Quitting smoking isn't hard. You've done it lots of times! Isn't that the unrelenting challenge that faces so many smokers? Well, never fear. Here's a new method that will help you snuff out those butts and put away those lighters. This is something positive that will stiffen your resolve like starching a shirt.
The most essential element of successfully quitting smoking is not thinking of it as quitting. That's right. Not quitting smoking, but starting something new. The feeling of loss, restraint, restriction, or absence is what makes it so hard to give up. But, transferring those feelings to acquiring, gaining, obtaining, finding, and maintaining something new is what will close that old door and open a new one.
This is really just a matter of substituting something positive for something negative. It is not giving something up, it’s gaining something new. So, when you decide that you want to quit smoking – that you really want to quit smoking, not just say that you do for the benefit of getting others to be sympathetic to you – it becomes a matter of substituting gains for what you would otherwise perceive as losses.
A very helpful way to do this is with a behavioral displacement strategy. Use your previous smoking behavior to motivate you to accomplish your new goal. For instance, if you normally smoke at certain times of the day or with a predictable frequency, those are the occasions when you need to fill that time completely with reinforcing behaviors.
When you have that first cup of coffee in the morning, if you also visualize yourself lighting up a cigarette, that's when you must overwhelm yourself with other behaviors. Drink tea instead, or blend yourself some delicious juice concoction, and feed yourself a banana or a sliced orange, or even some favorite jelly on a piece of toast or a muffin. If you smoke in the car on the way to work, take a different route and nibble on a granola bar or drink a bottle of fresh juice or filtered water. Don't think of it as going without smoking, think of it as becoming a new you moving in a new direction.
Sometimes the desire to smoke is so strong and so persistent that you can barely think of anything else. In that case, make yourself a small, pocket-sized chart to keep handy and give yourself reinforcing checkmarks on it. Line off every hour of the day so that everytime you don't smoke, you give yourself a checkmark. As you see those checkmarks accumulate, you'll feel the power of positive reinforcement overcoming the habits of negative conditioning. This is not only an empowering feeling, but a healthy one as well.
Then, channel your positive energies into these new areas. Replace each cigarette that you would have smoked with something that you now do instead; eating some fruit, drinking some juice, having a refreshing glass of filtered water, even flossing or brushing your teeth. Sometimes an even more powerful inducement is to pay yourself for each pack of cigarettes you don't smoke. Pay yourself the equivalent of what you would have spent on cigarettes that you didn't smoke. Commit yourself to spending that money on something that you really want. It could be a new outfit, some new shoes, or even something for the house that you want. In any event, it will be something positive and tangible to replace something negative and vanishing.
And remember that there is always someone to help you on line to set up a replacement strategy or to encourage you when you need it. Asking for help is not a weakness, it's a strategy for success!
We all smoke or have smoked for various reasons: boredom, peer pressure from friends and even parents, social rewards, addictive personality, general self-medication purposes and the most popular culprit: stress. While our reasons to smoke may seem temporary, addictions can last a lifetime.
Taking a deep introspective look inside, identifying our motivations for smoking can be half the battle. Whatever our reasoning may be, it is not worth the long-term effects of tobacco on our lungs. We've only got one pair!
I would like to share some natural remedies I have found to assist me on my quest for longevity. Bearing in mind my desire to both keep costs low and avoid over the counter drugs, I have found several ways to help stay on track.
Lobelia Herb: A powerful relaxant with similar properties of nicotine, Lobeline is the active ingredient found in numerous stop-smoking formulas. Simply a cup of tea using Lobelia herb can also be good for respiratory problems, increased blood flow and general relaxation.
Ginseng:This agent is known to reduce the body's reaction to stressful visual and auditory stimuli. Ginseng helps the brain adapt to stressful situations, thus, lowering the amount of smoking triggers. Try starting with a ginseng root, nibbling and swallowing 1-2 grams when the urge strikes.
Milk Thistle (active ingredient silymarin): Assist your liver in protecting itself from harmful toxins introduced by cigarettes. Suggested dose of 420 milligrams for 6-8 weeks for results.
St. John's Wort (most active ingredient hypericin): Improving your mood during mild to moderate depression, or simply to improve overall unstable emotions, St. John's Wort can get you over the first hump faced by smokers looking to quit. Standardized extracts of St. John's wort are taken in a dose of 300 milligrams three times daily.
In addition to observing good health habits, try to identify your triggers for smoking. For some, this may include switching from coffee to tea, lowering alcohol consumption, eating smaller meals and most imporant, lowering stressful activities and thought patterns.
I wish you the best of luck!
-Happy Lungs
In step 1 (the fact gathering stage) you took notes and entered each day to a spreadsheet.
The next step is to analyze the spreadsheet, identifying the behavior patterns. There are 14 days of data on the spreadsheet. Start with the morning. Note down the time of morning you smoked your first cigarette, and what you were doing. This is important Read more
One of the most important things when you are fighting with a smoking addiction or with any kind of addiction is to be aware of what are the benefits of quitting. If know that smoking cessation is difficult, but it will bring you a lot of advantages, then it will be easier for you to fight your cravings and to keep going until Read more
Every time you go out, you come home with a pack of cigarettes. It’s because your daily routines aren’t keeping you away from the addiction. Start there to make a long term change. These are really convenience stores, because they conveniently are open early and they close late. This means there’s no rush or Read more
I am not a smoker but volunteer at the Veterans hospital near my home. One program the hospital offers wounded veterans is the change to quit smoking. Recovery is hard and the pressure of losing a limb is harder. Working with and helping young veterans recover is rewarding seeing them stop smoking and learn to walk again. The hospital I volunteer at has a unique approach to help veterans stop smoking and overcome their handicaps. I have worked with some of these young men and seen the success the hospital has carried out. I would like to share the steps to recovery with you.
Quitting smoking is a personal goal that one reaches at some point in their life. Deciding to kick the habit is for personal reasons. If you decide to quit it has to be your idea to achieve your goal. Looking back what started you smoking, why did you light the first cigarette? Like so many smokers peer pressures in school. To fit in with the "in crowd" you needed to be like them.
Quitting smoking is not going to be easy we know this. This is a habit and habits are hard to break. Habits form overtime nobody's born with them. For some reason you developed this habit and other ones as you grew older. Now your minds programmed and the first step is changing this program. Like a computer the program carries out commands to run the program. The programmer writes machine language code that tells the CPU what to do. You write your own code telling your brain what to do.
The first step in reprogramming behavior habits identifies the habits. Before anyone can reprogram old habits you have to identify them. Habits come natural to you and performed daily. Identifying these habits and reprogramming them is the first step to achieving your goal. Have you ever stopped smoking only to start again? If you answered yes you did not identify your behavior habits first.
Step 1 identifying your behavior habits
The first step in achieving your goals deals with understanding automatic behavior habits. Each day the routine starts when you wake up. What do you do first? This routine is automatic and comes natural to you. Your pack of cigarettes sites on the nightstand table next to your bed. Wake up and reach for a cigarette, light your cigarette, find the ashtray, go to the kitchen, make coffee, and wake up the children. You have performed this routine for the last fifteen years. The routine is automatic and needs no thinking on your part.
Identifying your behavior habits is the first step in changing them. Each day keep a log of habits performed as a routine. Start with waking up in the morning, coffee, breakfast, work, lunch, and evening routines. Keep the logs for two weeks noting down the time of day and what you did. Note each time you light up a cigarette and what you were doing that caused you to smoke. Be attentive to what you doing during the day. By the end of the week you can start to see a routine forming. By the end of the second week the routine is the same.
The routine programmed into your brain like a set of instructions programmed into a computer. You no longer think about your routine it becomes natural to do this each day. Behavior change is hard and breaking the old routines is harder. To achieve your goals of stop smoking you have to break the pattern. You have to reprogram your way of thinking and redesign your routine.
When writing a program or designing a house the plan is the first stage. Gathering information to form your ideas and thoughts is the first stage. You have thought about quitting for years but each time you try you fail. The addiction and the preprogrammed daily routine stop you from reaching your goals. Programs that aid in helping smokers quit suggest that you write a list of reasons you want to quit. Personally this is good but will not help to solve the problem. To succeed changing the routine that comes natural to you is the first step.
Tonight before going to bed put a notebook and pen beside your bed next to your cigarettes. When you wake up and light your cigarette note down the date and time in the notebook. Continue your log during the day noting down each time you light up a cigarette. Before going to bed create a spreadsheet and enter this information. This can help in tracking and seeing a pattern. As the days follow and the information gathered look at the times you smoked a cigarette. You should start to see patters forming and see that you have to have a cigarette with coffee.
Stage one is the fact gathering stage. Gather facts and analyzed the facts to see the patters they form. Once we understand the patters formed and identified only then change happens. It is hard to change habits programmed into your brain that you have been doing for years. To move to stage two identifying your behavioral habits is first.
The second stage will follow. Each new entry will add one step to the program. I am composing a series of posts in stages to help people stop smoking.
I’ve met fearless smokers who are fully aware of the long term effects of smoking, which include death.
Even that fatal result doesn’t persuade them to quit. But when you consider figuratively dying, remaining quite alive and losing the physical processes that make your heart beat, –your mind may change. After all, we cherish our five senses. We are dependent on them for so much, but Read more