum patches and all the other just did not cut it for me, not to mention cold turkey which was the hardest, I even tried the electric cig and it is just no match to the real thing.
Check out this article:
Http://Quit-Smoking-Today.BestOf-The-Net…
it’s the one that got me off the cigs and smoke free for GOOD even without gaining weight! :)
Good luck kicking the habit!
Matthew.
Yes! Good going - just don-t be too bummed when you fail. Most of us fail a BUNCH of times - so you just have to quit all the time. Think of quitting as a learning thing. To stay off the cigs you can try some of that gum - or get some mild tobacco leaf like Beachnut and chew some of it. It will get you over the hump without costing too much.
One idea I heard of but never tried was to get the really strong chewing tobacco - the stuff in the little round can - and put that between your toes - it would be absorbed by the skin. Might ruin your socks though.
Anyway - just think of the money you-re going to save! The withdrawals take a long time - they can actually go on for a couple months depending on how long you-ve been smoking. But you just have to observe them calmly.
Hi. I like to hear about people who-s doing that. My advice for you, is to keep your self busy. Have gum at all times and also play with toothpicks in your mouth. I-ve never smoke before, but some people around me have.
Good for you! Try those nicotine gums or patches