Tips for quitting

Your chances of success are greatly increased by good preparation and effective planning.

Top Five Tips:

1. Start with some pre-preparation by ensuring that you really do want to quit smoking and understanding why you smoke. Are these reasons powerful enough to motivate you when you are faced with those tricky situations? Write down your reasons for quitting.
2. Set yourself a date for quitting. Try and choose a date that will be stress free but when you can find plenty to do to keep yourself busy.
3. Ask your doctor for advice. This is especially important if you have health problems or are concerned about issues such as weight gain.
4. Consider finding yourself a quitting partner e.g. a relative, work colleague or friend. Set a date to quit together and you will be able to give each other support.
5. Tell your family and friends about your intentions. Ask them for their support before you quit and explain that you may not be yourself while experiencing withdrawal. When you reach your quitting date rely on them.

Smoking KILLS. Every year hundreds of thousands will die from their habit. Half of these deaths will occur in middle age. Cigarettes are full of chemicals and poisons. Cigarettes contain over 4,000 chemicals. Tobacco smoke also contributes to a number of cancers. The mixture of nicotine and carbon monoxide in each cigarette you smoke temporarily increases your heart rate and blood pressure, straining your heart and blood vessels. This can cause heart attacks and strokes. It slows your blood flow, cutting off oxygen to your feet and hands. Some smokers end up having their limbs amputated. Tar coats your lungs like soot in a chimney and causes cancer. A 20-a-day smoker breathes in up to a full cup (210g) of tar in a year. Changing to low-tar cigarettes does not help because smokers usually take deeper puffs and hold the smoke in for longer, dragging the tar deeper into their lungs. Carbon Monoxide robs your muscles, brain and body tissue of oxygen, making your whole body and especially your heart work harder. Over time, your airways swell up and let less air into your lungs. Smoking causes disease and is a slow way to die. The strain put on your body by smoking often causes years of suffering. Emphysema is an illness that slowly rots your lungs. People with emphysema often get bronchitis again and again, and suffer lung and heart failure. Lung cancer from smoking is caused by the tar in tobacco smoke. Men who smoke are ten times more likely to die from lung cancer than non-smokers. Heart disease and strokes are also more common among smokers than non-smokers. Smoking causes fat deposits to narrow and block blood vessels, which leads to heart attack.