If you have children cigarette smoking can be a real problem for them. Second hand smoke can cause ear infections and bring on asthma attacks. These attacks can be so serious they may need to be hospitalized. For the love of our children lets keep the second hand smoke away. Read more
Happy faces shine, especially when your teeth are bright and not stained from cigarettes and coffee.
Along with outward estetics, healty smiles require good hygene and abstinence from harmful substances like tar and nicotene and the umteen toxic chemicals found in cigarette smoke.
Smoking casues gum disease, which leads to tooth and bone loss. . Although, it may not be possible to reverse the damages ceasing from this unsightly and wastefull habit will immediately improve your health.
Treat yourself to a deep cleaning with your dental hygenist and enjoy fresher breath and a happy smile from the inside out!
Quit smoking now. You CAN do it!
Last Friday, I did some research and talked a little about nicotine gum and the potential advantages. One of my fellow bloggers, RachelInIdaho, pointed out that you need more than one factor to help you quit smoking, that this gum by itself won't help you.
So, I wanted to make sure that I hadn't mislead anybody by my previous post. You can not depend solely on a product like Nicorette.
I know that everybody is mentally and physically different, so perhaps there are those few souls who can accomplish this. Maybe, you think you can be one of those people and you want to give it a shot; that's your choice, but I think it would be wiser to factor in other things that might help you.
This post is titled "Buddy System" because I think that has the potential to be a very important factor in someone's path to quitting cigarettes.
Either find someone you know who also wants to quit, or find a friend or family number who help keep you accountable. It can be so hard to do things on your own. You need people to talk with and share both your struggles and joyful moments.
My grandfather was a man of few words. Very few. He was rather unapproachable and always quite a mystery to me. At the age of five my parents had been divorced for sometime. I was living at my grandparent’s place and my mother was working as a waitress downtown. Read more
Quantum Wellness by Kathy Freston
Book Review
I think is book would be of extreme help to anyone trying to quit smoking. The author of this book had tried every thing available to help her quit the habit. She talks about all the ways people attempt to quit smoking and while what works for some does not always work for everyone.
Kathy Freston, was addicted to nicotine. She tried wearing the patch and acupuncture, hypnosis and attending smoking cessation classes,guided meditation and breathing exercises, and these things did not work for her because she was not paying attention to her feelings and observations of her own body. Then she began noticing how nicotine affects the body by aging your skin and hurting your lungs and hurting the immune system.
She then realized that unless she decided to want a healthy body and was willing to reach out and get help in the right ways, she would be dependant on nicotine for the rest of her life.
She began a plan which included, recognize you have a problem and be willing to change, connect spiritually and replace old habits, make yourself useful and start your path of healing, and rid your self of grudges.
In the book she explains in a easy to read manner how to lose addictive habits. It begins with many helpful choices as in prayer and meditation, nature walks and journaling, gardening and good books or movies, going to church or a temple, or any house of worship and breathing exercises, dancing or singing, doing artwork or going to a study retreat, or studying with a spiritual teacher, and lastly just talking with your friends and sharing your desire for quiting smoking.
One quote from this book you might find helpful is:
"We know we have an addiction when we find ourselves unhealthfully preoccupied by a substance, behavior, or person in such a way that our relationships, work, and health begin to suffer. You know you are addicted when your life revolves around something that severely diminishes your energy and yet you can't (or won't) stop it."
The book goes chapter by chapter, explaining how to break your dependance on bad habits and how to rebuild your health with good long lasting habits. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is serious about trying to stop smoking.
Although, I have never smoked cigarettes, I know how it feels to crave something of which I know is not good for me, but I want it anyways. Whether it be food like chocolate or potato chips, or something stronger to drink, when the urge is there it is very hard to control it and tell myself "NO."
It has been said that smoking cigarettes removes vitamin C, an important antioxidant, from the body and there-by lowers your diease fighting immune system.
However, you can combat the cravings for a cigarette and increase your vitamin C, by buying chewable vitamin C tablets and choosing the vitamin over the cigarette. One can also choose fruits that are high in vitamin C, as well as, eating fresh vegetables and drinking homemade fruit and vegetable juices.
I am not saying beating that urge to smoke is going to be easy, we all know it is hard to break bad habits. But by improving your diet and choosing healthy snacks to avoid that chance at weight gain, that comes from not smoking, you will be on your way toward quiting smoking all together and improving your over-all health.
Who of us have ever walked in a place that was filled with some type of odor (smoke, cooking, etc) and felt it was very hard to breathe or catch our breath? An ocean breeze, a spring day when the wind blows just slightly or walking outside on a sunny day is the best especially when Read more
I’ve seen a lot of commercials about Nicorette, but have never really known what it was. According to its website, this gum has a small amount of nicotine in it to help you wean yourself off the nicotine your body has become accustomed to while smoking.
The website provides a ton of helpful information to help you quit while using their nicotine Read more
Picture adding four hours to each day. If you could would your life be better? Just image how those hours add up over the course of a week, months, years….a lifetime.
What could make having more time even better? Better health, more money? How about if you add $5 a day to your savings, which over the course of a year equals just under $2,000 tax free income.
To top it off, you will probably look, feel and smell better than ever.
How do you do this?
By quitting smoking.
Maybe you want to be able to share more birthdays with your kids and be a better role model for them. Or perhaps you want more energy and to breath easier. How about living to enjoy your retirement and use your money for something rather than cigarettes.
Tobacco smoke hurts anyone who breaths it whether first or second hand. Platelets in your blood stick together and may cause clots. It can also trigger a heart attack. It not only causes the problem but makes it worse.
Your family's health is effected by your smoking. Second hand smoke causes immediate harm to those who breath it.
It also makes tumors grow. So if you have cancer the immune system's tumor fighters that regularly go kill cancer cells are weakened by the tobacco smoke and can't do their job. And breathing the smoke when you already have cancer is doubly dangerous. It can make chemotherapy not do its job.
The lungs of a non-smoker are elastic, they expand when you breathe in and compress when you breathe out. Tobacco smoke damages the delicate lining so they no longer stretch or expand as well. When you quit smoking your coughing and wheezing will lessen and you'll breathe easier.
But continue to smoke and this will cause Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. People with this disease will slowly die from the obvious lack of air.
The next step from COPD is emphysema where lung tissue is destroyed. With this extreme lack of oxygen will make you weak and have to get oxygen from a tank.
People with Diabetes see the benefits of quitting right away. They have more control over their blood sugar levels. Smokers with diabetes have higher risks of amputation, heart and kidney disease, nerve damage, and eye disease that can cause blindness.
Researchers have found that smoking can damage a man's sperm by damaging his DNA. Smoking also reduces a woman's chances of getting pregnant.
Smoking during pregnancy can cause low birth weight, premature delivery, still birth and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome or SIDS.
Smoking can make the placenta detach from the womb too early and cause premature babies.
Kids with asthma who breath secondhand smoke can have an attack. It can be severe enough to send them to the hospital or even kill them.
Over 300,000 children each year get infections such as ear infections, pneumonia and bronchitis caused from second hand smoke.
Nearly 3,000 nonsmokers die from lung cancer caused by secondhand smoke every year. Every cigarette you smoke damages your lungs. Even at age 65 quitting smoking can add years to your life. Ten years after you quit smoking your risk of dying from lung cancer drops by half.
In 2003 the city of Pueblo, Colorado did a public smoking ban in all public areas and the number of people hospitalized for heart attacks dropped 41% in three years.
If you don't smoke you can recover from surgery faster.
Your chance of cancer of the bladder, throat, esophagus, or mouth is cut in half within 5 years of quitting. One of every three cancer deaths in the U.S. wouldn't happen if no one smoked.