The first thing you notice about most smokers is their inability to enjoy an active life. I can attest to this as a former smoker myself. It is a common knowledge that smoking cigarettes diminish the lung capacity.

First and foremost, you can say goodbye to just about every sports activity you’ve enjoyed over the years once you start smoking. An active lifestyle creates an energetic person and is not the other way around. If you haven’t been smoking for long, you may think this does not apply to you, but you truly feel the effect of smoking after a full year or two of smoking cigarettes.

Your social life, the relationships with your friends, family, and colleagues, they all change overtime due to your smoking habit. At first you smoke because it makes you feel good, then because you need to, and finally, you smoke because you are completely addicted to cigarettes. The places you can be, the things you can do, and the people you meet get limited because of your addiction.

One aspect of your life that gets hit hard when you start smoking is the romance in your life. If you had a girlfriend, boyfriend, or spouse before you started smoking, then you know firsthand smoking is a big issue with them.

If you are hoping to date someone new and you’ve picked up a smoking habit as well, you’d be surprised to learn that some surveys show that over 90 percent of non-smoking singles won’t even entertain the idea of dating a smoker. You’ve just reduced your dating pool to about 20 percent of the population.

There’s also the benefit of possibly saving a large sum of money. There was the largest hike for taxes on cigarettes in 2009 and the last time I checked, there was a plan to increase the tax by another $1.49 which would be a record hike. This means that in areas that cigarettes are the most expensive, such as New York, you would be paying as much as $10 per pack. But even if you live in an area that for a long time retained a low cigarette price, you would still be paying in the upwards of $6 per pack.

The latest figure I’ve seen suggest that an average smoker smokes one pack a day. This means that an average smoker can save nearly $4000 a year. Can you use an extra 4 grand? I know most of us could and just imagine how much interest your money would have accrued in a period of 10 years had you put your money in a C/D account.

Lastly, do you dread the feeling of being left with just enough cigarettes to survive the evening until your bed time? I know the feeling of wanting that insurance, that extra pack that assures you that you will not run out of cigarettes until you sleep, and that you will have a pack waiting for you as you wake up in the morning. So won’t you run out at 1am in the morning to the nearest 24hr convenient shop for your fix? Whether you would like to admit it or not, you’ve become a junkie.

The benefits of giving up smoking are in the dramatic improvements in the quality of life. Your smoking habit touches so many aspects of your life, that once you quit, you’ll notice the positive changes take place in parts of your life that you never imagined would have been affected by your habit. Stop smoking today and I promise you the benefits to kicking the habit will not let you down.

©2010 GIVING UP SMOKING. All Rights Reserved.

The first and the most effective motivating factor are the people that you care about. If you are a father, then what more motivation do you need than giving up smoking for the sake of your children. If you are a husband, then you have a responsibility be there for your wife through the good and bad, smoking will make that difficult for many reasons I shouldn’t have to explain to you. As a son or a daughter of loving parents, the worst thing you can do to your parents is to die before they do, smoking can make that possibility very real. As a friend, maybe your early departure from this life might not have as profound effect as it might have on your family, but you will still be leaving many people who care for you and love you, to grieve for you for the rest of their lives.

For most people, I would assume that family and friends should be the main motivator in giving up smoking. But to be fair, quitting smoking is extremely difficult feat to achieve and you may need additional motivation to stop smoking for good.

Ask yourself this question. When was the last time you felt fresh and energized when you woke up in the morning? You probably can’t remember because smoking will do that to you. No matter how young and or fit you may think you are, if you are a smoker you will not have good mornings. You will wake up with a lump of mucus in your throat and your first action would be to force that lump out of your throat into your mouth and into your garbage with a forceful gag. Not the way to start an ideal morning if you would ask me.

Do you play sports? Try jogging for 5 minutes and I assure you that you’ll feel like dying. Hold the tip of a spoon with your thumb and your index finger. Try to hold the spoon steady and I assure you that you will shake like a 100 year old man. You are not normal and smoking has left you crippled in many more ways than you can imagine.

Think about everything that I’ve noted here so far and use them to motivate yourself. When it comes to giving up smoking, you or anyone else for that matter cannot force it onto you. You have to want it, giving up smoking is very difficult but it becomes so much easier if you truly want it and having the motivating factors to give up smoking will mean the difference between success and failure. Giving up smoking is all about the motivation, find that x-factor that pumps you up and free yourself from cigarettes today.

©2010 GIVING UP SMOKING. All Rights Reserved.

Giving up smoking is extremely difficult for anyone who’s smoked for a prolonged period of time. Dependency to nicotine grows over the period of your addiction and the years that pass by turn you into a junkie. I don’t use the word “junkie” lightly, but that’s essentially what you become as you regularly have panic attacks when cigarettes are not readily available to you. Giving up smoking may seem like an impossible task, but I can give you a few tips that will go a long way in helping you kick the habit.

Do you have extra packs of cigarettes stashed in your house? You may even keep extra packs in your car and you are most likely very mindful of how low you are running on cigarettes. If this is you then it’s seriously a good time to give up smoking. This is basically addiction running your life and the sign that you have completely lost control over your nicotine craving. You should not need scary statistic to convince yourself to at least entertain the thought of giving up smoking.

It’s completely normal to feel uncertain and uneasy about the thought of giving up smoking. In fact, you are better off cutting yourself some slack and expect to fail on your first try. It is my experience that people who’ve smoked less than 2 years tend to quit fairly easy. As for those who’ve smoked over 2 years, some studies suggest more than 70 percent failing on their first try.

The sooner you quit the better of course, but you have to concentrate more on the quitting part than the when. It may as well take you several tries to give up smoking and it may even take you a year or two to quit for good, but if you quit for good, that’s all that matters really.

The truth is the initial shock that you feel the first time you try giving up smoking gets less and less intense as you try to quit again and again. A big part of giving up smoking is psychological, the more you know what to expect, the better you will cope with the stress of nicotine withdrawal. So in an essence, a failure in giving up smoking is only a step forward to ultimately quitting for good rather than a flat out failure.

The key is on giving it a try, just try quitting smoking. You may give up in just one hour or in one day, that’s OK because you’ve tried. That first step is very important, you can talk all you want about how much you’d like to quit but ultimately only actions count. Persistence will eventually pay off and you will be nicotine free as long as you are willing to take actions. Giving up smoking is all about persistence.

Continue with Giving Up Smoking – Finding The Motivation

©2010 GIVING UP SMOKING. All Rights Reserved.

We all have that uncle who likes to poop on everyone’s party and that cousin who criticizes every one of your achievements. Unfortunately some of these people are very dear to us no matter how irritating they may be. Obviously you can’t alienate these people forever, but it’s important to keep them out of your life temporarily or at least don’t let them know that you are in the process of quitting smoking. You walk a very fine line when you first stop smoking. Little things will trigger relapse and there’s nothing worse than hearing discouraging words from people who should be cheering you on.

Ideally we would all love to have family members who can be around every time we need someone to talk to. But we know that’s not possible and we also know it’s not because our families don’t care. So we can’t control the sort of support we get from our family members, but we can control who we spend time with and where we spend time at.

Many things in our lives are out of the realms of our control. So the things that we can control to some degree, we have to make sure we manage them in ways that are beneficial to our lives. So how about skipping the next family barbeque? You can go back to the way things were as soon as you take control of your nicotine addiction. That’s really easier than you think as nicotine withdrawal symptoms generally last only up to two weeks. The rest is all mental and if you had the fortitude to stay cigarette free for two weeks, you have what it takes to stay free from it for life.

Positive reinforcement is the key and you can’t expect to quit smoking if you let the naysayers discourage you. As Robert Collier once said, “All power is from within and therefore under our control”. Take charge and stop smoking away your life. Continue with “50-50 Chance of Survival”.

©2010 GIVING UP SMOKING. All Rights Reserved.

Giving up smoking is an enormous challenge for majority of smokers. You need to find something very important to you and allow yourself to make a connection to your smoking habit. Think for a minute, there’s nothing that you do that is not affected in some way by your smoking habit. You need that connection and there are quite few places you can look for them.

If you are a parent you have an infallible responsibility to your children. For the rest of you, all you need is to remind yourself of the people you love, and that should be simply enough reason to quit.  For those of you who are health conscious, drinking decaffeinated coffee and eating organic vegetables will not prevent the diseases that overcome so many smokers. Recent WHO reports state that over 5 million people die each year from illnesses or diseases attributed to tobacco use. For those of you who are struggling financially, imagine being able to earn an extra $1000 to $3000 doing nothing. Yes! Doing nothing! Does it sound too good to be true? Well there is a catch, all you have to do is from doing the act of smoking to not doing it and that’s it.

Cigarettes are now roughly $6.50 a pack and in many states you are paying $7 to $8 per pack. If you smoke a pack a day, that comes out to be $2372.50 per year. For those of you who smoke 2 packs a day, it is a whopping $4745! What can you do with all that money? How about that trip you always wanted to take? Pay off that credit card debt maybe? The truth is, weather you smoke a pack or two packs per day. The money you are spending on your addiction could be used in many self improving manners.

I can write for a month and come up with hundreds of reasons for you to quit smoking. But ultimately, the reason to quit smoking has to be something that touches you in a personal manner. Speak to your loved ones or give yourself a day of self reflection. When you find it, it will be far more effective in combating your addiction than any other quit smoking aids ever devised. Good luck friends. Continue with “Get The Naysayers Out Of The Way” and “How to quit smoking”.

©2010 GIVING UP SMOKING. All Rights Reserved.

Most smokers are thought to cut back when there is a price hike in cigarettes. But as a former smoker, it’s hard for me to believe that these smokers will stick to their cut back figures. Unless you are quitting for good, cutting back is temporary measure that is not sustainable. Once nicotine dependency sets in, it becomes a struggle for every minute you go without the necessary amount nicotine in your system. The new smokers control the number of cigarettes they smoke far better than those who have smoked for many years already. In my experience in dealing with smokers, it appeared to me that the longer you’ve been a smoker, the harder it is to quit smoking.

Right now the trending of social norms is that smoking is socially unacceptable. Perhaps instead of price increase in cigarettes, changing how people live should take precedence. Many studies show that public ordinance such as smoking ban in indoor places is far more effective in combating the smoking epidemic. Smokers are losing their space in suburbs and cities across America and the trending will continue without a doubt. I fear that smokers will be pushed and antagonized into quitting smoking in the near future. Whether that’s right or wrong it’s debatable. What is not debatable is the fact that you can choose not being in the middle of this debate. Simply Quit Smoking. Continue with “The Famous Who Died From Smoking”.

©2010 GIVING UP SMOKING. All Rights Reserved.

I personally do know the cons of smoking. I used to be an EMT for the Fire Department of New York. I have had my share of calls where a patient’s Oxygen bottle is about empty and the patient is unable to walk to the next room to get another bottle. This is all because He has been smoking almost all his life and He admits that if it wasn’t for his illness he would still be smoking. At the same time I have seen people sitting outside their stoop with an Oxygen mask in one hand and a lit cigarette on the other. Seeing that just makes me shake my head and keep driving.

I have three older sisters. We have known about smoking since we were very young. My father was a smoker and my grandfather also. I was never really curious about it just because I saw my father and grandfather doing it. I was more against the fact that it hurt my eyes whenever I am close to them and they are smoking. For the longest time I cannot seem to fathom why they would smoke. Was it to look cool or maybe to show stature with peers? It was a question in the back of my mind to which I can never really ask my father nor my grandfather. It probably is attributed to my upbringing of never questioning your elders, but still that question lingered.

In September 2001, I was deployed to the trade center and worked there consecutive days. With all the commotion the death in the air, the 24 hour days it seemed not to faze me at that point. Months after, while relaxing with friends, my curiosity got the best of me and asked for a cigarette. Yes, it was a huge turnaround. 25 years of not smoking and here I was asking for a smoke. It became and excuse I suppose to start smoking or as a good friend of mine said an emotional outlet for stress endured from work and having a family and such.

It was not as bad as it is now. Back then a pack would last me a whole week. The only time I really would be smoking is when I am at work doing midnight shifts. It helped me not only to stay up, but in some ways I tend to believe it helped with my stress. This pack a week habit continued on for years. A pack eventually was not enough a week. It became two a week up until I had some marital problems that is when it got worse, much worse. The first few weeks of my problems I was smoking two packs a day give and take.

I hid it from family, although they can smell it off me. It was an unconscious decision that somehow it how it will lead them to believe that I was not smoking or even if I am they would respect the fact that I know that they do know, but I would not be as bold to smoke in front of them. It’s a bit confusing I know, but with my family and our background it made some sense.

The two packs a day only lasted for a few weeks, but the smoking never ceased then. I do average a less than a pack a day on a good day and every time I would have a rough conversation with my ex wife it would increase for that day, but that was about it.

Now this article is about quitting smoking and so far all I have done is talk about my experience on how I started and my excuses for smoking. I think it is easier to approach a problem when you know the root of it and that is why I, up until now have been talking about my road to smoking.

A few months ago I was on the phone with my oldest son who is eight. He asked me why I started smoking or why I was smoking. I told him my reasons and I told him that I truly hope that he does not follow my footsteps when it came to this vice. In return he said to me “No I will not smoke. I wanted to know what happened so I know what to do so I will not start smoking.”  Those are his exact words and it made me proud that it came from my son who is only eight. Deep inside I said to my self that if this is not a sign to stop smoking I do not know what is.

Reasons for smoking as I have discussed is mostly psychological to start with. Smoke long enough and it becomes more of an addiction then a dependency. As with so many things that we ingest our body copes with it and becomes used to the fact that it is part of our regular regiment. Quitting smoking is another story. Stopping is all mental. One has to basically overpower the will to smoke, the body’s urge for nicotine.

It is difficult to say the least, also the fact that almost anywhere you look you see someone smoking makes it even harder. Even as the government and some establishments are doing what they can to try to get people to cease smoking there is still a rather large number of our population that smokes.

©2010 GIVING UP SMOKING. All Rights Reserved.

Every major change in life require preparation and ridding yourself of such potent addiction may very well qualify as a major life changing event. Although it’s hard to make the connection and really easy to ignore, smoking habits take enormous toll on personal finances and personal health.  If you’ve decided you are giving up smoking, you are possibly on the path to major benefits with very little downside.

There are many ways one can go about giving up smoking. Like any informational website, you will be provided with all the hard numbers you may want to learn to guide you and hopefully motivate you in achieving your goal. But unlike the copy and paste sites with rehashed charts and graphs, I will also provide you with my personal experience in giving up smoking.

We are molded differently in body and on mind. If there were a drug that can aid people kick “the habit” and it was successful for 90 percent of smokers, you may just as well fall in the 10 percent of those who will not reap the benefit of such medicine. With that said, I am not a big fan of “quit in xx days” or “easy ways of quitting”. From the length of time of the addiction to the individual personalities of those who wish to quit, there are too many variables to make such bold claims as a quit smoking product or guide capable of helping all smokers who wish to quit.

Plan giving up smoking by learning as much as time allows about everything related to smoking habits and the benefits of quitting smoking. As they say, “Knowledge is Power”. Understanding why some individuals are more susceptible to nicotine addiction, may explain why your friend was able to quit but you couldn’t. Having the will to quit, of course is the main key to giving up smoking. But by planning and preparing ahead, you will answer many questions for yourself and you will by that much more improve your odds against nicotine addiction.

Continue with Giving Up Smoking – An Impossible Task for Me.

©2010 GIVING UP SMOKING. All Rights Reserved.