Quitting smoking can be one of the toughest challenges a person can face, but it is one of the most important. Kicking the habit will improve your health, your life expectancy, your budget, and your self esteem. So what are you waiting for? Here are nine of the best quit smoking tips around.
1. Attitude always makes a big difference. Make sure you are looking at kicking the habit not as giving something up but as gaining something good. You are working to gain clean lungs and a healthy cardiovascular system. You are working to gain freedom from a troublesome addiction. You are not giving up a good friend!
2. Are you willing to give up cigarettes? Sometimes we want something but not bad enough to be willing to do whatever it takes to succeed. With a habit as strong as cigarette smoking, you will need to have a great deal of desire. Even if you've not done it much, consider making it a matter of prayer.
3. Start a regular exercise program. This can help in several ways. For one thing, it will keep you occupied so that you can't smoke for a while. Second, it will help you to keep from gaining weight, which is a common occurrence when one stops smoking. Third, it will require you to breathe deeply, which will hopefully remind you how wonderful it is not to have lungs full of smoke.
4. Break your day up into smaller parts. Don't focus on getting through the whole day without smoking but on getting through the next few hours, or even just the next hour.
5. Be cautious about stressful situations. If you have a job in which you are frequently stressed or become angry, you will be desiring a cigarette to deal with the stress. If you can't eliminate or avoid the stress, it might be worth it to take a few days off to get over the worst of the cravings. Stress is bound to make you want a smoke.
6. Other situations to watch out for are when you are lonely, tired, or even hungry. Any of these situations can make our resolve and will power become weaker so that we are more likely to give in.
7. Identify the trigger circumstances in your life. Does a cup of coffee always seem to need a cigarette to accompany it? What about an alcoholic drink? What about the moments right after a meal? In these cases, it would be a good idea to change your routines a little. Until you have eliminated your cravings, it would probably be wisest to totally give up alcohol. It's a strong force in weakening one's resolve.
8. Here's something encouraging. If you can get through the first two weeks, you'll be through the worst of it. What's more, you will never have to repeat those two weeks again, if you don't go back to the habit.
9. Finally, the best quit smoking tip of all is to simply not give up! It's worth it. Remember, when all the discomfort of quitting smoking is over, those days will eventually become only a distant memory.
