Many of us today are wondering about quitting smoking. The dangers are more prevalent than ever. Cancer, emphysema, decreased lung capacity, circulation system damage, and more. If you are also considering quitting you are not alone. Following are the most frequently asked questions about quitting smoking.
How long does nicotine remain in your system?
About 40 minutes after your last cigarette, your brain becomes the first part of your body to be free of nicotine. Other parts of your body are not so lucky. Small residual amounts of nicotine stay within your system for several weeks. Several factors including how much you smoke, your body weight, your activity level, and diet type influence how long it stays.
The question most of us are really interested in is: how long will my withdrawal symptoms last? Well withdrawal symptoms usually peak within about three days. Then they steadily decrease for a period of up to two weeks – about the same time it takes nicotine to fully leave your body. Fortunately, your body recovers quickly and critical systems start balancing themselves after only a few days. This includes your hormones, insulin production, and brain chemicals.
Is it possible to quit smoking without weight gain?
The short answer is – yes. However, it may not be so easy as this implies. This is because the chemicals which influence your appetite have been unbalanced by years of smoking. Also, you've become used to the idea of relieving your anxiety by lighting a cigarette. The accommodation of these two things means that we are much more likely to form a habit of eating to comfort ourselves emotionally. This works because eating causes our brain to release endorphins while also spiking your blood sugar. Hence you feel better, but you are eating unnecessary calories.
The way to avoid this problem is to simply replace the habit of eating for emotional comfort with a more healthy activity. Instead of eating, you could go for a walk, go to the movies, chew a stick of gum, converse with a friend, drink water, or anything similar which takes your mind off of eating and smoking.
Why do I want to quit smoking?
The best reason we could ever have for putting smoking is because we care about ourselves and our friends around us. Unfortunately many smokers also suffer from depression and as such reasons like this may not be first in their mind. If you are struggling with depression, you could make quitting smoking much more difficult. Hence, this is a separate issue you should treat first.
You really will feel a lot better as time passes after you quit. No matter how much we want to think cigarettes help us in some way right now, reality is they always make the situation much worse in a not so obvious way while we're using them. In addition to mental benefits, and will also live longer and healthier when the body has a chance to repair damage cause by years of smoking. Risk of stroke, heart attack, and terminal cancer is significantly reduced.
Perhaps the most obvious reason to quit smoking is because it's so damned expensive. We literally burned $30-$50 a carton on a weekly basis for years. Taxes only make this worse, and we quickly find ourselves spending hundreds of dollars every month. The organizations who take your money and your life are some of the worst violators of peace and prosperity in our society. Lets stop surrendering our lives to them.
What method to quit smoking is best?
The answer to this question starts with knowing yourself. Millions of parts have been created to supply the quit smoking demand. While statistically some of these products are better than others, what works best for you may not be what works best for everyone else. A few of us believe strongly in going ' cold turkey' – quitting all at once without aid. Many more have found systems like hypnosis, NLP (Neuro- linguistic programming), and herbal remedies to help with side effects. The most common systems offer nicotine replacement as therapy, however you should be aware that many people simply end up addicted to the replacement nicotine. Also, prescription treatments such as these often carry their own negative side effects.
Whatever your choice, the best system is one that focuses on both your emotional habits and the symptoms of withdrawal. For this reason, NLP combined with herbal supplementshas become very popular as a modern option.
Just rumor that the most important component of quitting smoking is believing in yourself. This is 90% of the battle of almost anything in life - and always the most difficult task.
"Raindrops keep fallin' on my head
But that doesn't mean my eyes will soon be turnin' red
Cryin's not for me
'Cause I'm never gonna stop the rain by complainin'
Because I'm free
Nothin's worryin' me"
