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Many people began smoking cigarettes because they thought it made them look sophisticated and ‘cool’ or because they succumbed to peer pressure. However, smoking can lead to very poor health and may also increase your chances of getting a terrible disease like breast cancer.

There are a number of myths about smoking. For example, it is generally thought that young men become addicted to smoking faster than young women, but this is not the case. Research has shown that young women tend to adopt the bad habit of cigarette smoking much more quickly than their male counterparts. Studies have also suggested that just being around people who smoke cigarettes brings a higher risk of developing cancer; so-called ‘passive smokers’ even have a higher risk of getting the disease than chain smokers, in fact.

The World Health Organization has associated smoking with over 25 types of cancer, including uterine cancer, kidney, cervical, and pancreatic cancers, and the list grows by the day. Women and nonsmokers have been found to be more prone to breast cancer than any other form. The WHO report indicates that smoking cigarettes is not only damaging to the smoker, but also to the health of people just standing nearby. For women, smoking is synonymous with death because it increases the chance of heart attack and stroke as well as cancer. Their risk increases ten-fold if they are also using birth control medications and smoking.

If you were to list all of the bad effects of smoking you would be involved in a never-ending task. Smokers use cigarettes, happily thinking that this will relax them by easing their stress and tension. However, the unhealthy effects of the smoking are easy to see on the faces of smokers. They have bad breath, yellow teeth, wrinkled skin, and complain of tongue and stomach ulcers.

Children are at greatest risk of picking up the smoking habit. Parents who smoke are providing a terrible example to their children, who often want to follow in the footsteps of their mothers and fathers. Children of smokers can’t tell the difference between what’s good or bad because, from their earliest years, they have been exposed to a bad example.

Smoking cigarettes can also hamper a person’s ability to think clearly. It creates an addiction that is difficult to overcome, and people who smoke always think they need a cigarette to get through any period of tension in their lives.

Even though it is hard to quit smoking because of its additive nature it can be done. Many people do it every day. Researchers say every time you smoke you are inhaling more than 4000 different chemicals. One of the extremely addictive ones is nicotine. It is such a powerful poison that a drop, the size of a pinhead of this toxin, in the blood stream, would kill you instantly.

Nicotine stimulates the central nervous system creating a pleasurable and euphoric sensation that makes the smokers feel so relax. In the meantime, it is paralyzing your nervous system. So to get that same euphoric feeling again, you have to in-crease the amount you smoke. This cycle play over and over again until most likely you are addicted.

Once you become addicted, your body will crave nicotine. Trying to quit smoking causes withdrawal symptoms. Withdrawal symptoms may include nausea, irritability, depression, headache, insomnia, fatigue, and cravings for a cigarette. Withdrawal symptoms should be expected when you are trying to quit smoking. But remember it is only temporary.

In addition to nicotine cigarette smoke also contains the dangerous gas carbon monoxide. Studies show that carbon monoxide has a stronger attraction for red blood cells than oxygen does. Since red blood cells carry oxygen throughout your system, this means that a smoker’s body is being depleted placing additional strain on the heart.

Nicotine coupled with carbon monoxide release fatty acids in the blood stream. This plaque contributes to hardening of the arteries, which may lead to a heart attack, stroke, and other circulatory diseases.

It is not unusual to feel depressed while quitting smoking, but proper nutrients can help you cope with the withdrawal symptoms. Unfortunately, smoking became a habit instead of a choice. It became a part of your lifestyle. Your activities and smoking are so intertwine that you do not even realize you are doing it. As you drink your coffee, read the newspaper, talk on the phone, take a break at work, and socialize you have a cigarette in your hand.

There are so many health problems associated with smoking including: Cancer, Heart Attacks, Cataracts, High Blood Pressure, Impotence, and Ulcers.

Let’s not forget secondhand smoke. Evidence shows that secondhand smoke may be more dangerous than the smoke the smoker inhales. Recent air sampling show that pollutants are more concentrated inside our house than outdoors. Indoor toxicity runs two to five times higher than outside. The effects of constantly breathing impure air in a room that’s polluted with cigarette smoke, even though you are a nonsmoker can lead to lung cancer. Also, if you smoke and your home has high radon levels, your risk of lung cancer is even higher.

Most smokers wish they had never started smoking, but is so hard to quit smoking because they are addicted. In fact some researchers say tobacco is more addictive than heroin and cocaine. Smoking contributes to at least 21% of all heart disease. Quitting now will reduce your risk of heart problems up to 70% in the next four through five years.

In fact you can reap the benefits of not smoking in just 24-hours after your last cigarette. In 1 day your pulse should calm and your blood pressure should return to normal.

There are so many health advantages when you quit smoking.The secret to your success if finding which way is right for you.

Quit Smoking Tips

It is estimated that cravings for a cigarette usually last only 3 to 5 minutes. When the nicotine demon strike try focusing on something else for that small length of time. As you resist, it will become easier as time goes on.

Cut back on junk food, processed, refined, salt, white sugar, white flour, and saturated fat. Get rid of alcohol, coffee, and teas. Only herbal tea is allowed.

Incorporate more vegetables and fruits into your diet. Drinking fruit and vegetable juices have been known to curb cravings.

Drink plenty of pure water that’s free from toxins. This will helps cleanse the system.

When the craving of tobacco comes over you, try reaching for some carrots or celery sticks.

Don’t miss meals eat regularly. This will stabilize your blood sugar until your body is accustomed to being without nicotine.

Get rid of all cigarettes, try to freshen everything that smell of smoke, and make your place smell “smoke free.”

As much as possible stay away from smokers and a smoking atmosphere.

Take long walks in the open air and breathe deeply. This will help strengthen and clear your lungs.

Be determined to quit! Even if you slip don’t throw in the towel.

If smoking, blood pressure, stress and headache were the candidates for Presidential Elections in the US who will win? Make a guess.

Jokes apart…All will lose deposits. No one likes them, for the simple reason that millions are affected by them and suffer on the account of them. They are all most unwanted. You wish to get rid of them but may not actually know it.

High blood pressure which is also known as hypertension in medical terms has affected millions in the US. The estimated figure is 80 million! Many of these, and their number also runs into millions, do not know that they have blood pressure.

The identifiable symptoms of blood pressure are constant headache, difficulty in breathing and feeling dizziness. Smoking is definitely harmful in the state of high or low blood pressure. It is an accepted fact that smoking increases the possibilities of heart attack. The reason is simple enough to understand. Nicotine in cigarette and other tobacco products constrict one’s blood vessels and the heart thus beats faster which is not good for the high blood pressure patients. Further, smoking creates complications in the lungs and in the vascular system.

In fact the thread bare analysis- whether smoking, alcohol, coffee, tea, are good or bad in the condition of blood pressure is meaningless. They are all equally bad. The loyal agents of the dreaded nicotine therefore deserve nothing but condemnation. Any soft attitude towards the products of such classification is not going to help the cause of your health.

And if you are the jack of all trades and are indulged in activities such as drinking coffee, drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes, you are a certain candidate for blood pressure. You also become a possible candidate for future heart attacks and other lung problems!

Stress and headaches are the natural outcome of blood pressure. These three are so closely interrelated that it is difficult to pinpoint which is the direct cause of which disease or imbalance.

Now the question arises how to treat this smoking habit, blood pressure, stress and headache all together? Seemingly they look different, but all of them belong to the same root. So, “positive lifestyle changes” is the only answer!

Your one negative trait may be the cause of several diseases. Similarly one positive trait may be the cure for several diseases. Believe me just one positive lifestyle change may initiate a series of changes in your health. That too all naturally, and for the better!

Nicotine is a highly addictive drug. Once the smoker gets addicted to it, the addiction is difficult to break. Despite the serious health consequences, smokers find it extremely tough to quit smoking.

When you smoke a cigarette, the nicotine level in your body spikes and your body receives an immediate rush of nicotine. As the nicotine level slowly dissipates and then drops below a certain point, your body craves another spike or “hit”, obviously through another cigarette, in order to relieve this craving. For this reason any attempts to quit smoking can be so difficult.

Going cold turkey or relying on willpower to quit smoking most often ends in failure. However, there are medical aids that may make the task a little more bearable, with the most popular ones being those that supply and regulate nicotine in the bloodstream.

The nicotine patch is one of the more popular medical aids for quitting smoking. This nicotine patch is placed on your skin, which then releases a slow and steady stream of nicotine into the bloodstream. Instead of cutting out nicotine instantly from your system, the patch supposedly helps your body adjust slowly to not having spikes in the nicotine level and wean your body gradually off nicotine. As your body adjusts to lower levels of nicotine, the dosage of the patch can be further reduced, until eventually the nicotine level is almost minimal and your body is finally nicotine free.

The patch is also a very strong deterrent against smoking, because if you smoke while on the patch, you could suffer from a potentially lethal nicotine overdose. However, one common problem with the nicotine patch is that because the patch supplies a steady amount of nicotine into your bloodstream, there is no spike or hit, so that some smokers still crave cigarettes for the hit that cigarette provides.

Like the nicotine patch, the nicotine gum works on the same idea. It can be quite effective as it can replicate the nicotine spikes in your bloodstream without you having to smoke cigarettes. You generally hold the nicotine gum in your mouth without chewing, and only chew a couple of times when you desire a hit of nicotine.

Another aid, Zyban, is also a very effective aid in your battle to quit smoking. It does not work by supplying nicotine to the bloodstream, but works by altering the brain chemistry to reduce the desire for smoking. Zyban is usually taken a few weeks before you plan to stop smoking as it takes time for any effect to take place.

Zyban is a prescription drug, so you need to consult with a doctor to be prescribed Zyban. It cannot be taken in combination with other drugs, and may have some side effects such as dizziness, insomnia, dry mouth or even seizures.

To quit smoking takes serious effort, but too many smokers try to quit by relying on sheer willpower, which is extremely hard to do. By using these aids such as the nicotine patch and Zyban, you are making it easier for your body to quit smoking and thus improving your chances of success.

Copyright 2006 Danna Schneider

There are a lot of reasons to quit smoking. We all know the life threatening reasons, but we don’t necessarily understand the the full impact that smoking has on our bodies and minds, and possibly even on others around us.

Women especially are susceptible to some of the more hidden dangers of smoking, and may actually benefit in different ways than men when it comes to smoking cessation.

For example, many women probably do not even know this, but lung cancer is now killing more women every year than breast cancer. That’s right, lung cancer is actually more deadly to a woman than breast cancer, which is by far more talked about in women’s health than lung cancer.

Smoking is the number one cause of lung cancer since nearly 90% of all cases are traced directly to smoking, so it’s important that women really understand the health benefits of quitting smoking.

There are actually a lot more health issues that a woman needs to think about if she is a smoker as well. For example, most contraceptive pills carry warnings on them that the patient should not take the contraceptive birth control pill if she is a smoker.

Her risk of developing heart problems is greatly increased if she is smoking while on the pill, since smoking increases blood pressure, and the pill is known to also increase blood pressure. This creates a double hazard for heart issues.

Another concern may be for a woman’s children. Children many times can develop asthma and other types of breathing problems if the child is exposed to cigarette smoke at a young age. This is also a concern for men, since they are not exempt from this rule either!

There are also a myriad of other health problems, inconveniences and even just “cosmetic” reasons that a woman may want to consider smoking cessation in order that she may be her “best self”.

These don’t necessarily fall into the category of life threatening or imminent dangers, but they certainly can affect your quality of life, as well as your appearance, which is held in high regard in today’s aesthetically concerned society. These additional health and well being benefits to smoking cessation are as follows :

1.) Your skin is greatly affected by smoking, and not in a good way as you can probably imagine. As we age, our skin cell turnover tends to slow down. Smoking actually speeds the process of this slower turnover up, making us essentially age faster.

Add to this the fact that smoking essentially robs our body of oxygen and creates more free radicals, which are skin’s number one enemy and aging’s number one comrade, and you have a recipe for accelerated aging, and sagging, colorless skin.

Most women see a marked improvement in the tone, clarity and firmness of their skin just a few weeks after they quit smoking, especially if they were a heavy smoker.

2.) Your teeth and mouth will thank you. Smoking not only gives you bad breath, but it also turns your teeth yellow, or sometimes even brown from nicotine residue and tabacco staining.

3.) Quitting smoking can greatly help with your mental state. What do I mean? I mean that smoking may seem at first like it is a relaxant, since it tends to immediately feel like it is relieving tension and anxiety once the cigarette is in your mouth and you begin to inhale. Contrary to this belief that cigarettes “calm” you, studies have shown that in the long run smoking actually increases anxiety.

We all know that depression and anxiety tend to go hand in hand, so quitting smoking may also greatly benefit a woman’s psyche.

4.) No more coughing, weezing, and possibly even a reduction in allergies. If you quit smoking, chances are you will breathe a lot easier.

It takes a lot less time for your lungs to heal than you think. Studies have shown that even the most blackened smoker’s lungs have made full recoveries within just a few months after they have quit smoking.

“A stitch in time, saves nine,”–what are those nine savings I do not know. But, I know one thing for certain that right things done at the right time, save you lots of trouble. Any problem of the human beings needs to be treated at three levels. Physical level, mental level and intellectual level. Intelligent counseling targets the intellectual levels of an individual. If done at the appropriate time, it will give results. Anti smoking counseling, is one of the surest medical services, that has capacity to chisel a new man, out of the nicotine addict.

The preventive methods, unfortunately do not reach the entire targeted audience Which means, the profit rate of counseling is as not much as it is expected to be. “These gaps in care should be closed for the benefit of everyone,” said Dr. Jeffrey Koplan, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which sponsored the study. The study is published in the July issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

When you are stressed in life,cigarettes pose as if they are your friends. But are they really? Are they capable of de -stressing you permanently? The answer is in the negative. Nicotine addiction temporarily sedates you. Stress pounces on you with vendetta again. The funniest part of the smoking process, is that even when you smoke, you know that you are not happy to smoke.

Openly declare your intention to quit smoking with your close friends, both smokers and non-smokers,and your family members. You are sure get support from your family members.

The gentlemen smoker friends will stop offering you the cigarettes. If you drink alcohol, try to give it up. At times, it may be counter productive. It may weaken your resolve to quit smoking. The carvings for the cigarette intensify. But this is one of those situations which you have to undergo and sort out with resolute will power.

In the process to quit smoking, do not hesitate to make your best smoker friends, your temporary best enemies. You are undergoing one of the crisis period in your life. Some of them will understand, as not all of them are happy smokers. They too wish to give up, but they do not know, how to give it up. If you are successful, you will have to do the act of counseling to many many others.

Addiction to tobacco has assumed alarming propositions today in the world. So health advice, and anti smoking counseling are the items of priority, before any health authority.

The need to give anti-tobacco advise at the formative stage of life of the younger generation is bound to give highly beneficial results.

Everyone knows the ill effects of smoking. From kids to adults, everyone is aware of the health hazards that smoking causes. Yet smokers find it hard to give up this habit. This is probably because of nicotine, the addictive substance found in cigarettes. The ill effects of smoking are numerous; thus, one must adopt a planned method to quit smoking. Here are some tips that can help you to quit:

1. First, make up your mind. Honor your commitment and get yourself registered in a smoke-quitting program or visit a counselor or hypnotherapist;

2. Make a list of the reasons why you want to quit smoking and go through it every time you crave a cigarette;

3. Write 10 good things about smoking and 10 bad things about smoking. You’ll notice the difference in the good and the bad. This helps a lot;

4. Buy yourself a nicotine inhaler or Zyban. This will make it a bit easier to give up smoking;

5. Get audiotapes and books related to quitting smoking. Read them and enlighten yourself about all the ill effects of smoking;

6. Consult your doctor if you face seizures or any other complications;

7. Get your friends and family to support you and help you give up smoking;

8. Try to eat fruits, chewing gum, lollipops, hard candy or cinnamon sticks if the urge to smoke arises. Try replacing nicotine with other non-addictive stuff like beer nuts or corn muffins;

9. Keep your mind occupied with creative activities such as knitting, embroidery or carpentry. Take a brisk walk, go for a swim or some other physical activity. This will help to keep your mind off smoking;

10. You may gain some weight while trying to quit smoking. This is because people tend to feel hungry initially when trying to give up smoking. However, this minor problem can be easily handled through regular exercise;

11. In the first few days after quitting, drink plenty of water. This washes away the nicotine and other harmful toxins from your body;

12. Give up coffee and other carbonated drinks when you quit smoking;

13. Ask people around you to stop inviting you to go out for a smoke. This will not only help you to deal with the craving for a cigarette, but give you somebody to talk to about how hard quitting is;

14. Take long deep breaths every time you feel like smoking. When you slowly inhale, feel the fresh air reach deep inside you. While exhaling, feel all the stress and tensions leave your body. Let your chin rest on your chest and relax;

15. Remember, all cravings last only five minutes. If you succeed in diverting your mind for five minutes, you can give up smoking.

You won’t die if you don’t smoke. So never give up when you badly feel like smoking. Make it happen, give up cigarettes and live a long and healthy life.

One of the presuppositions of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) is that there is a positive intention behind all behaviors. And based on that presupposition, when it comes to successfully eliminating negative behaviors, there is formula that we must always keep in mind. I’ll let you in on the secret in a minute. But first, I have a riddle for you to solve.

Riddle: A minister made his son drink lye, which burned out his vocal chords. What was the positive intention behind his behavior?

If you are like 99.9% of the clients who have come into my office since 1978, you’ll indignantly say something like: There’s no positive intention behind that behavior. But you would be 100% wrong. To answer this riddle, first you have to separate the behavior from the positive intention of the behavior.

The minister’s son was cursing. And the minister believes that if a person curses, his soul will be condemned to Hell. So the answer is that the minister was burning out his son’s voice box so that he couldn’t curse. So he was saving his son’s soul from being condemned to Hell.

The secret formula for success works as follows:
We must always respect the positive intent behind every behavior. If we have a compulsion to use a behavior that we don’t like, we can easily get rid of the compulsion to use that behavior providing we find another behavior to substitute in it’s place that is as effective and available at accomplishing the same outcome, but is more consciously acceptable to you. This is called a REFRAME.

When clients come into my office, one of the first things that I do is to take a through case history. Let’s say that they come in and ask me to help them overcome their appetite. Conventional wisdom tells us that the two main reasons that people eat excessively are:

(1) For relaxation and pleasure;

(2) Because eating can be a conditioned response. For instance, if a person eats while they are watching TV, they will develop a conditioned response, and thereafter, every time they sit down to watch TV, they’ll get cravings and an urge to eat.

However, the above answer only takes into consideration the possible positive intention behind the eating behavior. What if they also have another behavior that is involved in the equation? For example: What if being fat is also a behavior for this person? I can hear your mind grinding right now as you think, Being fat isn’t a behavior, what are you talking about?”

Sorry but you could be 100% wrong. Here is one simple classic text book example that will illustrate the fact that being fat can be a behavior. It can be a behavior because it can accomplish positive outcomes.

Example: A woman is deeply in love. Her boyfriend breaks up with her, and breaks her heart. Her unconscious mind wants to protect her emotionally and prevent her from having her heart broken again. So it motivates her to get fat to keep her out of relationships. That way she won’t get her heart broken again. The point is that everyone is totally different. And sometimes there are hidden elements at work causing compulsive behaviors. These are elements that are different for each person.

Here is another example: A woman comes into my office complaining of an uncontrollable urge to overeat at dinner time. During my case history, upon questioning, the woman explains how she was never been able to satisfy her father.

We did an age regression, and one of her earliest memories was of eating dinner with the family. And dad was insisting in a very loud voice that she clean her plate, even though she was full. So she cleaned her plate out of fear, and dad commended her for eating everything. It was one of the only times in her life that she could recall her dad telling her that he was happy with her.

Shoot forward to present day. Dad’s been dead for years, but the unconscious program he installed is still working. She still has a compulsion to clean her plate, even if she is feeling stuffed, because by cleaning the plate she is getting dad’s approval, and eliminating her fear!

So if you are having a problem making personal changes, keep in mind that there is a positive intention behind all behaviors. And keep in mind “The secret formula for success.”

© 2006 By Alan B. Densky.

Smoking is one of those bad habits that are really hard to break and yet smoking can have a devastating impact on your health and your family life. If you are going to learn to break any habit stop smoking and fix your health and your marriage all in one go.

Bad habits are controlling and rule your life, how many times have you promised to give up smoking and yet here you are still throwing money down the drain in pursuit of death!

You may not care how long you live and you may not care that your clothes and your house stink of smoke but what about your partner and your family. Is it fair to make your children breath in the smoke that you throw in their direction even if it’s just off your clothes? What about your partner, there are many petty habits that I would agree your spouse may just have to learn to live with but smoking is in a completely different league. By continuing to smoke you are showing a lack of care towards your family by the shear fact that you are prepared to go to your grave years early, perhaps missing your children grow up and leaving your partner alone just because you are not prepared to take one little step and learn how to break the smoking habit.

I admit that giving up smoking isn’t easy but it can be done, with a little effort and determination you can break any habit.

The evidence against smoking is mounting and along side the evidence of the real harm smoking can cause is the increasing social disapproval of smoking.

You might believe it doesn’t matter that death is a long way off but the older you get the quicker life passes you by and all too soon you wish you had broken the smoking habit years before.

I lost my mother in law to lung cancer a few years back. She was an otherwise healthy individual who enjoyed life to the full. Smoking destroyed her final years and significantly cut short her life. Once she understood that there was more to life than smoking it was too late to for her to break the habit. She left behind an adoring husband and family and her husband now has to see out a good many of his final years alone.

Take it from me, now is the time to stop smoking, not next week, next month or next year. Break the habit now, stop smoking today and if you can’t do it alone, and many people can’t, get help.

It is now a fact that smoking harms nearly every organ of the body, causing many diseases and reducing the health of smokers in general. It is also a fact that quitting smoking has immediate as well as long–term benefits. Smoking cigarettes with lower machine-measured yields of tar and nicotine provides no clear benefit to health.

Cigarette smoking causes lung cancer. In fact, smoking tobacco is the major risk factor for lung cancer. People who smoke are 10 to 20 times more likely to get lung cancer or die from lung cancer than people who do not smoke. The longer a person smokes and the more cigarettes smoked each day increases the risk for developing lung cancer.

People who quit smoking have a lower risk of lung cancer than if they had continued to smoke, but their risk is higher than people who never smoked.

You Can Quit Smoking! If you have tried to quit you know how hard it can be and the reason is that nicotine is a very addictive drug. Usually people make two or three tries before they successfully quit. Each time you try to quit and fail, you can learn what works for you and what situations are problematic. If you use proven cessation treatments it can double your chance of success.

Studies have shown that these five steps will help you quit and quit for good. You have the best chances of quitting if you use them together.

First set a quit date and get rid of all cigarettes, ashtrays and lighters. Don´t let people smoke around you. When you quit, don´t smoke at all! Not one single puff or cigarette.

Second – get support from telling your family and friends. Tell your co-workers that you are going to quit and want their support. Ask them not to smoke around you or offer you cigarettes. Talk to your health care provider and get individual, group, or telephone counseling. The more help you have, the better your chances are of quitting.

Third – learn new skills and behaviors so you distract yourself from urges to smoke. Talk to someone, go for a walk, or get busy with a task. When you first try to quit, change your routines. Use a different route to work and drink tea instead of coffee. Eat breakfast in a different place. Drink a lot of water and other fluids.

Fourth – Medications can help you stop smoking and lessen the urge to smoke. The FDA has approved six medications to help you quit smoking and a couple of them, like Nicotine gum, are available over-the-counter. Your health care provider can advice and you should also carefully read the information on the package. These medications will double your chances of quitting and quitting for good.

Fifth – You shall be prepared for relapse and difficult situations. Most relapses occur within the first three months after quitting. Don’t be discouraged if you start smoking again. Remember, most people try several times before they finally quit. The following are some difficult situations you may encounter:

Avoid drinking alcohol. Drinking lowers your chances of success. Being around smoking can make you want to smoke. Many smokers will gain some weight when they quit, usually less than 10 pounds. Eat a healthy diet and stay active.