There are a number of ways that you can quit smoking, varying in effectiveness. To quit permanently without any risk of relapse, you need to find which way works the best for you.

How often do you smoke? If you’re a social smoker, nicotine gum will probably work for you. The gum gives you a fix of nicotine that you can take to silence your cravings for a cigarette.

Nicotine gum comes in two doses, 4mg and 2mg, based on how heavy of a smoker you are. If you smoke more than a pack a day, the 4mg variety is the best for you.

If you smoke regularly (and not just socially), the nicotine patch may be a great way to quit as well. The nicotine patch is applied directly to the skin, and is designed to be left on for a full 24 hours. Some people experience very vivid dreams while on the patch (sometimes to the point of being extremely disconcerting) and as such, they also make a slightly lower-dose patch designed to be worn just while awake.

When on the patch, the urge to smoke that nicotine withdrawal causes becomes unnoticeable, allowing you to continue with your day almost as if you hadn’t smoked.

The hard part with both of these methods is when you’re around other smokers, as the general urge is to spit out the gum (or remove the patch) and start smoking. This is where will-power comes in to play, and eventually you’ll completely beat your urge to smoke for good!

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Hopefully, after reading through part 1. You should understand that the reason people begin smoking, (cool, friends, risky, party etc) has no relation to why they continue to smoke.

However as a smoker continues to smoke, reasons need to be found for justifying the behavior, because it makes no more sense to smoke ,than it does putting your head over a fire place and inhaling smoke from there. Reasons have to be made and meaning placed upon the behavior of smoking to justify why a person would do it when it smells bad, tastes bad, costs money and has long ranging health effects.

Once a smoker understands that every reason they have created for continuing to smoke is false, it takes them a giant step closer to being a non smoker. Because there is only one reason why a person smokes, and that is because of the substance nicotine which is found in a cigarette.

When a person inhales nicotine into their body for the first time, rather than relax the body, it creates a slight stress as the nicotine is expelled from the blood stream. This stress is relived when further nicotine is inhaled. The nicotine leaves again, creating a stressor and this stressor is once again relived by smoking. This is the ongoing spiral a smoker finds themselves in. By smoking a person adds an additional stressor into their live called nicotine.

However the stressor itself is very mild. We are aware of many physical stressor’s on our body, such as thirst or hunger. We can notice these physical stressor’s for prolonged periods of time and not even care that much about them.

As the nicotine leaves the body it creates a similar stress to thirst or hunger. It is subtly and relatively mild. Once nicotine is totally expelled from the body the stress is then gone. And any physical effects caused by nicotine is ended. This occurs in as little as 4-7 days.
This slight stress caused by nicotine is not to be confused with what people call a craving. The stress is a slight discomfort. A craving is the meaning placed upon that slight discomfort. It is a fabricated thought process that has been created over the years as a person continues to justify their smoking behavior. People who quit cold turkey and find it easy, interpret the stressor as an annoyance that will soon be gone. Those that go through cravings, place a greater importance upon the feeling.

Say you are a builder and you are out in the sun, it is a hot day and are working high up on a two story home. You may notice you become hot and thirsty. Although you notice the stressor (thirst), but because it would require some effort to climb down the scaffolding, you can’t be bothered doing much about it, plus you have heaps of work to get completed and decide to wait to lunch time. At lunch time you get called away, to run an errand, you are running late over your lunch break, race back to work and straight back up the scaffolding. You forgot to have a drink and notice that you are now quite thirsty. The throat dry and parched. However you can’t be bothered climbing back down and instead get straight back into the work. Later that evening you arrive home, sit down, and suddenly realize how thirsty you are. You go have a drink of water.

Say you are driving along an empty desert road with a group of people. It is a hot day And the car breaks down. Hours pass. Not a single car comes by. You notice you are thirsty. There is nothing to do but wait. And the longer you wait the more you notice you are thirsty, and the sun and the heat, and the absences of other cars. And the dry feeling at the back of the throat. You have no idea when someone will come past. Someone else has a drink bottle but they are not sharing. You begin to worry about how you’ll get more water. It is late afternoon, no cars. You are still stuck. So thirsty. So desperately wanting a drink. Some people are becoming angry, beginning to panic. You so badly need a drink of water. That evening a bus comes past. Suddenly you are relived, excited, you forget about your thirst and can’t wait to get home.

The actual physical sensation of thirst for the builder and the person stranded on the side of the road is exactly the same. However the meaning stressor conveys is different and while the builder is busy and has little time to reflect on the feeling of the stressor(thirst). The person doing nothing, but waiting has plenty of time to just think and contemplate the stressor called thirst which in turns makes it worse.

People who find it easy to quit going cold turkey

Have come to the conclusion, that smoking does nothing for them. Is boring. And the only reason they smoke is to relive a stressor caused by nicotine. They understand this stressor is very mild. Over the first two weeks once the cigarettes are thrown away, they keep themselves busy and occupied. When busy you don’t have time to notice slight physical stressor’s. They understand the thought cigarette, is just that, a thought. People have thousands of thoughts many times a day and don’t do much about them. Cravings are about you. Not the cigarette. They are the value you still place upon them. Take time to go over what you believe that cigarette actually means to you. Or what a craving means to you.

You can use the so what method for this. Each time you make a statement about a cigarette you simple go So What? You continue to do this until you arrive at another conclusion. ‘So what’ refers to So what does that actually mean.

For example. “I want a cigarette”. So what? “Well it would make me feel relaxed”. So what? “It would mean I could take a break from work”. So what? Well then I would be less stressed.” So what? etc etc

Example 2 “I have a craving”. So what? ” It is uncomfortable”. So what? This process takes you from the behavior you have been doing to the actually meaning you have placed upon it.

In part 3 of the series in quitting cold turkey, we look at the second pitfall that has people going back for cigarettes. Using cigarettes as a distraction.

Hypnotherapist Paul Dixon practices Hypnotherapy in Auckland Helping people quit smoking. Paul has written many articles of the applications of Hypnotherapy for quit smoking and other applications of applying hypnosis to create rapid change.

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Nicotine is the main component in cigarettes that makes chemo receptors in brain release dopamine, another chemical in the brain that elevates your mood when you inhale cigarette smoke. When you quit smoking abruptly, the sharp dopamine decrease causes abstinence symptoms: headaches, unrest, failure to concentrate, nausea/vomiting, and so on.

You may find yourself missing more than nicotine when you finally snub out your last butt. Cigarettes are designed to manipulate your taste buds too, and research shows that tobacco?s flavors, both natural and added, can hold extra sway for many people struggling to quit.

Your risks increase greatly if you smoke and have a family history of heart disease. Smoking also creates a higher risk for peripheral artery disease and aortic aneurysm.

Strong and consistent evidence shows that nicotine replacement products can help people quit smoking. These products are available in five forms—patch, gum, lozenge, nasal spray, and inhaler.

For smokers, to Stop Smoking is really a tough action to take. Majority of smokers want to quit smoking, but find it difficult to do so as nicotine is very addictive and hard to get rid off.

An additional obstacle to quitting is the many daily behavior patterns that smokers may not even realize they have, such as morning or before-bed cigarette routines, or smoking with friends, co-workers or spouses. Each person’s smoking behavior is different, but these established patterns link smoking to many activities of daily life.

Any intelligent smoker who amicably has all the good intention in the world to become an ex-smoker will never walk away from nicotine addiction if they approach it thinking that to quit smoking means that the smoker has to make a sacrifice of some sort, or even pathetically worse, is sacrificing something in their lives that they thought actually helped them get through it. life) This approach is suicide and guaranteed 200% to be nothing but an imminent failure.

To avoid this, many doctors and quit smoking experts suggest that you stop smoking completely but continue to use a nicotine substitute to help you manage any withdrawal symptoms or cravings. You can use tobacco substitutes containing nicotine to help you quit smoking.

Smoking also causes heart disease, stroke, lung disease (chronic bronchitis and emphysema), hip fractures, and cataracts. Smokers are at higher risk of developing pneumonia and other airway infections.

According to a recent survey, around 15 million smokers try to quit smoking each day. However, less than 3% of these people stop smoking successfully for 3 to 12 months.

Millions of Americans have health problems caused by smoking. Cigarette smoking and exposure to tobacco smoke cause an estimated average of 438,000 premature deaths each year in the United States.

Every so often someone comes into the Smoking Cessation Forum who lost their quit after years of not smoking. On the surface, it is frightening for those who are working hard to beat nicotine addiction.

CAN’T GO IT ALONE: Study authors say although deterrents, like changing one’s diet, can be helpful, they aren’t foolproof. “Every treatment requires willpower,” co-investigator Jed E. Rose, Ph.D., said. “This approach alone will not work. It may make cigarettes less pleasurable, but ultimately, if a person is craving a cigarette, he will start smoking again.” Dr. Rose recommends smokers trying to kick the habit use diet modifications in combination with traditional methods such as nicotine gum or nicotine patches. These methods help with withdrawal symptoms.

Those who have smoked regularly for a few weeks or longer, and suddenly stop using tobacco or greatly reduce the amount smoked, will have withdrawal symptoms. Symptoms usually start within a few hours of the last cigarette and peak about 2 to 3 days later when most of the nicotine and its by-products are out of the body.

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Every heavy smoker wishes to quit smoking cigarettes especially when smoke terribly affects their health. Recent researches show that cigarette smoking the only high risk factor for several illnesses and one solid factor of premature deaths in the United States and not only, but worldwide. Stopping smoking cold turkey isn’t easy, however there are several smoking aids that are designated to help.

It is only after 15 years after smokers quit smoking cigarettes when the risk of a coronary related disease or respiratory illness is completely reduced to the levels of a person who has never smoked. Therefore quitting smoking is effective in decreasing the high risk of developing a serious tobacco related illness.

The risk of having a heart attack decreases to the normal levels, similar to those that have never smoked within two years after stopping smoking. Several stop smoking aids can be used in order to succeed and quit smoking cigarettes once and for all. You may already know that pharmacological products have a very low effectiveness, and this is the main reason a behavioral therapy should be approached, especially when people don’t have the motivation to quit.

A popular form of behavioral therapy is NLP or Hypnotherapy. The single reason hypnotherapy and NLP (Neuro-Linguistic-Programming) are so successful is because they actually help the mind and the smoker to learn how to quit smoking.

If you’re going to succeed and quit smoking cigarettes you’ll immediately notice a positive impact on your health; Here’s an example: a 28 year old women that will quit smoking has the chance to increase her life expectancy by 3.1 years. However, the power of will that you need to have is important but it’s not the only key ingredient that you need. Here’s where stop smoking aids are important, and I’d recommend hypnotherapy and NLP.

Willpower & Confidence are the two key factors when you want to stop smoking.

Confidence and Willpower are the two main key factors when you finally decide to quit. You have already won half of the battle if you can trust yourself. Try to meditate upon those days you were a non-smoker, how were they? Think about the benefits after you eliminate this deadly habit out of your life, and trust me you can stop smoking today! Just keep one thing in mind and try to make a promise to yourself to quit for only one solid reason: Quitting smoking cigarettes will increase you life span, you’ll feel a lot healthier, you’ll be able to enjoy your life. I hope you can make a promise.

Benefits of quitting smoking:

In just about 20 minutes your blood pressure and pulse return to their normal levels. Nicotine and carbon monoxide levels in blood reduce by half and your oxygen levels return to normal. In 24 hours carbon monoxide will be eliminated from the body. In 48 hours your taste and smell is greatly improved. In 72 hours you’ll be able to breathe a lot easier. In 2 weeks your blood circulation improves. After 5 – 9 months you’ll notice you aren’t coughing, wheezing and spitting anymore. 5 years later the risk of a heart attack falls to about half that of a smoker and after 10 years the risk of lung cancer falls to about half that of a smoker. These are just some of your benefits if you’re going to quit smoking cigarettes for ever.

Meanwhile think about your family and how they’re affected. Smoking is a costly affair, take a minute to think about how much money you would be saving if you quit smoking today.

You know you really want to stop smoking. You are also aware that you have one excuse after another. You might think that you have too much going on at work to stop smoking right now. Or you might rationalize that you’ll keep looking for the perfect cure for you to stop smoking. Maybe you’ve tried to quit smoking several times, and you always failed. Whatever your excuse is, the fact remains that you are still smoking. You must quit this deadly habit. Do it for yourself. You deserve the health benefits of quitting. You deserve the financial gain from not spending money on cigarettes. You deserve to be able to go to a party and smell like cologne or perfume rather than an ashtray.

The health benefits of quitting smoking are plentiful. As a result of more and more evidence to support the benefits of quitting, people are beginning to change their lives. They are quitting in large numbers. Smoking tobacco products such as cigarettes and cigars is a habit that many people are letting go. If you are a smoker, maybe you are considering quitting smoking. Did you also know that if you quit smoking, these health benefits of quitting for your body would begin to happen almost immediately?

• 20 minutes after you quit smoking your blood pressure and pulse return to normal.

• 8 hours after you stop smoking, the nicotine and carbon monoxide levels in your blood are reduced by fifty percent. Oxygen levels in your body return to normal after you stop smoking.

• 24 hours after you quit smoking, your body rids itself of carbon monoxide. The lungs begin to clear out mucus and smoking debris after you quit smoking.

• 48 hours after you stop smoking, you will not have any nicotine in your body. Your sense of taste and smell will be much stronger after you stop smoking.

• 72 hours after you quit smoking, you will be able to breathe much easier. Your bronchial tubes will start to relax. Your energy level will increase after you have quit smoking for only 72 hours.

• 2 to 12 weeks after you stop smoking, the circulation in your body increases.

• 3 to 9 months after you quit smoking, any breathing problems, coughs, and wheezing will improve. Your lung capacity will be increased by 10% in 3 to 9 months after you stop smoking.

• 5 years after you stop smoking, your risk of a heart attack is going to be half the risk of a smoker’s.

• 10 years after you quit smoking, your risk of a heart attack will be the same as someone who never smoked. Your risk of lung cancer is going to be half of that of a smoker’s. The health benefits of quitting smoking are very important as you can see here.

When you stop smoking, you will change the course of your life. The health benefits of quitting smoking start immediately. However, it will take time for your body to heal all the way back to normal. The health benefits of quitting are immense. However, health is only one of the reasons to quit smoking. In fact, there are many other reasons to quit smoking such as the ability to taste food better, fewer sore throats and better looking skin and teeth.

Before you look at the challenges and think that you cannot meet them, ask yourself if you are really willing to choose lung cancer, emphysema, and heart disease over a little crankiness or the blues. You are not going to choose cancer over a little stress, are you? The health benefits of quitting are going to last you a lifetime. The challenges will ease up within a few weeks.

To Stop Smoking you need to know how to deal with the SYMPTOMS OF WITHDRAWAL

1. Dizziness – it may occur during the first and the second days after you stop smoking. It is a normal reaction of the body, and it will pass.

2. Headaches – they may appear at any time during the first 5 weeks period. Do your best to relax. Use any head ache remedy which used to help you before, a cold cloth on the back of the neck helps many people, walk as much as you can. If that does not help, buy a pack of Cigarette filters like nic-out, smoke 1 cigarette, it will get rid of a headache with ought nicotine intake.

3. Tiredness – it may occur during the first 2-6 weeks, many people use meditation as a relaxation therapy for at least a few weeks, it will pass.

4. Coughing – this symptom accrue in moderate to heavy smokers, and may actually increase quite a bit during the first few days, simply because the residue from the smoke has not been flushed from your system. It will pass, the morning caught will stop if you use 1 cigarette filter every morning with ¼ of a cigarette for 1 week, then stop using it.

5. Tightness in the chest – it may occur in the first few days. Rest as much as you can and take deep breathing exercises, it will go away.

6. Sleeping problems – usually occurs in the first few days and may last for 3-4 weeks. Try to stay away from caffeine (drinks, snacks, pills), if you have troubles sleeping cut down on your exercise program, especially if you do it in the hours prior to bedtime. Sometimes a hot bath 10-15 minutes prior to retiring at night helps a lot.

7. Constipation – mostly occur in the first month after you stop smoking. Usually people who had a cigarette first thing in the morning, before any meal or drink will suffer this symptom. Remember to eat foods with a high fiber content, drink plenty of fluids 10-12 glasses per day, walk and do some light exercise. If you use laxative or water pills – do it in moderation and make sure there is no caffeine in it.

8. Concentration usually it will wander during the first few weeks. Be prepared for this, it will return to normal soon, take a break or do something physical for a short period of time. Eating more protein then usual is helpful.

Important tips to give up your habit and stop smoking for good:

On a daily basis, chart each cigarette that you smoke during the day.

Enter the time, place, and with whom did you smoke, what was the reason for smoking, and your thoughts on how it will be easy or difficult to give that particular cigarette up, come up with the weapon that could of help fight the urge to smoke that one. After filling this table out for a week you will nail your 2-3 weakest spots, places people…. Avoiding them for a while will help you a great deal when you stop smoking.

CONCLUSION

In case were you are not completely confident that you will be able to resist the urge of smoking after you have quit, it may be necessary for you to remove all visual reminders of cigarettes or nicotine from your living and work areas. Give away or just discard all those leftover: lighters, ashtrays, cigarette cases, matches, and anything that could be associated with smoking in your mind. Just removing the reminders did it to more people then you can imagine. If you will keep a pack of cigarettes in a place where you can reach it, there is a very good chance that you will pick one up. But this one cigarette may be one to many and may hook you back to your dependency or extend the time for all unpleasant symptoms to accrue.

Have you ever wanted to quit smoking and convinced yourself than you are destined to smoke cigarettes the rest of your life? Have you ever tried to quit and gave up halfway thought the day or that same night? If you think that quitting smoking is just impossible, I would read on.

It truly is not as hard as you may think. Take it from a true one packer a day smoker or better on some days. It was like a true friend to me that I couldn’t let go. I have smoked a good thirty to thirty six years of my life. I’m not quite sure when I started smoking. I quit one time about ten years ago for a week. The big mistake I made back then was to ask a friend for a smoke so I could see what I was missing. That was a big mistake! I was back full time again and tried several times since and failed on all attempts except the last attempt.

Quitting smoking for me was always like a ritual that I attempted two or three times a year. The excuse was always the cost of cigarettes. Never did I complain about the possible ill effects that it could possibly have down the road. Sure I was aware everyday about how bad it was. I heard it on the news every day on how the smokers were getting the boot in restaurants and buildings. The worst people to smoke around were the non-smokers that quit smoking. I know, my wife quit ten years ago. I smoked outside come rain, snow or blizzard. I hope as a non-smoker I never get like that.

I was not a very pleasant person to be around when I attempted to quit. I’m sure smokers know how short tempered one can get, when one has not had a cigarette for a while. Every morning I attempted to be a non-smoker, I set myself up for failure by having a coffee and shortly after breakfast I ran around outside hoping to bump into someone who smoked. I always had a nic fit around lunch and dinnertime, only to give in to the craving over and over again. I did not last a good part of a day. I just about gave up trying to quit. I was convinced that I was going to smoke the rest of my life. I thought I was hooked for good, until one sunny afternoon around 3:oopm I had my last cigarette while I was washing my jeep.

Everybody tells me that I was ready. I really don’t know if I was ready. What I do know is there are several key things that I had to do to give it up completely, and I am not really sure of the one key thing that kept me a non-smoker two months later. I know that one of the key things that helped was telling myself once and a while that I was a non-smoker even when I knew I smoked. I would not say it out loud if people were around me that knew I smoked. They would probably think I was losing it. I told myself that I was a non-smoker for about two weeks prior to quitting. Self-preparation you may want to call it. I truly knew that I wanted to quit. Maybe I was ready.

That sunny afternoon I had one cigarette left which I smoked halfway through washing my jeep. I told my wife that I was not going to buy any more that afternoon. She heard me say that many times before. She told me to give a try and purchase some later and not to be hard on myself for a least trying. Again she repeated it was okay to buy some later. I think my wife just about gave up on me quitting as well.

The other key thing to do if you are attempting to quit is to learn how to procrastinate. That same afternoon I kept putting off buying cigarettes until bedtime. Bedtime came and it was too late to go to the store. I put it off until the next morning.

Morning came and I convinced myself that I was a non-smoker. I decided the other key thing to do was invite my weaknesses. I had coffee, which they say you shouldn’t do. I almost stopped my brother-in-law from coming over that same night because he smoked. I told my wife to have him come over, but he had to smoke outside alone. I thought about it for a moment and decided I was going to stand outside and watch him smoke. They also said not to drink beer or alcohol when you’re attempting to quit smoking. I bought myself a six-pack and drank and watched him smoke. That was the very first day. I finally quit and had no craving the next day. The nic fits were gone! The cravings were gone! The grumpiness from not smoking was gone! The wasted dollars on cigarettes was gone! It was like being born again.

The one key goal on quitting smoking for me was to convince myself a couple weeks before, that I was a non-smoker. Quitting halfway through the day was the other key thing to do. Think about that for a second. The day for me was not as long as it would have been if I quit first thing in the morning. When you quit in the morning, you have approximately 16 hours to go before you go to bed and forget about it. I quit at 3:00 in the afternoon with only 8 hours until bedtime to forget about it. It was half the amount of time to put everything to rest. I had a 16-hour jump to get the nicotine out of my system before the morning. Quitting in the morning was always tough before, because smoking and a cup of coffee was always an enjoyment for me.

The last key thing to do was just learn to say no for the remainder of the next day. The craving was not as bad as it was on other days that I quit. It must have had something to do with the time I quit. The craving was not as bad as prior attempts. The next day I could not understand why I smoked all that time. The addiction is finally gone and I do not want to pick up that cigarette to see what I am missing!

Just convince yourself that you are a non-smoker for approximately two weeks.

Finish that last cigarette half way through the day when you are doing something that you enjoy. Make sure you are in a good mood!

Do not tell anybody that you’re quitting. Just tell them you are not buying any for the rest of the day.

Learn to procrastinate for 6 to 8 hours, which shouldn’t be too hard for some of us.

Face all your weaknesses that you think will put you back on the smoking train.

Say no for one day! Say no for one day! Say no for one day!

Day three will set you free!!!

One of the reasons why smokers reject the idea of quitting is their fear of withdrawal effects. Just like every other addiction, there will be a temporary period of adjustment but that’s just what it is: a period.

Liberate yourself from this dangerous habit by learning how to quit smoking naturally. Not only do you save money, but the risks of acquiring diseases such as lung cancer and heart attack are also minimized.

Here are several ways that have worked with ex-smokers that you can try or inspire you to develop your own way of quitting smoking forever.

Start off by conditioning your body. Exercise, avoid too much fatigue, and eat healthy foods. Avoid the situations that usually make you crave for smoke afterwards.

Most smokers feel an urge to smoke usually after their meals. One way to lessen that urge is to drink coffee or beverages that contain caffeine. Another option is to use stop smoking aids such as nicotine gum instead.

Then plan how you want to quit smoking either through stopping entirely or just gradually decreasing the number of smoke you consume everyday. Say you consume ten sticks of cigarette everyday, you can decrease it one by one every two days and smoke only half of the stick.

Break the pattern that you previously had and make it uncomfortable for you to smoke. You can place the cigar packs in a hard to reach location, smoke at awkward hours of the day and puff at a different place.

Get rid of your favorite brand and choose one that you don’t like. You can also reach out for a nicotine gum instead.

The most important part of any method you choose is to have a proper mindset – do not think that stopping from this habit is impossible. This is perhaps the most difficult to observe but remember that once you have it envisioned, the rest is a piece of cake.