Stop Smoking 101 - What Happens After You Quit Smoking

Most smokers who plan to quit smoking wish that they will get an immediate restoration of health when they shake off their tobacco dependence. However, this is not exactly what happens after you quit smoking.

Your body has been conditioned by years and years of smoking to literally depend on nicotine for sustenance. Naturally, it might take a while before it acclimatizes itself to a healthier you. Here are the real facts as to what happens after you quit smoking.

Within 24 Hours

The minute that you stop reaching for the cigarette, your body starts to repair itself, one cell at a time. In fact, your heart rate drops about twenty minutes after your last cigarette. About half a day later, the carbon monoxide level in your blood would return to normal.

Within 3 Months

If you continue such a treatment for the next few weeks, you will notice that you can actually smell things better. Smoking has a way of desensitizing your sense of smell, dulling it so that you yourself do not know how awful the stench of exhaled smoke is.

With that you can also breathe deeper, and can now distinguish between lung filling breath and diaphragm filling breath. This is something which you could not achieve during your smoking days. This is due to the fact that the cells of your lungs are knitting themselves up to pre-smoking conditions. Airways are becoming more open to non-nicotine laced breaths, capillaries become less constrained and the cilia or the hair-like fibres surrounding the respiratory organs begin to grow again.

Also, your blood pressure will show dramatic reduction as well as your body temperature. It is said that the moment you stop smoking, you decrease your chances of both a heart attack and stroke by almost 50%. Finally, after only a few months of not smoking, your taste buds would have fully recovered, and this will finally allow you to taste food as it is. When a person smokes, his taste buds become numbed with the nicotine. Losing your sense of smell during this time also contributes to the loss of your taste buds.

Within 1 Year

Your reward after a year without smoking is that your coughing and shortness of breath will be a thing of the past. At the same time, your risk of cancer and other smoking-related diseases will decrease and will continue as long as you keep your distance away from cigarettes.

Now The Bad News

Some people relapse into the habit again because of the seemingly negative consequences of quitting smoking. For one thing, there is always the withdrawal period where the body craves for nicotine. Some symptoms of nicotine withdrawal are dryness of the throat, excessive coughing, shaking (particularly of the hands), alternate periods of extreme chilling and sweating, and more.

Some quit smoking withdrawal symptoms are heavily dependent on your current state of health and for how long you have been addicted to smoking. There are some people who have even claimed to experience regular bouts of lethargy and compulsion to eat excessively. This is because nicotine has the tendency to excite some cells of the body into repressing the normal insulin and glucose production.

If you remove the nicotine from the equation, these cells go on hyper drive, producing both insulin and glucose to a level that is above normal. This makes you feel both deprived of energy at all times, but hungry at the same time. It will take a few weeks or months to get your body to produce normal levels of insulin and glucose.

Now that you know what happens after you quit smoking, you should be better prepared for the symptoms and as such, stand a better chance of quitting. After all, the benefits of not smoking far out weigh the cost of smoking.

Download your copy of The Truth About Smoking [http://www.tipstoquitsmoking.net] and discover the facts behind smoking. Plus, you can also get the latest updates and resources on quit smoking at our Tips To Quit Smoking blog at [http://www.tipstoquitsmoking.net] which will help you or your loved ones stop smoking today!

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Quit Smoking, Age Well & Live Longer.

Six Reasons to Quit Smoking

1. Quit smoking to age well.

People who smoke tend to have more wrinkles than people who don't and their skin often looks unhealthy. Worse than these mere esthetique reasons to give up this habit, smoking can be a real danger to your health.

2. Quit smoking to avoid hardening of the arteries

Smoking injures blood vessels and this can lead to hardening of the arteries. Smoking filters, or filtered cigarettes have limited effect. Smoking is bad for anyone, especially those with high blood pressure. After one year smoke free, you reduce your risk of heart attack, so you have a lot to gain by giving up this dangerous habit. And if you don't smoke, don't start, because the habit is hard to kick

3. Quit Smoking to avoid heart attack or stroke

Because smoking clogs the arteries, if you give up the habit it will reduce your chances of having a heart attack or stroke. Quitting will also reduce your chance of developing a lung disease, such as emphysema and lung cancer.

4.Quit Smoking to Feel Well

You will feel fitter and be less out of breath after effort, less likely to suffer coughing fits, and generally feel fitter and have more energy.

5. Quit Smoking to Become More Attractive

You are likely to become more attractive to the opposite sex. For one thing smoking causes wrinkles and grey, pasty skin- so you will look younger and healthier if don't smoke. You will also smell more wholesome. Your clothes, and hair, as well as your home, office car will smell better and kissing you will no longer resemble kissing an ashtray.

6. Quit Smoking to Protect Your Loved-Ones

Your children and others, who have been exposed to your smoking habit, will have less upper respiratory problems and they are less likely to smoke when they get to their teens.

Tips to Help You Rise to the Challenge

* Try and figure out what makes you want to smoke. If it is stress related, enroll in a meditation or soprology course and learn how to breathe deeply when the need for a cigarette challenges your will power. Drink a glass of cold, fresh water if the breathing doesn't help or go out for a walk, If your desire to smoke increases when you drink alcohol, try to avoid drinking alcohol till you've kicked your smoking habit. If your desire to smoke increases after a relaxing meal, make sure you schedule an activity right after dinner, to distract you.
* Pick a target date to quit and try to stick to it. Throw out all your cigarettes, lighters, ashtrays and other smoking related items and try and avoid social events where people smoke and friends who smoke for the first few weeks. Enlist a (non smoking) member of the family to help. They love you and will have probably been worried about the risks you have been exposing yourself to. The admiration of those you love and your friends and colleagues for your strength of character will increase if you meet this challenge. Keep this in mind when you think you are going to fail.
* Being more active will distract you from smoking and even cut down your desire to smoke. Take up running with a group of friends, Nordic walking or hiking to fill your lungs with clean fresh air. Eat healthy snacks or chew gum, take up knitting or making things when it's too cold or rainy to go outside or join a gym and head there when the urge to smoke becomes too strong.
* Unfortunately, you might experience withdrawal symptoms like headaches, constipation, irritability and trouble concentrating and be tired and slightly depressed. Luckily these symptoms will lesson and usually be over within four to six weeks if you persevere. Put the money you are saving from not smoking and treat yourself to something you have wanted for some time as a reward for your determination and self-control.

If you find quitting too difficult ask your doctor for help. There are nicotine patches and gum, as well as other medicines that can help you fight this dirty and dangerous habit.

http://www.age-well.org/
Strategies on aging well including healthy nutrition, regular exercise, the prevention of age-related diseases, and ways to maintain an alert mind and brain.

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Finally Decided to Stop Smoking? Tips to Make Your Journey As Smooth As Possible

Have you made the decision to finally quit smoking? If so then congratulations! I'm sure it was not an easy decision to make but you have done the right thing. No One said it would be easy. But in the long run it will definitely be worth it.

Here are some helpful tips for staying on the right track and managing withdrawal

Tip #1- Join a support group

Nicotine anonymous is a very well known 12 step program. Joining will enable you to be around people who are going through the same experience and will make it easier for you to stay on the right path. If you are like many people and do not have time to go to meetings then you have the option of joining groups and forums online. There are an abundance of these forums where you can find the support and encouragement you need for people who are going through similar experiences.

Tip # 2- Keep lots of healthy snacks around

For a lot of people when they quit smoking they develop an insatiable appetite. They see food as a replacement for cigarettes and tend to overeat. Nicotine acts as an appetite suppressant. So naturally when you get off the nicotine your hunger will rise substantially. It is very important especially in the first few weeks to eat sensibly. Do not over eat or you will feel the impact on your waste line. Keep a good amount of healthy snacks such as celery carrots, fruits and vegetables to munch on whenever you feel hungry or like you are having a nicotine craving.

Tip # 3 - Drink lots of water

Drinking an adequate amount of water has a very positive impact on the body. Not only will it keep you hydrated but, drinking a sufficient amount of water everyday will help flush out the build up of toxins smoking has caused your body. Drinking more water will enable your body as a whole will feel better and will aid in making the withdrawal process more bearable.

Quitting Smoking is not easy. In fact you have a long road ahead of you as it is a life long battle. But staying on the right track will have a tremendous effect on your health and quality of life in the long run. Just remember: With death comes rebirth. The death of this bad habit has given you a chance at a new life. Make the most of it.

Rita Harmon is wife to a loving husband Tom and a mom to three beautiful children Eva, Sam, and David.

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To Stop Cigarettes From Controlling Your Life, Try This New Technique

Do you want to stop cigarettes from running and ruining your life? Of course you do. I am sure you are aware of the health benefits of quitting smoking. But sometimes this knowledge is not enough. You need a technique to help you quit smoking once and for all.

Cigarette smoking is devastating to every aspect of your health. Most smokers already know this but they still continue to smoke. Many smokers struggle to quit trying time and again to kick their smoking habit only to light up again after a month, a week, even a day. They want so badly to stop smoking but they just cannot seem to do it. Why is this?

Smoking addiction is a two headed monster: physical addiction and psychological cravings. Your body builds an addiction to nicotine as you continue to smoke. You also develop a mental addiction to the actual act of smoking and everything it means to you.

The physical addiction to nicotine actually passes within less than a week. As nicotine passes out of your system your physical addiction subsides. Breaking the physical addiction to nicotine is, surprisingly, the easy part of quitting smoking.

Breaking the psychological cravings to smoking can be much harder. Smoking weaves its way into the fabric of your life. It becomes a habit that you associate with many actions and emotions that are part of your life. After you quit smoking you will go somewhere or experience an emotion that will make your subconscious whisper, or sometimes even scream to you: "Hey, it's time to have a cigarette!" This is the moment that causes most smokers to reach for a cigarette again.

But there is a technique that can help to quiet the voice of your subconscious. You can go through your life as an ex-smoker never experiencing the psychological cravings to smoke.

This technique is called NLP, or Neuro Linguistic programming. It is a therapy technique that has been around for decades. Recently it has been applied as a stop smoking method with great results. NLP works by targeting and destroying the mental cravings, or urges, to smoke. Once these cravings are gone quitting smoking actually becomes very easy. You can go about your business without that pesky voice in your head telling you it is time for a cigarette.

In a recent study, 5,000 smokers used an NLP technique targeted to help them quit smoking. Six months later 97.2% of them were still smoke-free. That success rate is incredible compared to other stop smoking aids or medications.

NLP is a great way to stop cigarettes because it is an all natural technique with no side effects associated with stop smoking medications. NLP techniques can be practiced in your own home with the use of a simple audio session.

I have recommended NLP to many smokers as a way to stop cigarettes from controlling their lives. They have all been amazed at how easy it was to quit smoking with NLP. Many of them told me they never thought it could be so easy to stop smoking, that their desire to smoke had simply disappeared.

Now it is your turn to kick your smoking habit easily and permanently with NLP. Visit http://www.stop-smoking-method.info to learn the most successful NLP based technique to quit smoking. Do not let cigarettes control your life for one more day. Stop smoking today with NLP.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Trevor_Green