GIVING UP SMOKING » Giving Up Smoking

What If I Fail or Failed Giving Up Smoking?

StopSmokingCoach — Wed, 11 May 2011 04:35:50 +0000

Some of you might have tried giving up smoking before and failed. Then there are some of you who are hesitant to try because you are afraid to fail to give up smoking. Here’s what you don’t know though and is the fact that most people fail on their first try. From my knowledge there has never been a statistical study on the percentage of people who had success on their first try to quit smoking, but I have quit smoking myself and I have dealt with dozens of former smokers over the years and I only remember a couple of individuals who were able to quit on their first attempt.

I, like many others before was not able to quit cigarettes on my first try. In fact, it took me many attempts before I was finally able to quit for good. I haven’t smoked a single cigarette for over 3 years now. I can tell you from firsthand experience that just the attempt to quit really helps you give up smoking in the long run. There is a big difference between knowing what to expect and not knowing at all what you the challenges will be. For me, the failures served me well in the end and on my last try I was very relaxed about the whole process of quitting smoking.

The first time you stop smoking, the urge to smoke catches you by surprise, because it is much stronger than you ever expected it to be. I remember on the first day of my first attempt to stop smoking, I was so nervous about not being able to smoke that I could not relax not even for a minute. Needless to say, I failed miserably on my first attempt and I believe I lasted about 5 hours without a smoke. I tried again after couple of months, but I found it very surprising that I wasn’t as nervous as the first time. I thought I’d be even more stressed, but knowing what to expect really kept me composed and relaxed. I had failed again on my second try, but I lasted a little over 24 hours without a single cigarette.

I found myself more and more used to the idea of giving up smoking and at every attempt I lasted a little more than the previous without having to smoke. I can’t even remember after how many attempts, but at some point I just because extremely confident about my ability to go without smokes. I told myself that if I could go without smoking for 3 days, then I probably would have gone past the most difficult part of the whole quitting process. I was right. I was able to last for 36 hours without a cigarette and by then the urge to smoke was not as intense as the first and the second day. I knew I had succeeded to give up smoking and it had happened after multiple tries.

Do not concern yourself over having failed to quit smoking or to fail to quit smoking on your first try. Every attempt you make, you are one step closer to kicking the habit for good and it is not a failure by any measure. So go on and give your second and third try, you will quit smoking in time but you have to continue trying. If you feel that you need some additional help to quit smoking successfully, then click here to quit once and for all.

Giving Up Smoking One Step At A Time

StopSmokingCoach — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 18:24:02 +0000

Why is it so hard to stop smoking?

Smoking brings about changes both in your mind and in your body. The physical changes are brought upon by the nicotine addiction. The changes in your mind are brought upon the act of smoking over a long period of time. Combine these two and you have a smoking habit.

Smokers enjoy accompanying cigarettes with numerous other activities. Generally, smokers like to enjoy a cup of coffee with cigarette, as well as alcoholic beverages, and phone calls seem to go hand-in-hand with cigarette smoking as well. Other activities that may not be as enjoyable, but often done with a lit cigarette are; driving, when bored, when stressed, when scared, when concerned, and while socializing with other smokers.

Why you should stop smoking right now

Stinky breath – your breath smells worse than poop.

Stained teeth – brushing and whitening can only help so much.

Cough – quite simply it hurts.

Increased blood pressure – check your family history.

Second and third hand smoking – it sounds terrible, but you are slowly killing the people around.

Cost of smoking – cigarettes tax will continually increase with time.

Decreased lung capacity – you will make a habit of catching breath.

Toxic chemicals in cigarette smoke – just to name one, rat poison.

Cancer – many cancers are associated with the smoking of cigarettes.

Advanced aging – seriously, this is not a myth, smoking cigarettes increases wrinkles.

Heart disease – you do not want to know the waiting list for a heart transplant patients.

Children – you don’t have to smoke in front of them to bring about harm to them due to your smoking habit.

Preparing to give up smoking

First, you have to get ready. Speak your family and friends about your undertaking. Learn as much as you can about how to cope with the stress that comes from the urge to smoke. Stop smoking aids such as nicotine gums and nicotine patch are optional. Relapse can occur and in fact, most suffer from it at least once. Doesn’t matter that you fail, the key is to keep trying until you are successful.

Additional steps giving up smoking

Although you should try to quit smoking as soon as you can, it is better to prepare your mind for the tough road ahead and give yourself a few weeks of time before giving up smoking. Keep a quit smoking diary if you can, there you can write about your motivation for quitting smoking, write down when you smoke the most, and write down the time of the day when you feel the biggest urge. Continue to make note in the diary and use it as a motivational tool.

Be sure to throw out all your cigarettes, ashtrays, lighters, matches. It would be wise of you to get rid of anything that reminds you of smoking a cigarette.

How to deal with the urge to smoke

You can no longer smoke when you are stressed. However, there are other means to deal with the stress that comes with quitting smoking. Exercise helps a lot, so go for a brisk walk or a light jog when the urge is unbearable. Drink a lot of water, it is important to keep yourself well hydrated during this stressful time. Hot bath is also proven to help curb the urge to smoke.

Final advice

It is very stressful to think that you’ll no longer be able to smoke another cigarette, but giving up smoking is not about losing control and it is the complete opposite. Until now, your life revolved around cigarettes. Your girlfriend/boyfriend, wife/husband, family and friends, they all complained about how much you stunk up their nose. Work hours seem to go on forever until you could have that one puff of smoke. You always felt uneasy when you were down to the last few cigarettes. You were enslaved to your smoking habit and it controlled your life.

Giving up smoking is much more than just breaking an addiction to improve your healthy. The whole world changes once you give up smoking and that should be enough to motivate you to at least try. Don’t be afraid to fail, because half the battle is won just by you trying. Even if you fail once, or even twice, you will eventually succeed.

Create Your Own Personal Stop Smoking Plan

Derek Kim — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 00:10:29 +0000

What I’m about to share with you can be helpful for anyone who’s trying to quit cigarettes, but if you are reading this, then chances are you have already tried quitting smoking and you have failed. Smokers will usually take the plunge without any preparation on their first try and when they fail, which they usually do on their first try, they will try to be more methodical about the whole quitting process on their next try.

One of the most important aspects of quitting smoking is the fact that everyone does it a little differently. To give you an example, two people can quit smoking using the cold turkey method, but the two can go about it drastically different. Smoker number one will set a quit date and buy himself enough packs of cigarettes to last him until his set date. Smoker number two will smoke his cigarettes as usual and he will quit on the day, hour, and the minute on which he feels the most confident to quit. Both have quit cold turkey, but the way they approached it is very different.

That’s where you come in to the picture. You have to understand that no matter how other former smokers have quit cigarettes and regardless of what the authority in quitting smoking informs you of (CDC for example), in the end, you have to experiment on what’s right for you. Over 90 percent of smokers who try to quit fail on their first try and the statistic for the second time quitter are not that great either. But the ones that are persistent, the ones that continue to try quit smoking and to try to experiment with how they should go about it are eventually successful.

To give up smoking successfully, you have to create your own personal stop smoking plan. You cannot depend only on what others have done to quit smoking, because you are a unique individual under unique circumstances that requires a stop smoking plan that works best for you. The best person to come up with this plan is you and you can do this by experimenting with the process of quitting smoking. If you speak to hundreds of former smokers like I have, you learn that the little difference, the little details can become crucial in quitting successfully.

Some former smokers will swear by their experience that it is easier to quit smoking the first thing in the morning (start the day smoke free), but I have also seen plenty people who say they needed that last drag during the day before they kissed goodbye their addiction for good. Here are some more examples. Some former smokers say they couldn’t stop smoking successfully until they changed their cigarette from regular flavor to light flavor. Some also claimed that it was helpful to smoke more than usual on the day they decided to quit. Reasons varied from “I was pretty sick of smoking”, to “I needed one last big shot of nicotine before I quit”.

No matter how unscientific, the fact remains that these little quirks can mean the difference between successfully giving up smoking, and failing miserably time after time. So don’t worry about the past failures and do your best to try to learn from them. Try to remember what helped you the most with the craving, the time of the day the craving was the worse, and all other details that might help you on your next try. You can also try going smoke free on different hours of the day and for different length of time. This will give you a pretty good idea of what to expect the next time you quit smoking and it could be important because lots of smokers go into a mini panic attacks on their first day of quitting smoking.

Don’t just depend on the generic guides that are written by medical professionals and other qualified sources. Meet your personal need with your knowledge and create your own personal stop smoking plan and you will give yourself the best chance to successfully quit smoking for good.

5 Effective Giving Up Smoking Tips

StopSmokingCoach — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 03:19:23 +0000

Giving up smoking will surely test you as an individual and it’s important that you don’t jump in unprepared. Knowing what to do and avoiding the pitfalls many cigarette quitting hopefuls fall in, can mean the difference between success and failure. Here are some helpful tips that could help you give up smoking for good this time.

1. Consider seeing a doctor – Your doctor can help you determine whether you’ll need prescription drug to help you cope with the withdrawal symptoms. It really depends on your smoking habit, but generally withdrawal symptoms are intense and the use of quit smoking product or prescription drug may give you the best chance to stop smoking for good.

2. Throw away all the cigarette related products – If you have a box of cigarette available for “just in case”, then trust me you are just setting yourself up to fail. Get rid of the ashtrays, lighters, matches, and anything else that may remind you of cigarettes. If you want to finish that last box that you have saved up, then just finish it and leave no cigarettes that you can fall back to.

3. Set a date to quit and stick to it – If you don’t set a quit day and push yourself to quit smoking, you will continually keep pushing it for the next day and the next week until you no longer even try. This is a fight between your will to stop smoking and your addiction pushing you to take another puff. Push yourself for that ultimate goal to give up smoking for good.

4. Announce it to the world – Tell all your friends and your family that you are quitting cigarettes. Make it difficult for you to fail by letting it be known to everyone you know that you will successfully quit. This will surely give you an extra incentive to kick the habit in one shot. Don’t become that guy that talks the talk, but never walks the walk.

5. Something to chew on – Keep your mouth busy with anything but cigarettes. You will get urges to smoke or to just stick something in your mouth, help relieve these urges by chewing on carrots, chewing gums, straws, or even toothpicks will do. Avoid chewing anything for an extended period of time though, it could cause gum disease or damage your teeth.

Follow the tips above to help you in giving up smoking and don’t give up even if you fail on your first try. What’s important is your willingness to quit and that will ultimately lead to a successful quit smoking experience.

Giving Up Smoking – Finding The Motivation

Derek Kim — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 17:42:12 +0000

Some studies show that only 3 percent of the first time cigarette quitters give up smoking for good. This is a grim outlook for any smoker hoping give up smoking, but it should also be noted that different studies have shown a more favorable success rate. In any case, one common trend among these studies is that they show very low success rate among first time quitters. As someone who quit smoking for good for many years now, it is my personal opinion that giving up smoking is all about the motivation. So here are some powerful methods to motivate yourself to quit smoking for good on your first try.

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.

Why Smokers Should Avoid Other Smokers – Pack Animal Behavior

Derek Kim — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 17:20:48 +0000

Smokers behave like pack animals, they huddle together and they like to be part of a group. Perhaps it’s the modern day image of smokers that influence them to this act. Anti-smoking was not a popular word back in the days. Smoking was considered trendy and it was perceived as the pastime for the sophisticated men. For women, since women’s rights was in its infancy, in a weird way smoking meant equality among sexes. Much has changed since then, public image of smoking has moved on from cool to disgusting.

We are seeing smoking ban everywhere and there’s no sign that the trend will slow down anytime soon. In developed nations across the globe, the activity of smoking is viewed negatively even in places allowed. People have tendency to become bolder or at times careless when a negative act is done within a large group. The cigarette smoker’s tendency to smoke in groups may borrow its popularity from such behavior.

Since the smoking-ban in bars has been enacted, it has become a common sight to see a group of people smoking outside the pubs. You will often find yourself go out for a single cigarette and end up smoking more. Out of the boredom of waiting to finish your cigarette you decide to strike a conversation with the smoker next to you. The conversation continues long after your first cigarette is burnt off and you simply light another one. This is perhaps why smokers should stay away from one another. Not only would a smoker smoke, but even when he or she does not, they’ll still be subjected to second hand smoking.

Ironically cigarettes bring people together. Correction, cigarettes bring smokers together. When smokers are in a large group, they tend to smoke a lot more than usual and that is exactly why smokers should stay away from other smokers.

If you want to quit smoking, then you should avoid places where large group of smoker congregate and you should stick to that plan for at least the first month of quitting. Giving up smoking is hard enough, be wise and don’t make it any harder than it should be. Making small changes such as avoiding other smokers will go a long way in giving you the best shot at giving up smoking.

Giving Up Smoking – An Impossible Task for Me

StopSmokingCoach — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 10:52:09 +0000

Giving Up Smoking

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

Free Stop Smoking Aids Now

StopSmokingCoach — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 17:03:42 +0000

Do you want to stop smoking? Many smokers fear the cost to stop smoking and they fail to recognize even higher cost of continuing to smoke. More important to understand is that stopping smoking does not have to cost you a dime, there are methods that can help you quit for free. Here’s a quick look at few simple and free stop smoking aids that can help you end the addiction.

Nicotine Anonymous
Find and visit a local nicotine anonymous meeting, it is a highly effective program to help smokers stop smoking. Nicotine anonymous is about receiving the support from other smokers who are trying to stop smoking just like you and you’ll also receive guidance from advisers who’ve quit smoking themselves. You can learn from other people’s mistakes as well as gain the much needed encouragement to successfully stop smoking.

Start Something New
Distraction and keeping yourself busy is the key to stop smoking. Start something new today, you should pick up a hobby for example. Maybe you always wanted to drive a nitrous RC Car but you never did or maybe gardening is more of your taste. It doesn’t matter what you do, what’s important is to do something you like and therefore will occupy your mind to reduce the urge to smoke. It’s about taking a break from constant craving for nicotine and you should take full advantage of it.

Substitute the Smoking
Find a physical substitute for cigarettes to help you break the habit gradually. Chewing a gum for example will help you dealing with the absence of cigarettes in your mouth, but limit the chewing of gums for few hours a day as excessive gum chewing can have adverse effect to your oral health. You can drink a lot of water or juice as many smokers had been helped by such. Start eating baby carrots, they are healthy snacks that will keep your mouth busy as well as keep you filled. Finally, exercise to shorten the withdrawal symptom to as little as two weeks.

Information is the key to any success and when you are trying to achieve something on a budget, it is imperative that you scrounge for every information available freely. To learn more, browse this site throughout on many other free stop smoking aids

New Moon Smoking Castmembers Quitting

StopSmokingCoach — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 19:19:16 +0000

Breaking away from the stereotypical young Hollywood stars, the “New Moon” actress Ashley Greene and Nikki Reed have teamed up to quit smoking for their fans.

It’s reported that everyone in the cast smokes cigarettes and since they are among of the most lucrative targets for the paparazzi, needless to say there are tons of pictures everywhere of the cast members smoking. The cast members smoking cigarette of course is nobody’s business, but the problem stems from the fact that the majority of their fans are teens. Apparently a close friend of Nikki Reed has sited the reason for quitting, “An effort to be better role models for their young fans”.

I am a firm believer in personal freedom, nevertheless it’s really refreshing to see a young Hollywood star acknowledging the profound impact they have on their young fans. And what’s more, she’s addressing the issue by giving up smoking.

Run To Help Quit Smoking

StopSmokingCoach — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 02:50:34 +0000

Ex-smokers are likely to smoke again if he or she does not learn to effectively manage stress. Another concern is that while some may successfully quit smoking cigarettes, they replace one addiction with another. These ex-smokers will substitute smoking with eating or drinking for example.

Unfortunately, if you have substituted smoking with binge drinking or eating, all your effort to quit smoking might have gone to waste. The good news is that running could help, running can help you prevent substituting one addiction with another and it can also help you rid of the already substituted addiction.

Benefits of Running include:

•An improved emotional state – A key to not only in giving up smoking but to stay cigarette-free.

•Potential weight loss – It’s normal to gain 5-10 pounds after giving up smoking, running will not only offset the weight gain, it will keep you fit.

•Increase bone density – Studies have shown that smokers in general have lower bone mineral density. You can run to repair the damages done by smoking.

•Improved cardiovascular health – Your heart took a quite a beating (no pun intended) all these years you abused it with smokes, it’s time you help it heal.

•Increased muscle mass – A new study has shown that smokers lose more muscle mass at old age than the non-smoking counterpart. This means you as a smoker are not likely to be independent at old age.

•These are just few of the benefits you can enjoy if you start running and the best part is that it’s free.

Running or exercises in general are quickly becoming a form of replacement addiction for drugs even more potent than nicotine. So before you try any quit smoking product or classes, I highly recommend you try running today. If you’ve already quit and you are having a hard time staying cigarette-free, give running a shot.