Tips for Quitting Smoking

If you’ve decided to quit smoking, hats off to you! Quitting smoking will put you on the path toward improved health, a safer home for your family, financial savings and cleaner air for yourself and everyone around you.

The road ahead may be difficult, but you can do it. People just like you are quitting smoking every day. If you need help and encouragement to successfully stop smoking, our tips and advice may get you through the hardest moments.

Tips on Quitting Smoking

When you decide to stop smoking, you need to choose a method and make a plan. Regardless of the method you choose, the first few days will be the most difficult. If you’re quitting cold turkey, the nicotine will take some time to clear from your system. But after this first step, things should get easier.

Choose a specific day to begin quitting smoking. The American Cancer Society (an excellent resource for tips on quitting) suggests that you mark your "quit day" on the calendar and prepare yourself as the day approaches. Once the day arrives:

• Don’t smoke at all, not even one puff.
• Drink lots of water.
• Stay active.
• Stay away from places where the urge to smoke will be strong.
• Schedule your stop smoking class to begin on this day, if you’re taking one. Also, begin your medication or nicotine replacement program on this day, if possible.

If you want to stop smoking, tips like these should make the process easier.

More Tips on Quitting

As you go through withdrawal, consciously think about the other habits you associate with smoking, like drinking coffee or watching TV. You’re going to need to learn to not associate smoking with these activities. This is part of the mental challenge of the withdrawal process.

Pay attention to your rationalizations, such as "I have to die of something." These arguments will have more power during the first few days. If you can fight off these rationalizations now, however, the same fights will get easier later on.

Quitting Smoking for Good

No matter what your reasons are for quitting smoking, and no matter whether you’re quitting cold turkey or otherwise, your aim is success. In order to permanently stop smoking, tips like these may help:

• Always remember why you quit in the first place. If you need to, keep a picture or note somewhere where you can see it as a reminder.
• Avoid emotional triggers and places and people that encourage you to smoke, especially if you’re quitting cold turkey. Like everything else, this will get easier with time.
• Recover quickly from slip-ups. Acknowledge your mistake, ask yourself why things went wrong and use this information to get back on track.
• Ride out the desire to smoke: the feeling will pass. Smoking "just one" cigarette will only prolong the problem.

Resources

American Cancer Society. (2010.) How to quit. Retrieved September 23, 2010, from http://www.cancer.org/Healthy/StayAwayfromTobacco/GuidetoQuittingSmoking/guide-to-quitting-smoking-how-to-quit

Centers For Disease Control and Prevention. (2010.) Quit tips. Retrieved September 23, 2010, from http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/quit_smoking/how_to_quit/quit_tips/index.htm