14 Steps To Giving Up Smoking For Good
If you are ready to giving up smoking for good, congratulations on your decision! Smoking is an undeniably health damaging habit that can ruin your entire life…
Preparing to quit
- Set a definite date for when you will quit smoking. You may want to have a friend quit at the same date to make it easier for you to quit smoking.
- Keep track of the times and the reasons that you smoke. Pinpoint specific activities that you do while smoking, such as drinking coffee or driving.
- Change your smoking habits. You can start by simply keeping your cigarettes somewhere else or even just smoking with the other hand. You could also try smoking without doing anything else at the same time, and think about the physical sensations that smoking gives you.
- Limit the areas where you smoke. If you are used to smoking in your study for example, you may want to try smoking only outdoors.
- Stifle the urge to smoke even if only for a few minutes. This will get you started smoking less, and you can tale your mind off your need to smoke by chewing gum or drinking water instead.
- Limit your cigarette buying. You could start by buying only one pack at a time at first, and you may even switch to a brand that you wouldn’t normally smoke.
On the day you give up cigarettes
- Throw out any cigarettes you have left, and stow away everything that you use for and while smoking such as your lighter and your ashtrays.
- Change your smoking-related routines. Drink your coffee, eat breakfast, or read the paper somewhere else for example. And when you begin to feel the urge to smoke, find something else to do instead.
- Replace your oral fixation with cigarettes. You could start chewing gum or sucking on hard candies, or you could even carry toothpicks around.
- Reward yourself for your willpower to give up cigarettes with a movie or a good meal.
Giving up smoking for the long term
- Don’t worry about new physical sensations that come as a result of your move to give up cigarettes. You will likely feel sleepier, get hungry more often and even become short-tempered.
- Start exercising. Not only will this take your mind off cigarettes, it will also generally make you healthier.
- Focus on the positive aspects of your decision to give up cigarettes. Think about how healthy you are becoming everyday, how good an example you are setting for your family, and how much better you feel about yourself for being able to give up cigarettes. It is these positive thoughts that will help you stay off cigarettes for good.
- Resist the urge to smoke when you feel stressed or tense. These are the periods when you tend to smoke in the past, and you should try to overcome them by telling yourself that smoking won’t make things any easier.
Don’t worry about relapsing. Almost every smoker tries to quit several times before they manage to giving up smoking for good. Quit again the next day and things will get easier and easier.
