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Introduction – Top 10 Tips for Quitting Smoking
Congratulations! Whatever phrase you searched on in Google, or whatever link you clicked upon to bring you to this article means that you have taken an important first step – you’ve decided to try to quit smoking.
You already know that smoking is the worst thing we can do to our bodies. We’re not here to shame you, yell at you, or tell you about all that damage. We’re here to support you through the process of quitting the habit for good! In this post, you’ll find our top tips for quitting. Some of our tips are quick and easy tactics that you can use in your daily struggle. Others are deeper solutions that will require some thought and planning. We hope all these strategies together will give you the preparation you need to become free from smoking. Good luck!
Be In Charge
You are in charge of what happens as you progress through the journey to becoming free from tobacco smoke. Any withdrawal symptoms you begin to feel will be nothing more than chemical reactions that happen naturally as the nicotine starts leaving your body. You get to decide what happens. If you convalesce to the cravings, if you get irritable and snarky with your family, if you feel like you want to scream at the top of your lungs… all those actions are yours to control and you get to decide how you’ll handle them.
While it may feel like the withdrawal process is something that is being done to you, keep in mind that you are the one that made the wonderful and important decision to get rid of cigarettes. You are the one that decided to go through a few days of physical withdrawal in order to reclaim your own life. Don’t let the cigarettes win! You are in charge!
Chew On Cinnamon Sticks
A little jar of cinnamon sticks that you can find in the spice aisle of any grocery store can be used as a cigarette placebo without any of the harmful effects of smoking. You can hold a cinnamon stick between your index and middle finger. You can fidget with it all day long if it helps. It will slide easily into and out of a shirt pocket throughout the day. You can even breathe through it and feel like you’re inhaling something.
Cinnamon sticks are also quite hard when they are dry. You can chew on the end of it when you’re feeling the cravings that you’ll inevitably feel during your first couple of days of freedom from smoking.
Having some kind of placebo that will keep your hands busy, especially a placebo that you can use between your hands and your mouth, will help keep your mind off things while your body processes the remaining traces of nicotine. This will give you the opportunity to relax a bit while you proceed on the journey to becoming a non-smoker.
Don’t Vape – It’s Not a Healthy Alternative
Vaping might make you feel better as a nicotine replacement therapy, but don’t fool yourself into thinking that vaping is “healthier” than smoking.1 Nicotine is a harmful chemical that serves absolutely no positive purpose in your body. Anything that puts nicotine into your system is not good for you.
In addition to pumping nicotine into your system, synthetic smoking contains numerous other chemicals that you willingly inhale when you vape. The process is just as addictive as smoking, and while it may be marginally less physically damaging than smoking tobacco directly, it is still a very unhealthy practice. If you want to quit smoking, quit smoking. Most people that vape will unhappily admit that vaping is smoking.
Some nicotine replacement therapies like gums or patches may help with cravings. Heavy smokers have some success with these options to help get them used to the feeling of not smoking, so you may want to consider them. Just remember that you’re only doing half the work – you might stop inhaling tobacco smoke, but you will still be addicted to nicotine and will still need to work to get rid of it.
Tell Everyone You Know
Accountability helps when you’re going through something as challenging as quitting smoking. Consider making a very bold and very public post on social media about your intentions to quit smoking. Tell all your friends and family and encourage them to check in on you.
You’ll be surprised at the level of support you get back. You’ll find people in your life that you didn’t even know were former smokers. They’ll come to you with tips, encouragement, and support. Every former smoker regards their decision to quit as one of the best decisions they’ve ever made. Hearing that someone they love is starting the same journey is a cause for celebration!
Shame can also be a good driver to keep you on track! We usually consider shame to be a useless emotion. But if you’ve told your parents, siblings, and friends that you are quitting smoking next week, when next week rolls around and you pass the store where you usually buy cigarettes, having the voices of all those people in your head can be a big help. Do you really want to have to explain to everyone that you couldn’t do it? Think about your mother and keep walking!
Do Cardio Exercise
Rigorous cardiovascular exercise can help you in many ways while you’re quitting smoking. A brisk walk, a jog, or spending some time on an elliptical machine will get you to work up a sweat, elevate your heart rate, and sweat out some of the toxins that have been building up during your life as a smoker.
You’ll also be surprised at how quickly you start to notice a difference in your lung capacity. Within the first few days you should notice a difference, and after a few weeks you’ll feel like a whole new person. Maybe it’s time to take up running? Lots of former smokers become marathon runners once they reclaim their health and their bodies.
Exercise also has a lot of mental health benefits. Nothing clears a cluttered and noisy mind like a good workout. Elevating your heart rate for an extended period of time releases endorphins, helps you relax, and will help you sleep when the time comes. The benefits of exercise are vast, and it can be a great tool for you while you start your non-smoking life.
Make a Reward Calendar
Setting out rewards that you will treat yourself with at certain points in your quitting journey is a great way to positively reinforce yourself. Rewards can start small and then build up over time. Maybe after your first 24 hours, you go get an ice cream sundae. Not the kind you can make at home – the kind you get at a fancy ice cream shop where they have things like sprinkles and cherries.
After a month, you can book a trip. A big investment like that requires some serious planning and some serious commitment to quitting. After you’ve hit your first year of being smoke-free, you can decide to make a big purchase you’ve been considering.
Just don’t try to “reward” yourself with a cigarette! You cannot have just one. You cannot have one on Friday if you make it through the whole week without smoking. You have quit smoking. Make it count!
Frame the Problem Appropriately in Your Mind
Many people fail at quitting because they think they MUST smoke in order to survive. The withdrawal symptoms you’ll experience will indeed be uncomfortable. While you’re going through them, it will be easy to become depressed or anxious or both. It can feel like the only solution to making those bad physical feelings go away is to smoke a cigarette. Some people get so anxious that they find themselves at their usual store, buying their usual cigarettes, and just giving in.
It’s time to reframe that story and make it your own. Nicotine is an addictive chemical that was put in cigarettes specifically to make you addicted to them. The tobacco and cigarette companies have manipulated you so that you will think you need their product.
However, there’s a big secret they don’t want you to figure out… You don’t need to smoke!
Inhaling tobacco smoke is not the same as drinking water, or eating food, or breathing air, or taking vitamins. You’re not going to die if you don’t do it. In fact, you’ll live a lot longer if you don’t! When the cravings start to hit, and the withdrawal symptoms get difficult, remind yourself that they will pass. You will get through this. There is no need to smoke, nothing good comes from it. Nothing at all.
Google the Success Stories of Others That Have Quit
Having a support system will be important to quitting. That system doesn’t have to fall completely on your immediate family and closest friends. There are millions of people out there that have successfully quit, and they all want to help others see the same benefits they’ve had.
Smokefree.gov is a website that is full of resources and stories that you can lean on to help you stay free from smoking. Tobaccofreelife.org is another one. They even have a section on their website dedicated to success stories, so you can read through other peoples’ experiences and see that there is light at the end of the tunnel.
You will need a lot of support. If you don’t feel like you have enough support that you can count on from the people around you, there are lots of resources out there that you can use in their place. Quitting smoking is not something you should try to do completely on your own, and the community of former smokers is ready to help. You should let them!
Be Aware of Craving Replacements
Some people gain weight when they quit smoking. There are some theories that say the stimulating properties of nicotine cause an impact on your metabolism once they’re gone from your system. That may be true, but many smokers find that the real reason they gain weight is that they replace their smoking habit with… cookies. Or ice cream. Or any other kind of junk food that can be used for a dopamine hit and a boredom cure.
If eating a cookie will stop you from smoking a cigarette, eat the cookie. It will be a much healthier decision in the long run. However, if you find that you are eating a lot more than you normally do, and a lot worse quality food than you did while you were a smoker, try to recognize the pattern and see if you can break it.
If a cigarette craving shows up and you find yourself reaching for the chips, maybe go for a quick five-minute walk outside instead. Or consider a healthy snack like carrot sticks or a green smoothie to help you occupy your hands and mind while you wait for the cigarette craving to subside.
Go To Therapy
Talking to a therapist can help you figure out why you got addicted to cigarettes in the first place. A therapist isn’t going to give you that answer, that’s not their job. But they can help you talk through the mental processes you’ve used to justify your smoking habit even when you’ve known that it was harming you.
A therapist can help you delve deeper into some of the questions you’ve avoided asking yourself, all to help you understand why you smoke. Learning the “why” behind will help you understand yourself better and will hopefully help you avoid triggering situations and suggestions as you continue to move forward.
We are extraordinarily proud of you for making the decision to quit smoking! We hope these tips and strategies have been helpful, and we hope you consider the Mind-Life-Spirit a community that is here to help support you through the process. Be proud of yourself for embarking on this new chapter. Congratulations and good luck!
Featured Image Credit: Photo by cottonbro (Pexels)
References
https://www.nm.org/healthbeat/healthy-tips/emotional-health/vaping-4-risks-for-kids
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