Suggested Quit Smoking Timeline

If you want to quit smoking, it's not an easy task. Many people have been smoking for years, and if that's you, you're not alone. If you've been smoking for years, too, giving up the habit can be very difficult. Nonetheless, if you want quit smoking you certainly can.

What's a suggested "quit smoking" timeline, if you want to give up cigarettes? It depends on your own circumstances, but there are some things you can expect.

There are lots of products out there that can help you quit smoking without having to go through severe nicotine withdrawals, which may cause you to pick up the habit again simply because you can't do without nicotine. If that's a problem for you, these nicotine replacement products (like nicotine patches and gum) can give you just a little bit of nicotine that you can slowly wean off of as you go.

If you decide to "go cold turkey" and quit smoking altogether without using any of these nicotine replacement products for support, it may be a bit more difficult to quit smoking, but you can do it.

What's generally going to happen the first day you quit smoking is that you won't necessarily crave a cigarette except as a habit; you may feel less focused than usual and less alert.

Within the next 24 hours after that, you cravings for nicotine are going to become very strong and you will be very tempted to begin smoking. Hang in there, because your body is ridding itself of nicotine, and this takes about three to four days altogether.

The third day may be the worst, whereby you are simply going to want to smoke and nothing else. You may have difficulty focusing on anything, including work. Constipation and excessive coughing are also symptoms of your body ridding itself of nicotine, as your body adjusts to not having it.

By day five, you should begin to feel better and your cravings should be less. You should begin to notice that you can breathe better and that your ability to smell and taste food will begin to return to you. These are things that usually disappear, largely, when you smoke, so you'll begin to enjoy the fact that you don't smoke because you've got these two senses back.

After about the fifth day, your physical withdrawal should be pretty much complete. You'll begin to notice that you "feel cleaner," that your teeth are brighter, your skin is clearer, and that you won't smell so strongly of smoke. These are all beneficial effects that will help make staying away from cigarettes easier.

Although the physical withdrawal from cigarette smoking is pretty much done by the end of the first week for most people, the psychological effects of smoking are very strong as well, and those cravings may not ever go away entirely. You may also begin to notice that your appetite will pick up significantly after you quit smoking, which is one reason why so many people gain weight after they quit smoking.

Both the psychological aspect of cigarette addiction and the propensity to gain weight after you quit smoking can be managed by changes in behavior. One of the psychological components of cigarette addiction is that it gives you something to put in your mouth and something to "do" with your hands. So, picking up hobbies like knitting and keeping healthy things around to munch on, like carrot sticks, will help manage these behaviors so that you don't go back to smoking.

Again, it can be very difficult to quit smoking cigarettes once you start, but it can be done. Many people have successfully done so, and it's up to you to determine a method that's best for you, whether it's by quitting cold turkey or using supportive measures.