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Seven Symptoms to Tough Out when You Quit Smoking

February 6th, 2008    Subscribe To Our Feed

When you quit smoking, you will begin to experience symptoms of nicotine withdrawal shortly after quitting. These nicotine withdrawal symptoms can be very intense, causing many individuals to succumb to the urge to smoke. Smoking cessation can be facilitated much easier if you know what to look out for. Identifying the symptoms of nicotine withdrawal will help you overcome them much easier. Here are seven symptoms to tough out when you quit smoking.

1) Intense cravings to smoke. Perhaps the most irritating symptom of nicotine withdrawal is the intense desire to reach for the lighter. There are several things you can do to resist these intense cravings. First, try to alter your daily routine to avoid boredom and prolonged periods of inactivity. When you are bored, you are more likely to want to smoke. Whenever you feel the desire to smoke, consider the practice of deep breathing, and other relaxation techniques. You should also strive to keep your hands busy. Knit, play checkers, do a jigsaw puzzlekeeping your hands busy will compensate for your smoking habit. Finally, speak to your medical professional about using smoking cessation aids such as gum, the patch, or a nicotine inhaler. These can be valuable tools for toughing out those strong cravings.

2) Fatigue and insomnia. Most smokers experience an overall feeling of sluggishness during the first two weeks after stopping. Before you quit smoking, give yourself permission to take it easy for at least two periods after you quit. Don’t take on any extra assignment at works, and avoid making too many commitments during your time off. Avoid stress, especially at night before going to bed. Take long hot baths, watch only light comedies, and avoid excessive use of caffeine and sugar.

Even though you may be feeling especially sluggish, it’s also important that you get your body moving. Find an outdoor activity that you enjoy, such as biking or gardening. Doing some sort of regular physical activity will help counter your fatigue, and will help keep you distracted from the urge to smoke.

3) Irritability and depression. Many a smoker has been accused of being cranky during the period of nicotine withdrawal. It makes perfect sense that you’re feeling irritable or a bit depressed during this period. Nicotine is a powerful chemical that stimulates the pleasure centers in your brain. When the nicotine suddenly stops, you are bound to feel a little unglued. The best way to counter feelings of irritability and depression is to be prepared for them. Give yourself permission to feel a little upset. Cheer yourself up by watching comedies, reading light fare, and eating healthy foods. Make an effort to treat yourself to fresh flowers, a good meal, music, or whatever you think will cheer you up. Use food as a reward sparingly, since this may lead to unwanted weight gain.

4) Headaches. It is not unusual for smokers to experience mild to severe headaches during the process of quitting. Treat mild headaches by avoiding stress, taking over the counter Ibuprofen or Tylenol, and getting plenty of sleep. If your headaches are persistent and severe, visit your physician

5) Hunger and increased caloric intake. Many smokers experience hunger pangs and an overall increase in appetite. This is not unusual since many smokers are accustomed to using cigarettes as meal replacements. To avoid stressing your body and gaining weight, surround yourself with healthy, whole foods that you can munch on, instead of reaching for the cigarettes. Have veggies chopped and ready to eat in your refrigerator. Buy fresh fruit and drink lots of water. Carry granola bars, apples, and trail mix with you in case hunger should strike outside your home.

6) Difficulty with concentrating. Quitting smoking can create an overall sense of restlessness that makes it difficult to concentrate on the task at hand. Instead of trying to fight through your lack of concentration, take a break. Go for a walk, have a piece of fruit, then return to your work refreshed.

7) Dry mouth and sore gums. As you may imagine, your mouth needs to readjust to not smoking, too. Used to sucking on cigarettes, the mouth may experience dryness or soreness shortly after quitting. Counter these unpleasant effects by keeping your mouth hydrated. Drink plenty of fresh water and avoid overly salty or sweet foods.For more information on quiting smoking have a look at the quit-smoking-expert

Quit Smoking and Watch your Social Life Soar

December 20th, 2007    Subscribe To Our Feed

You may not realize it, but smoking affects your social life as well as your physical well being. How often have you avoided going places because they were non-smoking, or ducked out of a party at the height of the action to satisfy your nicotine cravings?
When you quit smoking, you can also increase your confidence, meet new people, and join new activities. An improved social life is just one more reason to quit smoking!

Gain confidence.
Smokers become addicted to the nicotine in cigarettes and tobacco. Cigarettes, cigars, and pipes all emit smoke that holds thousands of other chemicals, in addition to the nicotine. When a persons body becomes addicted to nicotine, the chemical temporarily creates pleasant physical and mental effects, which keeps the smoker coming back time and again.

When you successfully quit smoking, you overcome this physical and mental addiction. Overcoming such a powerful addiction is no easy task. Once youve accomplished it, youll have more confidence to face other difficult tasks in your life, armed with the knowledge that you have succeeded at one of the most challenging hurdles many people encounter. If you can quit smoking, what is there that you cant accomplish?

Meet others trying to quit.
Hopefully your family and friends will be supportive of your efforts to quit smoking. However, non one can truly empathize with you except someone that is going through the same trials and tribulations. Join an online or local community that offers support to people who are quitting smoking.

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) offers phone counseling at 1-800-QUIT-NOW. WhyQuit offers discussion groups for both first-time quitters and ones that have tried before. WhyQuit focuses on abrupt nicotine cessation (as opposed to smoking cessation with a gradual decrease in nicotine intake).

Many forums are geared toward quitting with the aid of a specific medication. However, forums that are more general include:
* American Lung Associations Freedom from Smoking offers modules to walk a quitter through the process and associated message boards.
* The Quit Smoking Companys message boards are visually sparse, but offer visitors many opportunities for discussion with others trying to quit.
* Quit Smoking Support has been helping smokers quit for over nine years through peer-to-peer support and encouragement.
To meet people in your local area and have a face-to-face discussion on quitting smoking, visit Nicotine Anonymous, Smart Recovery, or check with your insurance and health providers. Get more support for your efforts, and make new friends!

Learn new activities.

Many experts recommend taking up new activities to fill up your time and keep you from thinking about smoking. As your health improves, you can join a local gym, recreational sports league, or take fitness classes.
To keep their hands busy and away from cigarettes, some people take up hobbies like knitting, crocheting, or doing puzzles. What will you do with your new energy and time? The possibilities are endless!

Get out of the house.

When first quitting, smokers are often urged to spend a lot of time in public places where smoking is prohibited, such as libraries, malls, theatres, or museums. Revel in the fact that you can stay inside as long as you likeno need to run outside and satisfy a nicotine craving!
Make a point to meet friends and families for dinner at non-smoking restaurants that you may have avoided in the past. As the amount of time since your last cigarette increases, your sense of taste will improve and you can enjoy the food more.

Enjoy your financial freedom.

A big part of quitting smoking is giving yourself rewards when you reach an important goal, whether its going a day without smoking or six months. How can you reward yourself?
Tally up all of the money that you would be spending on cigarettes and think of ways to spend it. You can save up for a big trip or larger purchase, or spend it on weekly social activities like dining out, going to the theatre, or taking hobby or fitness classes. Use your extra money to improve your social life and reward yourself for resisting the temptation to buy another pack of cigarettes.

When someone quits smoking, their physical, mental, and emotional well-being all improve dramatically. Quitting smoking can take your social life to new heights since youll have time and money for new hobbies, and will be able to venture out in public without fear of finding someplace to smoke your next cigarette. Once youve quit smoking, your social life will be on fire!For more information on quiting smoking have a look at the quit-smoking-expert

Quit Smoking and Take a Deep Breath

November 21st, 2007    Subscribe To Our Feed

It’s true: quitting smoking is probably one of the hardest things you will ever do. But it’s also one of the most beneficial things you will ever do for your health, and the health of those around you. With the advent of so many new products and supplements designed to aid smoking cessation, many smokers interested in quitting often overlook the importance of learning basic relaxation skills that can help even the most hardened smoker quit successfully.

The most important relaxation technique that you should learn if you are trying to quit is deep breathing. Many lifelong smokers are actually quite adept at deep breathing, if only by accident. Whether conscious of it or not, many smokers take deep drags off their cigarettes, producing a temporary sense of deep relaxation. Many individuals who attempt to quit smoking usually stop taking regular deep breaths, resulting in much of the stress, tension, and general restlessness that is characteristic of trying to quit.

If you’ve decided to give your body a break and quit smoking, here are some guidelines to avoid shallow breathing, and to help you relieve stress through the regular practice of deep breathing. For maximum effect, you should practice deep breathing whenever the urge to light up hits, or whenever you are feeling particularly stressed out. You should always attempt to breathe through your nose, as this is the healthiest way to bring oxygen into your body.

1. Try to find a quiet place conducive to relaxation.
2. Deep breathing is accomplished using the stomach muscles. Place your hand gently over your stomach’s abdomen muscles.
3. Close your eyes and try to imagine a relaxing landscape or scene.
4. Breathe in deeply. Visualize the air entering your mouth, traveling into your lungs, and then filling your stomach, as if it were a balloon.
5. Slowly release the air and let your stomach return to its natural position.
6. Before you release each deep breath of air, hold the breath for as long as its comfortable, and then release it slowly.
7. If you find it helps, focus on a calming phrase such as “This urge will pass,” “I am relaxed,” or whatever you find helpful.
8. Try to condition yourself so that whenever you feel the urge to smoke, you automatically retreat to your deep breathing exercises.

Along with deep breathing, you may want to incorporate different exercises to bring consciousness to your state of mind when you’re desperate for a cigarette. Like the primary deep breathing exercise, these exercises can be done at any time or place, but preferably in a quiet, dark location where you can really focus on your breathing.

* Sit cross-legged in a quiet location. Close your eyes and take a deep breath to calm your body and prepare for the following exercises.
* Focus attention on your head, then your face, and finally, concentrate on your forehead. As you exhale, let the muscles in your forehead and temples relax.
* Focus attention on your eyes. Let them soften and relax as you exhale.
* Bring attention to your cheek muscles and jaw. Like your eyes, let them soften as you exhale.
* Now, your neck. Whether you are conscious of it or not, your neck is a reservoir of tension. Whenever you feel stressed or worried, you will find that your neck becomes still and inflexible. Let the tension in your neck relax as you exhale. Imagine your neck muscles as malleable and flexible.
* Continue to take deep slow breathes, pausing, and then exhaling slowly. Move your focus down to your shoulders. Like your neck, your shoulders will often store tension. Let them droop and relax as you exhale.
* Move down to your stomach. When you breathe in, imagine the air entering your nose, traveling to your larynx, your lungs, all the way to the pit of your stomach. As you exhale, let the tension in your stomach melt away.
* After you have finished meditating on different parts of your body, finish your deep breathing practice by taking a number of deep slow breaths, holding the breath for five seconds, and then releasing it.

When you’re done, open your eyes, stretch your arms and legs, and get up slowly and deliberately.

Learning to breathe in this fashion is one of the best things you can do for your health, and one of the easiest, most effective ways to ward off the stress of kicking your smoking habit.For more information on quiting smoking have a look at the quit-smoking-expert

Mind over Matter, Avoiding Temptation to Smoke Again

November 2nd, 2007    Subscribe To Our Feed

You have finally quit your smoking habit! Congratulations on a Herculean accomplishment! You have weathered the physical withdrawals, the psychological temptations, and all the anxiety, mood swings, as well as the minefield of rationalizations why just one cigarette could not possibly hurt you. Of course, you know that you are not yet out of the woods, after all, as they saying goes, today is the first day of the rest of your life, and you are hoping to make it a smoke-free life. How can you go about avoiding temptation to smoke again?

While there is no easy answer to this question, there are a lot of suggestions that will make temptations more avoidable or at least manageable if avoidance if impossible.

* Avoid people who seek to entice you to smoke. For some reason, once in a while you will encounter a friend or family member who will treat your smoking cessation as a big joke, and who will either make a point of lighting up in your presence or in the alternative will wave a pack of cigarettes under your nose, all but lighting one up for you. She or he will rationalize that just one for old times sake will hardly hurt and that you have proven you could quit any time. Avoid this person as much as you can. Obviously, you should not skip Thanksgiving dinner to avoid her or him, but it would be good to have a buffer between you and that person. In case of a friend who does this to you, perhaps you will need to reevaluate your friendship with this person. Of course, the longer you have been smoke-free, the easier it gets to handle this temptation, and at some point you can just laugh in the persons face and get on with the social situation you are in. Until you get there, however, it is best to avoid the person.

* Avoid situations and locations that tempt you to smoke. The favorite watering hole down the block may have a wonderful ambience, but if it the smoke inside is so thick that you can cut it with a knife, it may not be conducive to your effort to remain smoke-free. Find a new haunt that may actually be nicer than your old one! You will also be able to make new friends, and pretty soon you will no longer associate going down to watch the game on Monday night with smoking. Once you get to that point, even a visit to the old watering hole will present only a small temptation that you will be able to resist much easier. While locations may be easy to avoid, situations may not. If you work for a company where smoking on the premises or on the job is permitted, you will need to employ all of your willpower to overcome the temptations when you are faced with smoking coworkers. If this situation cannot be avoided, be sure to come prepared with hard candy, sunflower seeds, peanuts or pistachios in the shell, or some sugarless gum.

* Avoid rationalizations such as one cigarette wont kill me. It may not kill you, but the slippery slope of rationalization will lead to further lapses in your resolve to remain smoke-free for life. In the same way that you would not suggest to an alcoholic to have just one drink for old times sake or for the road, you should not rationalize that just one cigarette for yourself is a good idea. It will make turning down the second and third cigarette just that much harder. Another more insidious rationalization is the idea that smoking while not buying cigarettes is different from being a smoker. Whether you buy or bum, if you stick the cigarettes in your mouth and light them, you are a smoker.

As you can see, it is hard to quit, and it is hard to remain smoke-free for life. Yet while it may be hard, it is entirely doable, and if you continue on the strength of your convictions, you will be able to make it through even the rough times. Should you, against the odds, give in to temptation, remember that a slip or lapse in judgment does not mean you have permanently fallen off the wagon. As a matter of fact, this is a good time to review the reasons why you quit smoking in the first place, revisit the benefits of smoking cessation, and reward yourself for success!For more information on quiting smoking have a look at the quit-smoking-expert

Five Tips to Avoid Weight Gain when calling it quits on Smoking

October 18th, 2007    Subscribe To Our Feed

One concern of many who try to quit smoking is the possibility of weight gain. In truth, it does happen. Not to everyone, but it does happen. On the other hand, some people actually lose weight when they quit smoking and others stay the same. In addition, those who do gain weight often lose it again in a few months after giving up smoking.

The reasons for weight gain after smoking cessation are varied. For some, smoking actually reduces the appetite. For others, food actually tastes better because their sense of taste has returned. Yet others are in the habit of smoking after a meal. Since they cant smoke, they choose a second helping over a cigarette. For these people eating more than they did while smoking is the cause of the weight gain.

There are also physical changes that occur to the body from smoking. Smoking does increase a persons metabolic rate, which causes calories to burn more quickly. In addition, the body doesnt digest food properly and insulin levels are depressed, which can reduce weight gain. In fact, a heavy smoker can burn up to 200 calories per day from the increased metabolism of smoking.

Make Smoking Your First Priority

Research into the connection between weight gain and smoking cessation has shown that it is best to make smoking your first priority, then, once this is successfully managed, you can look at losing weight if necessary. Trying to quit smoking can be stressful as it is, you dont need to stress yourself out more by worrying about weight gain. Combining both will only serve to stress you more.

Monitor Your Food Intake

Since smoking does increase your metabolic rate, you might want to make a few changes in your diet to compensate for the lack of metabolism. This may not always be necessary. In fact, you may be able to continue your normal diet without gaining weight. But, if you are really concerned about the possibility of gaining weight, you can cut back on a few simple things such as butter to reduce your caloric intake.

Some food for thought eliminating the following foods from your diet will help you make up those extra 200 calories that may not be getting burned now that you have quit smoking:

* 1 hot dog and roll = 250 calories
* 2 frozen waffles = 240 calories
* 20 potato chips = 220 calories
* 2 light beers = 220 calories
* 2 oz of cheddar cheese = 220 calories
* 4 chocolate sandwich cookies = 213 calories
* 1 small order of McDonalds fries = 210 calories
* cup of macaroni and cheese = 205 calories
* 2 tablespoons of butter = 200 calories

Increase Activity

Even a small amount of added activity can help compensate for the calories that may be no longer burned off when quitting smoking. Now that you have quit smoking, your energy levels should be higher, which should make it easier for you to engage in physical activity. For example, a brisk 45 minute walk will burn 200 calories, as will 30 minutes of swimming laps. In addition, engaging in these activities can help keep your mind off cravings by distracting you from smoking and helping reduce stress and tension. In fact, your brain releases endorphins when you exercise, which helps make you feel better, and increases your metabolism, which helps you burn calories faster and more efficiently.

Satisfy the Oral Fixation

For many smokers, the primary gratification of smoking is to satisfy the oral fixation. Dont substitute food for cigarettes to fulfill this desire. Wait to eat until after the urge to smoke subsides. For starters, eating every time you want a cigarette can certainly lead to weight gain! Secondly, you dont want to substitute food for cigarettes, and eating when you have a craving will train your body to rely on food the same way it did cigarettes. Instead, chew a piece of gum.

Drink Fluids

Drinking lots of water has two benefits. First, it makes you feel full, which will make you less likely to overeat. Second, it helps flush out the toxins in your body namely nicotine. If you absolutely must have something with flavor, try to avoid soft drinks. Instead, keep club soda and vegetable juices on hand.For more information on quiting smoking have a look at the quit-smoking-expert

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