How to Quit Smoking

Everyone asks the same question: Why do you smoke? Every individual has their own reasons which can range from stress to boredom. However, the fact still remains that nicotine is addictive and you may feel helpless to break the chains of the cigarette smoking addiction.

Methods to quit smoking:

The most important step in quitting smoking is YOU wanting to quit and being ready to quit. This enables you to stick with it. Just as you have reasons to smoke, you also have reasons to quit. Those should include your health, your loved ones and the money you could save if you kicked the habit.

If you wanted to quit, what if there were hundreds of options to help you do that? Out of all the options available, surely one or two of them would work for you. Even a combination of several may do the trick in helping you to successfully kick the habit. Lets look at some of those ways.

Do you believe in a higher power, someone bigger than yourself? Many people do and can use this method to help you stop smoking. Prayer changes things and if you believe, you can rely on your higher power to help quit smoking.

Acupuncture or Acupressure: These methods are used for many things from back pain to headache relief and even quitting smoking. Acupuncture uses fine needles placed in certain areas of the body while Acupressure uses applied pressure to certain pressure points located on the body. For many, this holistic method has proven very successful.

Aversion Therapy: This method is based on the principal that if you smoke a mouthful of cigarettes, the taste will be so bad; you will never want to smoke again.

Chewing Gum: Can help with the cravings.

Cold Turkey: See yourself as a non smoker instead of a smoker trying to quit. One person changed to menthol brands a week before quitting. He didn’t like the taste of menthol and was able to stop smoking altogether.

Commercial Options:

Nicoderm CQ Nicotine Gum Nicotine Inhaler Nicotine Lozenge Nicotine Patch Nicotrol Nicotine Inhaler

Commercial nicotine replacement products contain nicotine, so it is very important that you do not smoke while using these methods. Heart attacks have occurred when people have smoked using these products which increased the nicotine in their bodies to toxic levels.

Drinking lots of water is not only beneficial to your body; it also helps wash away the nicotine from your system. In general, it takes two to five days for nicotine to be completely gone from your body.

Additional methods to ensure you succeed at quitting smoking include avoiding those that are still smoking as well as changing locations of where you smoke.

Quitting smoking will not be easy. There will be mood swings, irritability, and cravings for nicotine. You can overcome these symptoms of withdrawal from nicotine when you know what to expect, and have a plan to deal with them.

Barb Hicks is an experience writer and licensed registered nurse who loves to share her knowledge. She contributes her lessons about Diseases Cause by Smoking Cigarettes and Quit Smoking Programs on Clivir - the Free learning Community Site.