If you are a smoker there are manyharmful smoking effectsthat you have to be aware of. Smoking damages nearly every part of your body from your head to your feet.

But you must know how damaging smoking is to the most critical systems in your body; your Cardiovascular (Heart) and your respiratory (Lungs) systems. It is the effects smoking has on these systems that cause the most risk for disease and early death.

Most of the serious and life threatening diseases caused by smoking involve the heart and lungs. Let's take a closer look at how smoking damages these two critical systems of your body.

Cardiovascular System (Heart)

Smoking has a very profound effect on the circulatory system. Smoking causes the resting heartbeat of smokers to be much higher than that of a non-smoker. Smokers have a much higher risk for hypertension and heart attack. They are also much more at risk for Atherosclerosis or narrowing and hardening of the arteries. Smoking also increases blood clotting and can lead to strokes.

Respiratory System (Lungs)

Smoking has the most harmful effects on the respiratory system. Smokers are 12 times more likely to get lung cancer than non-smokers. Also smokers who continue their habit for a long time can get Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease or COPD. This is one of the leading causes of death for smokers.

To avoid the harmful effects smoking has on your lungs and heart you absolutely need to quit smoking. The good news is that sooner you quit smoking the odds of getting smoking related diseases rapidly decrease. Even if you have been smoking for a long time your health will improve by quitting smoking.

You can increase your odds of kicking the habit with the assistance of a stop smoking program. You have many options but you may want to look into NLP. It is an all natural method to quit smoking, so you avoid the costs and side effects associated with medications. It is also very successful compared to a lot of other stop smoking methods at helping smokers to rid themselves of smoking and harmful smoking effects.