Do you feel like you’re dependent on cigarettes and that you have no control over it? It was a long time ago when I smoked my last cigarette and made the decision to quit smoking. It was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in my life.
In this blog article, I will present 5 proven ways that will help you quit smoking permanently, not just for a week or two. You don’t need nicotine patches, pills, or any other things the market makes you buy.
As an ex – a highly dependent smoker who hasn’t smoked for 10 years, I can say that these 7 ways are proven and effective.
Now is the time to find out how and actually take action!
Let’s get to it!
1. Find the reason that will make you quit smoking.
This is probably the easiest step of all. As much as we fool ourselves that we like to smoke and be dependent, we can easily find a reason to make us know how pointless and harmful the habit of smoking is.
I can easily help you find this reason by sharing the negative effects that smoking has on the body. But everyone can have different reasons that cause them to give up cigarettes. Find your personal reason. What’s the reason you want to quit smoking?
Many people quit smoking because they have learned or become aware that, if they continue to smoke, they may get sick and, if they do not take action in a short time, at one point it may be too late.
I don’t want to stress the reader more than necessary, but the reality is that with each passing day, quitting cigarettes becomes more difficult and the consequences more serious.
One of the first steps is to realize how harmful smoking cigarettes is.
2. You need to want it strong enough!
When I was 20 years old (already a smoker of 8-9 years) I started coughing a lot. Suddenly, but not inconspicuously, I began to feel worse than ever. One day I climbed the steps to my block, where I lived at the time, and gasped like a 60-year-old man, who hadn’t been out of the house for two years.
At that moment, I felt that if I continued the same way, I would bring myself serious health problems in the future. It was one of my epiphany moments.
What’s your reason to want to quit smoking?
What would happen when you actually quit?
We already know about the negative effects of smoking cigarettes, now we need to think about what benefits quitting smoking would have. Knowing the benefits and focusing on them will motivate us to quit smoking or not start smoking again.
The benefits to the body are many, but there is one benefit that most people may not think of as a consequence of quitting smoking. It is that when you quit smoking, self-esteem and the self-respect towards you will increase and you will feel stronger for that.
But first of all, we should be willing and desire to quit smoking. A lot of people don’t want to, or think the effort will be too much, so they don’t even try to quit smoking. These people must first find a reason and a desire to quit smoking. When we find out about the positive effects that quitting cigarettes will have on our body and we know the negatives already, we may arouse the desire to quit.
3. To quit smoking, don’t think you’ll quit smoking!
Don’t think about how you’ll never smoke again! Focus on not smoking now.. When people ban something, it becomes more exhausting for them. At the time when i was quitting smoking, I had a box of cigarettes at home the whole time. I hadn’t ruled out the possibility of lighting a cigarette, if I wanted to.
The Forbidden fruit theory (aka forbidden fruit hypothesis or the forbidden fruit effect) is the idea that anything forbidden becomes even more desirable.
If we had smoked for most of our lives, we would hardly imagine a life without cigarettes. However, when we focus on just enduring a day without cigarettes, not long after this day becomes two days, a week, a month, and so on until we can now see a future without cigarettes.
Make sure that you don’t light up a cigar right now, in the moment, instead of focusing far away in the future. Don’t think about how you’ll never smoke again.
When I quit smoking, I didn’t really think I’d stop smoking forever. I’ve been focusing only on not smoking right now, but if I wanted, I could start smoking again.
4. How much time have you not smoked a cigarette?
It helped me a lot that instead of thinking I’d never smoke a cigarette again, I was thinking about the time I endured without smoking. I counted every minute, hour, day, week, month and finally every year.
Smoking is the hardest in the first two weeks, and every day it becomes easier and easier until one day you no longer even think about smoking.
You have to take it as a game of nerves, and start keeping track of how long you can go without smoking. This will awaken the desire in you to keep pushing and last even longer. Until one day you tell yourself there’s no point in starting smoking again, since you’ve already endured so much time without cigarettes.
5. Realize that when you quit smoking, you’ll get your health back.
In just 20 minutes without smoking, your blood pressure will drop to normal. In 10 years, the risk of lung cancer is halved.
Your lungs are self-cleaning, which means they will gradually heal and regenerate on their own after you quit smoking.
Within the first month after you quit smoking, your lung function will improve, and this will increase circulation, too. Within nine months, the cilia begin to function normally and symptoms like coughing and shortness of breath become less frequent.
6. Reduce alcohol.
If we smoke and drink as well, when we’re in a company, where there’s alcohol, it’s going to be hard not to light a cigarette. Many smokers suddenly increase their smoking when they are in company and drink alcohol.
Refraining from lighting a cigarette will be much harder if you’re drunk.
When I was trying to quit smoking, one day I was in the company of my cousin and we were drinking beers. I was a few days away from smoking at that time. I remember that day I could barely stand not to light a cigarette, because I was drunk and really wanted to smoke again.
A good strategy would be to reduce alcohol in general, but if you don’t plan to stop drinking right now, at least reduce it for a few weeks while you’re trying to quit smoking.
It is also important to reduce any other incentives that will cause you to light a cigarette again.
I actually gave up alcohol after I quit smoking, although three years later. We can’t have too many fights at the same time.
However, when you stop smoking, you can then give up many other harmful habits, because you already know that you are a capable and strong willed person.
7 . We smoke mainly because of the habit of smoking.
When we do something for several years, it becomes a habit. We may even identify that the habit is like part of us. We already know, when we stop smoking, we will fight a bad habit built for years.
We need to replace the bad habit with a good habit. After my smoking cessation, I started eating healthier. The reason was that I had made a habit of eating nuts or salad (something healthy) the moment I smoked a cigarette. So I replaced a bad habit with a good one. When you stop one habit, you have to replace it with another. It is preferable that the other habit is a good one.
Do something else, instead of smoking. Find something that works for you. The moment you want to light up a cigarette, eat sometime healthy or anything else that would replace the habit of smoking.
Final thoughts:
I believe that everyone can quit smoking, but I also believe that as time passes, it becomes harder and harder.
Play a game and test yourself how long you can endure without smoking.
Everything improves, after just one simple (but not easy) decision to quit smoking. Your life can be improved in many other areas of your life. For example, after I stopped smoking, I quit the alcohol I began to eat healthier and began to exercise.
I built useful habits that replaced smoking. It was definitely one of the most important decisions I’ve ever made.
When we quit smoking, people around us perceive us differently. Many of them are happy for us, others respect us more than before. But the most important thing is that we begin to respect ourselves more and our self-esteem and self-respect increases.
Don’t think about the end goal now, but about the beginning. Now is your time to quit smoking!
