BENEFITS OF STOPPING TO SMOKE

The benefits that are obtained when stopping to smoke are multiple and immediate, and as the old Chinese aphorism says:

"The man that can conquers itself, is worth more than the one that has conquered a thousand times a thousand armies"

The benefits of stopping to smoke are many, and they embrace many aspects among which we can highlight:

It improves your health, it improves your body aspect, and it improves your economy HOW DOES YOUR HEALTH IMPROVE

Stopping to smoke only 20 minutes, recovers the normal level of the arterial pressure, the heart frequency and the feet and hands temperature.

8 hours after stopping to smoke we begin to have a better lung oxygenation normalizing the monoxide of carbon and oxygen levels.

After 24 hours it diminishes the risk of a sudden death.

After 48 hours you begin to recover the senses of smell and taste

72 hours later, the breathing function is normalized

1 to 3 months later, your physical capacity will be increased, that is to say that you will be less tired

9 months later the risk of infections will decrease and the bronchial drainage will improve

Only 5 YEARS after stopping to smoke, the risk of suffering a lung cancer will be similar to that of the non smokers

10 years later the risk off having mouth cancer, throat cancer, esophagus and bladder will low to one half

Only 15 YEARS after having stopped to smoke you will have the same risk of having a coronary inadequacy that a person that doesn't smoke.

HOW DOES YOUR BODY ASPECT IMPROVE

Your breath, hair and clothes will stop having tobacco scent.

Your car, house and work place, will stop to have tobacco scent

Your fingernails and hands will stop to have yellow color

Your skin will improve in all senses, it will change the coloration becoming rosier (the skin of the smokers is grizzly), it will improve its smoothness and become more hydrated, and as a consequence of that you will have less wrinkles

HOW WILL YOUR ECONOMY IMPROVE

Obviously this point depends on the quantity of cigarettes that you consume daily, but a person that smokes during 30 years a package per day, does not spend less than 15,000 dollars in cigarettes, plus lighters, matches, ashtrays, burnt clothes, treatments against the asthma, treatments against the allergy, bronchitis and cold treatments, etc.

Some companies prefer to hire non smokers, because the smokers get ill more frequently and they cause more maintenance expenses, since the scents of the cigarettes should be eliminated, and the residuals of the smoke stick in the curtains, carpets and cloths in general.

WHAT DO YOU NEED TO STOP SMOKING

A plan to stop smoking is only successful if it contemplates three aspects:

You should know very well what is it to be tobacco addict, and which are its consequences.

You need a training or help to face the abstinence.

You need to be absolutely motivated when attempting it

If one of these three aspects is not contemplated, the plan has few probabilities of success.

The percentage of people that are able to stop smoking by their own means is of only 5%, reason why it is always convenient that you accept the help of the ones that know how to do it.

Another thing that will increase the success possibilities, is that you supplement your plan with some substitution system as chewing gums, nicotine patches or antidepressants (if the doctor prescribes them)

Keep in mind that the strong desire to smoke will be more intense the first days after leaving the cigarette, but it will diminish every week, and to the fourth month you will hardly feel it. DAMAGES THAT THE CIGARETTES PRODUCE

The nicotine is an addictive drug, and as every drug it generates dependence and it enslaves the smoker for the rest of his life.

We all have to die some day, but half of the smokers die as consequence of his bad habit, and they live about 20 years less than the non smokers.

The tobacco contains almost contains 50 chemical substances recognized as cancer producers.

Almost all the of the lung cancer cases take place among the smokers

The tobacco is related with great part of the digestive, breathing, heart and vascular illnesses.

The lowest sectors in the society, dedicate to the purchase of cigarettes, a money that is indispensable to allow a better life to all their family.

The women older than 35 years that smoke and take birth-control pills, are in the groups of high risk of suffering heart attacks, cerebral spills and clots in the legs veins. As likewise they can suffer spontaneous abortions and to give to light underweight babies.

HOW IS THE SMOKER'S ADICTION

Any fairly learned person knows that smoking is harmful for the health, and the unavoidable question is:

If they know that to smoke harms them, why do they do it?

They do it because they are addicted to the nicotine, that is a very powerful drug that is in the tobacco.

The addiction to the nicotine is as strong as the one to the cocaine and to the heroine.

We can understand then that a person that is addicted, can find serious difficulties to be liberated of his addiction, but.

If everybody knows that to smoke harms, why do they begin smoking?

The reasons why people begin to smoke are varied, to begin we should consider that people get this wrong habit at a very early age, where we are vulnerable in many senses, but the most common reasons are:

The bad example of someone of the family that smokes

To try to look of more age than we have.

To show more security and maturity.

Because all the friends do it and we fear to be different

The publicity it induces it

The sportsmen, actors and people that we admire do it

etc.

There are many the reasons why you can begin, but there's only one consequence for it: you will join up that human mass that is unable to appropriately take care of their own health, and the health of their dear beings. Vicious people that many times try to stop smoking but can't do it.

The addict to the cigarette doesn't like to be considered an addict like the one that consumes cocaine or other drugs, and he usually denies the graveness of what he does, or give a thousand excuses to justify his consumption, since the drug mines his willpower.

Then he says things like:

To smoke is a pleasure

I don't feel that it harms me

To smoke tranquilizes me

To smoke removes my appetite

I am not a vicious one

I can leave the cigarette when ever I want to

It is not going to harm me

I will leave it later on

Everybody dies of something

etc.

These addicts will spend their money daily in poisoning their health, their family and the environment, and they will follow doing it even when the cigarette has affected seriously different parts of their organism.

We also have to highlight that these physical addicts to the tobacco, also suffer other two addictions:

The psychological addiction to the cigarette

The social addiction to smoke in group

WHY IS IT SO DIFFICULT TO STOP SMOKING?

To stop to smoke is difficult because of the nicotine. The nicotine is as addictive as the worst drugs, and it is a product that is a natural part of the tobacco.

With the course of the time, the smoker becomes physical and psychologically addict to the nicotine, and to be able to stop smoking he needs to be liberated from both dependences.

Every time that you smoke, the nicotine penetrates the lungs and from there it goes to the sanguine torrent that carries it to the whole body, it does not only affect the lungs but also the heart, the circulatory system, the hormonal system, the metabolism, the brain, the maternal milk, the amniotic liquid, the placenta and the babies of the pregnant ones.

As all drugs, the nicotine produces a pleasure sensation, and it is this sensation the one that makes the person want to smoke again, and to need more cigarettes as it affects nervous system (what of course increases the nicotine quantity in blood). Finally, once achieved a high level of nicotine in blood, the smoker needs to smoke to maintain that level.

When a vicious one tries to abandon the drug from which he depends, it suffers what is known as the abstinence syndrome. This syndrome is characterized by diverse physical and psychological symptoms.

Psychologically the smoker feels that he lacks something, it has suffered a strong change in his behavior, and for that reason sometimes to feel better, he needs to substitute the real cigarettes with plastic cigarettes and other things.

Physically, when stopping to smoke they can feel many different symptoms like:

Irritation

Anxiety

Lack of concentration

Depression

Insomnia

Headaches

Fatigue

Appetite increase

Regarding the appetite increase, I need to highlight that it is more a myth that a consequence, since in those cases that the appetite increases, the increase that takes place is really light, and it disappears in little time.

When the symptoms of the abstinence syndrome come, if the person lacks enough motivation and doesn't practice some kind of anxiety control, he starts smoking again, until he recovers enough nicotine to do not feel those symptoms.

How much is it necessary to smoke so that the abstinence symptoms come?

It is enough with having smoked a significant quantity during some weeks

When will the symptoms be presented?

The symptoms will be presented a few hours after having smoked the last cigarette, and they will reach their intensity pick in 2 to 3 days.

How much time can we have abstinence symptoms?

This depends on each person and of the quantity of nicotine in blood that each person has gotten used, but the physical symptoms usually last from some days to several weeks, while the psychological symptoms can last during several years.

THE PASSIVE SMOKERS

The addicts to the tobacco not only poison and mortgage their own lives, but rather they also produce a serious contamination of the environment, and they put in risk the health of those who surround them.

The mothers that smoke have high possibilities to have children with asthma, especially if they smoke during the pregnancy. And they also have bigger risk of having smoking children, and children with sudden death, otitis, colds and bronchitis.

METHODS TO STOP SMOKING

There are many methods to stop smoking, and among the better known ones I can mention

the acupuncture

the magneto therapy

the hypnosis

the mind control

To which should be added the necessary psychological support to face the abstinence syndrome.

And that can be carried out with:

Psychotherapy

Relaxation and Mind Control

Help to the smoker phone lines

Family Support

Friends

Programs to stop to smoke

And possibly a therapy will be needed for the substitution of the nicotine with nicotine substitutes like:

Nicotine chewing gums (they can be bought without recipe)

Nicotine Patches (they can be bought without recipe)

Nicotine Pills (they can be bought without recipe)

Aerosols (recipe is required)

Inhalers (recipe is required)

When is it the best moment to begin a nicotine substitution therapy?

The best moment to begin a nicotine substitution therapy, is when you begin to stop smoking.

What nicotine substitute is better?

The statistic gathered so far don't indicate that anyone is better than the other ones, the substitute that you must choose depends on your choice and habits, but it is important to highlight that all present some kind of inconveniences, reason why even when you choose one of those that don't require recipe, it is always advisable to consult a doctor, who might even prescribe you some antidepressant, besides the nicotine substitute.

But repeating what I already said before, to be able to stop smoking, it is necessary to have knowledge about what the tobacco addiction implies (this web page has been written for it), and it is also needed help and an appropriate motivation.

My CD #7: "Deja de Fumar" can help you with both things.

If you decide to stop smoking it is good that you remember what Mark Twain said:

"To stop to smoke is easy, I have already done it a thousand times"

For that reason, if you want to stop to smoke and you don't want to go through Marks experience, you should know that a sudden and strong desire to smoke, can be presented months or years after having abandoned the bad habit, and to be able to overcome it without falling again in the claws of the nicotine, you need to know that:

Just as it happens to an alcoholic that can not take neither a single glass of alcohol without relapsing, you can not smoke neither a single cigarette without running the risk of falling again in the bad habit. And you can not even practice a single inhalation without putting in danger all that you have gotten

Review the reasons that have taken you to leave that bad habit, and the benefits that you have found for you and your family, and continue enjoying the pleasant sensation of knowing that you are a man that has conquered itself.

Written by Dr. Roberto A. Bonomi