I had been dealing with the idea of ‘trying to quit’ for sometime now. Was down to about a cigarette a day for over 2 months; but still couldn’t feel much progress in my endeavour to finally quit. Until I found this video that made me understand the product – it’s nature and it’s effects that triggered a much needed change. I wrote this extract afterwards. Read on-
Why do I want to stop smoking ?
The day I started smoking I never thought that it would be something that would become such an important part of my life. Moreover, I always thought that in a few weeks, or a few months or few years I would be able to let go off it. But look at the stats –
Yes I have started to like smoking now. And the point is that its been a part of my life for the past 7 years. But now I think that I have to part ways with it. There will always be a situation where a reasoning might pop up and I would be convinced to smoke but I have to make myself remember the following.
‘Cigarette smoking is a chemical, physiological and mental exercise’
Chemical: Nicotine levels drop within body after half an hour after the act of smoking. This leads to withdrawal like a hard drug in which mind instructs the body to refill the level of nicotine in the body. Thats why there is craving and withdrawal.
Physiological: Smoking habit starts with 1 cigarette, then moves on to more and more. This is because the ability of the body to digest nicotine rises as in the efficiency rises. This also means that metabolism could seem better when one is smoking and there could be a case where it might drop during the few days after you quit smoking. So weight gain could seem to be one problem; that could also be related to oral probation and eating much. So one needs to keep up moderate exercise and watch diet as much as possible.
Mental: Cigarette smoking for me seemed to be like a relationship. It seemed like a way to cut out loneliness. Yes its an emotional response system that has been developed over a period of years. But one needs to keep in mind the stress factor which is the most important one. There is a tendency to feel a trigger point when stress is encountered. There is a scientific reason for that – stress makes the urine more acidic. This makes the nicotine excretion from the body fast and the withdrawal is there thus it creates more craving.
It’s just that whenever there is stress and you feel an urge to smoke you could remember these things:
- I don’t want to spend money on this habit anymore
- Not at all going to feel like contributing to tobacco companies – they have a death wish product out in the market and I have been promoting its consumption for 7 years now!
Link to the video:
