It’s difficult to form strategies to quit smoking sometimes. The stress and pressure of everyday life in the 21st century can tempt you to keep picking up your cigarettes. Don’t let outside influences keep you from doing what is best for you. This article can help!
Write out the benefits of quitting smoking to add to your motivation and eliminate cigarettes from your daily routine. Writing out the benefits can help to elucidate the advantages of the action you are taking. This can help to motivate you to stay on course, and might even make quitting easier because you are able to remain focused.
As with other addictions, approach each day without a cigarette as a small victory. Try not to think about never having another cigarette. Instead, just try for today. Focusing on one day at a time is easier than focusing on the long-term. As each day passes, extend your timeline a little more into the future.
Get the support of your loved ones, so you can stop smoking more easily. It is critical that the people closest to you offer support, not criticism or judgement. Let them know you might be cranky or irritable because of withdrawals, but it will pass and it is not your intention to be as such. You’ll need the support of others during this process.
Do not attempt this by yourself. Inform your family and friends of your plan to quit, and accept their love, encouragement, and support as you fight your battle. An outside support group of former smokers can also help. Discussing how you feel with others who are experiencing the same difficulties can help you power through and beat smoking for good.
As you meet your short-term goals for smoking cessation, reward yourself! For instance, you might decide to see a movie as a treat to mark one week without a cigarette. When you go an entire month, go to a fancy restaurant you don’t normally go to. This will help to increase motivation for your reward in an effort to eliminate smoking from your thoughts.
If you wish to steer clear of strong cravings and feelings of withdrawal, see if you can come up with healthy methods for managing stress. Try to coincide a trip to the gym with your worst withdrawal times. New hobbies are also a good way to cope with the symptoms. Massages can also be very helpful. When you’ve got downtime, distract yourself with friends, books and games, so you don’t think of smoking.
Loved Ones
One of the benefits of quitting smoking is improving the health of your family. Far from being harmless, secondhand smoke is known to cause cancer, and can lead to other serious medical conditions. When you quit smoking, you decrease the amount of time that your loved ones are exposed to that dangerous second hand smoke. Quitting will not only improve your own health, but it can help your loved ones to become healthier, as well.
Now that you’ve read this article, you should have much more confidence in your ability to permanently stop smoking. You can tell these tips to others so that they, too, can kick the smoking habit.