Why You Should Stop Smoking
It can be extremely hard to stop smoking though. Author Mark Twain once said, "Quitting smoking is easy. I've done it a thousand times." Perhaps you've tried to quit before and couldn't or maybe you stopped for a while but ended up smoking again. What exactly makes smoking so addictive?
Nicotine is a chemical that is naturally found in the tobacco plant. Believe it or not, it's as addictive as cocaine and heroin. When you have a physical addiction to a drug, you experience very unpleasant withdrawal effects when the drug isn't in your body. It's only human nature to want to avoid discomfort and that's why people that go back to cigarettes.
When you inhale cigarette smoke, nicotine is carried from your lungs to your bloodstream. In fact, nicotine that has been inhaled travels faster to the brain than drugs that have been administered through an IV. Nicotine affects several parts of your body including your heart, blood vessels, metabolism, and hormones. It can even be found in breast milk. If you smoke while pregnant, nicotine can cross into your placenta and get into the amniotic fluid and the baby's umbilical cord. Different factors play a role in how quickly nicotine is removed from your body but in general, for a regular smoker, it takes about five days for nicotine to be completely removed from your system.
In case you aren't convinced of the benefits of not smoking, here is a timeline of what happens when you stop.
Twenty minutes after you stop smoking your heart rate and blood pressure drop. After twelve hours the carbon monoxide levels in your bloodstream become normal. Between two weeks and three months, your circulation improves and your lungs will be able to function better. Between one month and nine months, symptoms like coughing and shortness of breath decrease.
You'll continue to gain benefits for years to come. After one year of quitting, your excess risk of developing heart disease will be half of a regular smoker. Five years later, your risk of certain cancers (mouth, throat, bladder, and esophagus cancers) will be cut in half as well. Risk of stroke also decreases.
A decade later, your risk of dying from lung cancer will be about half that of a smoker. The risk of developing larynx and pancreas cancer also decreases.
If these health benefits aren't enough for you, there are many other, more practical, benefits. Your food will taste better and your sense of smell will return to normal. Physical activity becomes much easier as well. You'll also save a lot of money.
Smoking is obviously expensive, but you might not have considered other smoking-related expenses like having higher health and life insurance rates and out of cost healthcare treatments.
If you'd like to quit smoking there are many resources available to you. Currently, there is a national telephone hotline available in all fifty states. The staff at this hotline work with you to help you come up with a custom plan to quit smoking.
There are also tons of support groups you can join. One popular group is Nicotine Anonymous. Many healthcare, workplaces, and wellness centers have their own support groups.
Nicotine replacement therapy can also help relieve symptoms of nicotine withdrawal and there are also medications you can use to help prevent cravings. One of the most popular medications is Bupropion. Some other medications include Chantix, Nortriptyline, and Clonidine.
You can also try things like hypnosis and acupuncture. These two methods work for some people but they don't help everyone.
If you would like to stop smoking you should discuss all of these options with your doctor right away. You'll not only be healthier and feel much better, you'll save money as well. And if you have children you'll be setting a great example for them. Quitting smoking can be difficult but with the right resources and with great support from your health care team and your family, it's absolutely possible.
References:
American Cancer Society. Benefits of Quitting Smoking Over Time. September 9, 2016. Accessed at https://www.cancer.org/healthy/stay-away-from-tobacco/benefits-of-quitting-smoking-over-time.html on January 1, 2018.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Quitting Smoking. February 1, 2017. Accessed at https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/cessation/quitting/index.htm on January 1, 2018.
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