Congratulations on your decision to quit smoking. It is a very positive change that you bring to your life and you will be amazed at the quality of life you will be able to enjoy without your dependence on nicotine.However, nicotine is a very addictive symptom and can make quitting smoking difficult. It is important for you to know what to expect when you quit smoking so that you are able to handle it effectively. Don't be surprised if you suffer from withdrawal symptoms for up to 10 days after you quit. It is normal for you to feel the symptoms of flu, upset stomach, etc. when you quit smoking. You are also likely to be irritable, anxious, angry and even depressed soon after you quit smoking. These symptoms will pass. You may want to consult a doctor if you are concerned about the effects of these symptoms on your health.[]
There are a number of quit smoking aids available that can help you give up your smoking habit. These aids include nicotine patches, hypnosis, counseling, herbal and non herbal medication. You may want to consult your physician and choose one of the aids that suit you the best.
The chain smoking. All the name suggests, smoke a few cigarettes consecutively, without stopping. Once you are done with the first stick, go on to the second, then third, etc. You will feel so terrible after the third stick (or more) that you would want to quit smoking immediately! The idea behind this is to create a horrible taste in your mouth that you feel that that would be the last stick in your mouth!
Once you know when you want to stop, you can start to organise yourself to get your head around the idea of stopping. There are many things that you could do. Why not share your experience with a friend and ask for their support?Visualise.It will be well worth your while if you practice to see yourself as a non-smoker. Remember that if you can see yourself as a non-smoker, then you are a non-smoker! Twice per day for the first three weeks, sit quietly for a few moments, relax the muscles within your body for a while, focus on your breathing and being calm. Then pretend that you find yourself in all the places/scenarios where you used to smoke, but this time imagine that you are a non-smoker with calm and relax hands. Imagine yourself breathing freely and easily.Expect to feel uncomfortable.
If you have stopped smoking in the past and not felt much of a desire, then you may well fall into the same pattern whenever you make an attempt to stop.The best way to help yourself when quitting smoking is by deliberately inducing your desire to smoke, so that you can retrain yourself to manage it and consciously accept it. This might look as though you are making things more difficult for yourself, but in fact you are simply facing up to a difficulty that already exists.Inducing a desire to smoke is a conscious mental exercise. It means deliberately interrupting your thoughts about the other things in your life, and, with your cigarette packet in front of you, focusing on the feelings inside you of wanting to smoke.There is a reason you are avoiding feeling your desire to smoke: you are no doubt afraid of it because you think it might make you smoke. You see it as an enemy, a nuisance and an unnecessary pain. When you deliberately induce it, you break down this negativity and fear, and turn the desire into something you have power over.
If you find inducing the desire difficult you will need to be creative to really understand how to quit smoking. Watching other smokers light cigarettes can be helpful. Smelling your cigarettes in the packet or, if you used to make your own, rolling one up should produce the desire to smoke. For some people, imagining that they are smoking is the best way to connect with their desire to smoke. If you are really stuck in repression, buying a new pack of your favourite brand and taking the cellophane off may do the trick.
Don't be surprised by this: it's all part of the process. The way through this conflict is to experience it and resolve it, and not avoid it in any way.In order to resolve this conflict, you simply ask yourself this one, basic question: "Am I willing to accept my desire to smoke in order to stop smoking and stay stopped?" In other words, here you are feeling uncomfortable and unsatisfied because you want a cigarette but aren't smoking one; do you think it's worth it to you to feel this way in order to break free from a life of smoking?
What you are doing is making a connection with the memory of your addiction: the memory stored in your mind that thinks smoking would be wonderful. Adverse thoughts will also be part of that memory, but don't use them to cancel out your desire because you need to work on accepting the desire, not denying it.When figuring out how to quit smoking, some people will repress their desire to smoke from the moment they stop smoking. In that case, you will need to pause frequently, perhaps three or four times during each hour, and induce a desire you can really feel. It may take a while to work, but eventually you will feel a strong desire: an empty, uncomfortable sensation that you know would be relieved by smoking a cigarette.
A friend of mine, James, who attended a quit smoking program, gave an ideal example of this. He told me that at his last attempt, three years ago, he decided to stop smoking at the same time that he was going to redecorate his house. In other words, his strategy was to avoid as much of the difficulty of stopping smoking as he could by keeping busy painting and hanging paper.He threw his cigarettes away and got rid of anything that might remind him of the smoker he used to be. The plan appeared to work and he managed to stop smoking with very little difficulty. He stayed stopped for a month, with smoking totally forgotten, until something happened that took him by surprise.
He told me that he was at the station where he commuted to work each day and went to the kiosk where he always used to buy his cigarettes. He asked for chewing gum, but the man behind the counter, recognizing him, handed him his usual packet of cigarettes.James took them, paid for them, opened the packet, took out a cigarette, lit it and was halfway through smoking it before he realized what he was doing. He was simply not aware of the desire to smoke that was guiding his actions. When he realized he was smoking he felt devastated, but the damage was already done: he had gone back to smoking again, and was soon smoking his usual number of cigarettes every day.When you stop smoking by avoiding your desire to smoke, you have no way of controlling your automatic reaction once the desire finds a way to break through. If James had spent some time during that month consciously dealing with his desire to smoke, then when he was given cigarettes by mistake at the station, he would have noticed there was a desire to smoke, and would have been able to deal with it.
[Best Way To Stop Smoking]
There are a number of quit smoking aids available that can help you give up your smoking habit. These aids include nicotine patches, hypnosis, counseling, herbal and non herbal medication. You may want to consult your physician and choose one of the aids that suit you the best.
The chain smoking. All the name suggests, smoke a few cigarettes consecutively, without stopping. Once you are done with the first stick, go on to the second, then third, etc. You will feel so terrible after the third stick (or more) that you would want to quit smoking immediately! The idea behind this is to create a horrible taste in your mouth that you feel that that would be the last stick in your mouth!
Once you know when you want to stop, you can start to organise yourself to get your head around the idea of stopping. There are many things that you could do. Why not share your experience with a friend and ask for their support?Visualise.It will be well worth your while if you practice to see yourself as a non-smoker. Remember that if you can see yourself as a non-smoker, then you are a non-smoker! Twice per day for the first three weeks, sit quietly for a few moments, relax the muscles within your body for a while, focus on your breathing and being calm. Then pretend that you find yourself in all the places/scenarios where you used to smoke, but this time imagine that you are a non-smoker with calm and relax hands. Imagine yourself breathing freely and easily.Expect to feel uncomfortable.
If you have stopped smoking in the past and not felt much of a desire, then you may well fall into the same pattern whenever you make an attempt to stop.The best way to help yourself when quitting smoking is by deliberately inducing your desire to smoke, so that you can retrain yourself to manage it and consciously accept it. This might look as though you are making things more difficult for yourself, but in fact you are simply facing up to a difficulty that already exists.Inducing a desire to smoke is a conscious mental exercise. It means deliberately interrupting your thoughts about the other things in your life, and, with your cigarette packet in front of you, focusing on the feelings inside you of wanting to smoke.There is a reason you are avoiding feeling your desire to smoke: you are no doubt afraid of it because you think it might make you smoke. You see it as an enemy, a nuisance and an unnecessary pain. When you deliberately induce it, you break down this negativity and fear, and turn the desire into something you have power over.
If you find inducing the desire difficult you will need to be creative to really understand how to quit smoking. Watching other smokers light cigarettes can be helpful. Smelling your cigarettes in the packet or, if you used to make your own, rolling one up should produce the desire to smoke. For some people, imagining that they are smoking is the best way to connect with their desire to smoke. If you are really stuck in repression, buying a new pack of your favourite brand and taking the cellophane off may do the trick.
Don't be surprised by this: it's all part of the process. The way through this conflict is to experience it and resolve it, and not avoid it in any way.In order to resolve this conflict, you simply ask yourself this one, basic question: "Am I willing to accept my desire to smoke in order to stop smoking and stay stopped?" In other words, here you are feeling uncomfortable and unsatisfied because you want a cigarette but aren't smoking one; do you think it's worth it to you to feel this way in order to break free from a life of smoking?
What you are doing is making a connection with the memory of your addiction: the memory stored in your mind that thinks smoking would be wonderful. Adverse thoughts will also be part of that memory, but don't use them to cancel out your desire because you need to work on accepting the desire, not denying it.When figuring out how to quit smoking, some people will repress their desire to smoke from the moment they stop smoking. In that case, you will need to pause frequently, perhaps three or four times during each hour, and induce a desire you can really feel. It may take a while to work, but eventually you will feel a strong desire: an empty, uncomfortable sensation that you know would be relieved by smoking a cigarette.
A friend of mine, James, who attended a quit smoking program, gave an ideal example of this. He told me that at his last attempt, three years ago, he decided to stop smoking at the same time that he was going to redecorate his house. In other words, his strategy was to avoid as much of the difficulty of stopping smoking as he could by keeping busy painting and hanging paper.He threw his cigarettes away and got rid of anything that might remind him of the smoker he used to be. The plan appeared to work and he managed to stop smoking with very little difficulty. He stayed stopped for a month, with smoking totally forgotten, until something happened that took him by surprise.
He told me that he was at the station where he commuted to work each day and went to the kiosk where he always used to buy his cigarettes. He asked for chewing gum, but the man behind the counter, recognizing him, handed him his usual packet of cigarettes.James took them, paid for them, opened the packet, took out a cigarette, lit it and was halfway through smoking it before he realized what he was doing. He was simply not aware of the desire to smoke that was guiding his actions. When he realized he was smoking he felt devastated, but the damage was already done: he had gone back to smoking again, and was soon smoking his usual number of cigarettes every day.When you stop smoking by avoiding your desire to smoke, you have no way of controlling your automatic reaction once the desire finds a way to break through. If James had spent some time during that month consciously dealing with his desire to smoke, then when he was given cigarettes by mistake at the station, he would have noticed there was a desire to smoke, and would have been able to deal with it.
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