There’s a lot of conflicting information out there about what truly is the best way to quit smoking. I’m not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV, but I have lot of experience trying to quit and I’ve seen other people struggle with quitting.
Why We Fail To Quit Smoking
Here’s the way it typically goes down. If you manage to get past the first week or so you’ll do OK for awhile and then usually some event will trigger a strong desire to smoke and you’ll give in. It might be just sitting with a friend who’s smoking, it might be that you’re having some drinks, or something stressful might have happened and you turn to smoking as a coping mechanism. It’s happened to me countless times, I’m sure this has happened to you.
Getting Off Nicotine Is The Easy Part
I’ve said this before and Ill say it again: it’s easy to get past your physical addiction to smoking. What makes quitting so hard is your emotional addiction. So why do so many stop smoking aids only go after the physical part? I don’t know? I’m guessing because the only emotional help usually comes in the form of a prescription for an anti-depressant.
Why Stop Smoking Aids Don’t Work
If you’ve used one of those physical aids, the cigarette replacements, you know that you’re just replacing one crutch for another and if you’re going to suck on some fake cigarette you might as well go back to the real thing. Let’s be honest here; for most of us smoking is a crutch: we’re afraid to not smoke. Afraid we’ll get fat, afraid we’ll not be able to cope, afraid we won’t know what to do with our hands. If you can remove that dependence on smoking from your thought process you can quit smoking. I did.
The Right Way To Quit Smoking
The way to quit smoking my friends is to change the way you think and I found a product that will help you do just that. In fact,the maker of this product in a study with 5,000 people claims that 97.1% were still not smoking after six months. I have never seen a success rate on any other quit smoking product that high. And the best part is all you have to do is listen to an mp3. Really.
Since you’ve come to the site I assume you’re looking for a way to quit smoking. That means that something has triggered you to want to stop. It might be because you can’t keep up with your kids, or your insurance costs are too high or maybe your spouse is nagging you to quit.
If you truly want to break the habit I find it helpful to review the benefits of quitting smoking. Everyone needs little boost to their stop smoking effort so maybe this post we help you there.
First, and I believe the most pleasurable benefit, is that foods will taste better to you. And I don’t just mean a little. Long term smokers have completely forgotten how good food really tastes. They think they know, but they are wrong. When I quit and started to get my taste buds back it was serious positive reinforcement for me to never take up smoking again. Food is that good.
Your sex life will be better. Now that’s a reason to quit smoking if I ever heard one. Smoking restricts your blood flow which cause erectile issues in men and sensation issues in both sexes. Top that off with increased stamina and you have a recipe for better sex.
You’ll be more productive at work. Smokers spend about 20% less time working in an 8 hour day as their nonsmoking counterparts. If you’re in a salaried position where you stay until the work’s done you may notice all the nonsmokers leaving before you. Quit smoking and you can leave with them.
More time with your family. Smokers often become isolated at family gatherings because they’re relegated to the outside in order to get their nicotine fix. Imagine all the quality time you’ve missed with your family.
Less illness. Smokers are far more susceptible to certain illness and have greater recovery time that those who don’t smoke.
Whiter teeth and fresher breath. Smokers generally are ignorant to the fact that to non smokers their breath and their yellowed teeth are quite a turn off. Many times nonsmokers will try and avoid you or spend as little time with you as possible because of this. It’s a harsh reality.
And lastly the most important benefit of quitting smoking is this: you’ll live longer. On average a male smokers has cut 13 years off of their life and a female smoker has loss 14.5 years of living due to smoking. And that’s just the averages; you could be one of the unlucky few who die much much younger due to smoking related illnesses. There’s a reason to quit.
So you see that quitting smoking has many benefits that far outweigh any excuses you can come up with for continuing to smoke. Please find a way to quit today.
I’m personally not a big believer in using drugs as a way to quit smoking, but the hype surrounding Chantix is too strong too ignore. So I should at least weigh in on it.
Chantix job is too mess with your brain receptors that are looking for that nicotine fix by replacing the sought after nicotine with a placebo like effect. Basically, your brain thinks it’s getting some nicotine even though you’re not smoking. This eases your withdrawal symptoms and if you do smoke Chantix blocks the nicotine from getting to your brain which in turn prevents the “pleasure” of smoking from being felt, thus eliminating the physical addiction part of smoking.
As a way to quit smoking, Chantix is being hailed as some sort of magic pill and I can certainly see how it might help some people quit smoking, but most studies that I’ve seen referenced show that people who quit with this drug are most likely to relapse and begin smoking again. There is also a lot of studying being done right now over a potential link between Chantix and suicide. The success rate of Chantix is currently 1 in 11.
Like all other prescription drugs used as a way to quit smoking it only focuses on the physical side of addiction and not the emotional side. Your brain’s chemical addiction to nicotine is not the same thing as your emotional desire to smoke. Because both of these take place in your brain many people have difficulty separating the two types of addiction. Once your physical addiction to smoking is gone, usually a few days or maybe at most two weeks your emotional desire to use smoking as a coping or pleasure mechanism is still very strong.
Chantix as a way to quit smoking might work for you but your chances are not very high unless you also deal with your emotional addiction to smoking. You’re basically going to have to “re-wire” your brain if you truly want to quit long term. This is not an easy process and a lot of people find it helpful to use some sort of hypnotherapy or self hypnosis technique to succeed at it. Otherwise you’re really relying on pure willpower to cure your emotional need to smoke.
My name is Scott, I'm 45, and after a least a dozen attempts to quit smoking I finally managed to kick the habit about 5 years ago by "rewiring" my brain.
