Hello everyone!
To the breathinghappy.com people, the community and the readers, on behalf of my family we’d like to thank everyone!
With my breathinghappy.com earnings from writing, I was able to take my family out last July 25. We had a blast. It was Ally’s 9th birthday and they rode a carousel. Mommy rode the carousel too! Read more
E-cigarettes are the latest tool in the armoury of those looking to kick the smoking habit for good. Almost overnight the electronic cigarette business has mushroomed and there are now dozens of brands to choose from. It was only a matter of time before the traditional street corner tobacco kiosk was joined by an e-cigarette specific equivalent, and sure enough Manhattan's first such store opened on the Lower East Side last week. This venture joins their other small operation Queens and there are plans to open a second large store in Brooklyn later in the year.
The store exclusively sells e-cigarettes and accessories and customers are encouraged to sample the various flavours and nicotine strengths on offer before they buy. The featured brand is VapeNY. The cigarettes can be tailored to customers' specific requirements; flavour and strength etc. You can even choose different colours and patterns. Users concede that e-cigarettes don't taste the same as the real thing although if the vapour is right, the experience is pretty close to smoking for real.
Demand for e-cigarettes is now so great and growing so rapidly that established major brands such as Playboy and Marlboro have recently announced their intention to launch their own brands. E-cigarettes are proving contentious however as they fall into a grey area as regards regulation. Public health organisations are demanding caution and have expressed the need to further investigate and assess potential risks.
In the UK, e-cigarettes are currently permitted in pubs, restaurants and bars although there have already been calls from anti-smoking groups for their use to be banned. These groups argue that the impact of their use on health has not been fully investigated. It is also feared that children may be attracted to e-cigarettes because of their many fruity and sweet flavours and the fact that they look "cool". This may ultimately lead to children taking up smoking for real. Minors under the age of 16 are currently prohibited from purchasing the devices.
E-cigarettes are powered by a battery which uses the heat reaction as the user inhales to vaporise the nicotine-filled liquid cartridge and in doing so creates a smoke-like mist. The resultant vapour is a mixture of water, vegetable glycerine and propylene glycol. Recent research published by the University of Catania in Italy indicates that 10% of e-cigarette users reported the devices assisted them in giving up smoking. Other reports from unspecified sources however suggest that inhaling the vapour they produce can actually cause respiratory problems including blockages. The general consensus among users is that it is the toxins and tar contained in tobacco and smoke that are dangerous to health, not the nicotine. It is not thought likely that anyone could overdose on nicotine from "vaping" e-cigarettes.
One thing is for certain; e-cigarettes are here to stay and if they help to save the lives of those who take up "vaping" instead of smoking, that can only be a good thing.
Quitting an addiction, particularly when the substance is smoking, is one the hardest things to do. The body and mind are very powerful, especially in working together. When starting to quit, have a plan about what to do when the nicotine withdrawals start to occur, so that you don't go back to smoking. You also don't want to resort to binge eating and go from one addition to the next, and then back again.
Yes this is very hard. When you work three times as hard at it, I think you will be more successful in not going back to it. Here are a few tips:
1. Choose your method to quit, date and time. Some of you may want to cut down one cigarette a day until the pack is done and not go back to it. Others may want to quit cold turkey.
2. Have a plan ready for when nicotine withdrawals occur. It should be a plan with goals that doesn't involve food or going back to smoking. Utilize this plan fully until your through this stage.
3. If you can do pushups when you feel the withdrawals, do them. Seriously!
4. Meditate and your mind to a place that you want to be. Or do other forms of meditation.
Here is one meditation exercise to get through your withdrawals: You are in a bike race. You notice in your peripheral vision that the person behind you is coming up on your left to pass you. As that person passes you, you notice that they are the new you winning, leaving the old you behind. How do you feel now?
Work very hard at it. Keep these tips in mind and keep focused. Add in some exercise and good nutrition. Here's to wishing you well with your new healthier life.
All votes and comments are welcome.
In the past few years, many discoveries have been made about the type of damage that smoking during a pregnancy can cause. A particular study, recently published on the JAMA Otolaryngology, describes one of such latest findings.
Often, teenagers will encounter trouble hearing, and this had been attributed for a long time to the use of headphones, the proclivity to attend loud concerts and other similar causes. However, the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey that took into account youths between the ages of 12 and 15 in 2005 and 2006, confirmed that about 16% of the parents admitted to prenatal smoke exposure, and subsequently, the children in this subgroup were three times as likely to experience hearing loss as the children whose mothers had not smoked during the pregnancy.
Smoking as an epidemic
The widespread use of tobacco means that pregnant women are more and more commonly smoking during the early stages, even if they do quit down the line. However, it has been discovered that those that smoked even just for the first trimester, many times before they even found out they were pregnant, also had repercussions on the health of their children.
The only viable solution is quitting smoking preemptively, as due to the nature of pregnancy and the cycles and lifestyle of a particular woman, several weeks could pass before a pregnancy is detected. This could lead to the mother inadvertently smoking or engaging in other damaging acts even if she willingly quits them down the line.
Among the consequences of loss of hearing in adolescents, the natural issue of a potential disability is not top of the list. Studies report that loss of hearing can result in a diminished IQ, it could also have social and academic effects, and could even result in the child dropping out of school or engaging in damaging behavior.
Image: Freedigitalphotos.net
Thanks for reading this post. Let me know your thoughts in the comments section and do not forget to vote if you like it.
My friend Carole was really looking forward to her approaching retirement. There was so much she would at last have the time to do; playing golf, tennis and bridge with her many friends, walking through the forest with her dog and finally getting around to booking the cycling holidays she has always promised herself. She knew Read more