Breaking the Habit of Smoking

Working to quit smoking is one of the hardest things that many people ever do in their life.  The reasons that it is so difficult typically vary.  The one reason that is most often cited is the habit of smoking itself is extremely hard to break.  The task then becomes trying to break the habit, and instead give yourself a much healthier habit to hang onto.  After all, it took you a while to get into the habit of smoking so reason stands that it will take a while to break the habit.

If you are determined to quit smoking, you have made an impressive start.  However, if you have decided to quit on your own, you are doing even better.  Sounds strange does it?  You would be surprised at just how many people “decide” to quit smoking by being informed by their doctor, spouse, parent, sibling or friend that they will be quitting.  In order to successfully quit smoking for good you need to decide for yourself to quit.  If you have actually made this decision on your own, you are doing an amazing job.  If you are letting someone push you into quitting you are just setting yourself up for headaches, hassles and complications that are easily avoided.

As a smoker, you have no doubt developed a pattern to your smoking.  For example, if you are a typical one pack a day smoker one of your habits is to smoke a pack a day.  You need to take small steps to break these habits.  Perhaps you will find best luck in simply changing your habits slowly.  For example, if you typically smoke a cigarette after each meal, you might find it helpful to brush your teeth.  This can have the effect of providing a fresh mouth that you do not want to dirty with cigarette taste.  You might find that after each meal you need to try chewing a piece of gum, sucking on hard candy or even attempting nicotine gum.

If there are any specific circumstances that always trigger a cigarette craving, you should work to avoid the situation.  If it is something that you absolutely cannot avoid, such as dinner times, you need to create an alternative habit that you replace smoking with.  For example, if you always smoke as soon as you get to your car after work, you might want to consider carpooling with someone who does not smoke, taking a different route home, stopping for groceries, jamming to some music or even taking a bus.  Anything you can do to shake up your normal smoking routine is good.

There will of course be times that it is quite difficult to break the habits.  If you find yourself in a position where you cannot avoid a typical smoking situation, you need to create a way to deal with it.  Some people use nicotine gum whenever they are faced with a smoking situation.  Others find that the stop smoking sticks are beneficial.  These sticks can allow you to hold a pretend cigarette that just provides your hands with something to do.  If you find these quite useful then you know that your problem is your hands are idle, finding something for your hands to do might help a lot.

Trying to quit is a very difficult process.  Many people take weeks if not months to quit smoking completely.  If you are struggling far too much with the idea of completely quitting at once you may find it is much better for your own situation to slowly cut back on your cigarette consumption.  Regardless of the precise method that you choose, it can take a minimum of 2 weeks to start adapting new habits.  This means that any new behavior you adopt in your quest to stop smoking must be repeated continuously for at least two weeks before you will start to see a real difference in your lifestyle.  Giving yourself plenty of time to work on your new habits is essential and will set you on the road to success.

                                                                                                            - Mohammed Zahran -