Tips on Stopping Smoking

This article gives you tips on stopping smoking. Breaking the smoking habit has the same steps or stages as breaking any other habit. The first five steps are in preparation of quitting, building up to the day of cessation and the last step is putting it in action.

1. Recognizing the habit, as a habit.
2. Develop solid reasons to change and keep these reasons in the forefront of your mind.
3. Recognizing the triggers or patterns that start the behavior in motion.
4. Interrupting the pattern or cycle early in it's process.
5. Discovering and developing a replacement process.
6. Performing the replacement process or processes until the unwanted habit is gone.

Stopping Smoking

Think back to the first cigarette you ever had. Where were you? What were you doing? Who was with you? What was the weather like? What did it feel like? Chances are that you were young, maybe a teenager, maybe younger. You were sneaking a smoke, defying your parents. It felt good to do something on your own. It felt good to be with friends, or at least people your own age.
That first puff made you gag, but you weren't going to admit it. You didn't want to look bad in front of your friends. After a few puffs it wasn't so bad. You started to feel different, maybe light headed or dizzy. That was cool, different.

You started smoking more. The sensations made you forget your problems for a while. It felt good to be part of a group and out from under your parents.

Then you smoked by yourself, you didn't need the group to smoke. Soon the physical dependance or addiction set in. And you've got yourself a solid 2 prong habit. A physical addiction and an ingrained pattern of behavior. Stopping smoking requires that you overcome these patterns.

With every puff, you tell yourself "I'm a smoker". If you smoke a pack a day, with 20 cigarettes and 20 puffs per cigarette, That's 400 times per day you're reinforcing the habit. That's a strong habit to break, so don't beat yourself up if you backslide. A single slip is no reason to go back to full puffing. Just try to keep moving forward. Try again. And again. And again. work through all these steps to assist you in stopping smoking.

Reasons to stop smoking

I'm sure you can come up with lots of reasons for stopping smoking. But what reasons really mean something to you? I'll list many here. I hope some of these can inspire you to come up with your own. Your own will mean more to you than anything I can say. Make it personal with the use of my instead of something remote. For example, "Reduce MY chance of heart disease" instead of "reduce the chance of heart debases". Include more than just avoiding bad health, put some positive reason in there too like saving money for the trip to Europe. The stick motivates, but the carrot motivates better.

Health

• To reduce my chance of heart disease.
• To improve my breathing.
• To be able to jog.
• To reduce damage to my lungs.
• So I can live longer.
• To reduce my chance of getting cancer.
• The benefits of stopping smoking far outweigh the drawbacks of adding a few extra pounds. You'd have to gain a very large amount of weight to offset the many substantial health benefits that a normal smoker gains by quitting cigarettes.

Environment

• To improve the smell of my clothes and home.
• To improve the smell and taste of food.
• To reduce my contribution to pollution of the world.
• To improve the look of my teeth.
• To improve the smell of my breath.

Family and Friends

• To reduce the worry of my family and friends about my health.
• To be with my family and friends longer.
• To reduce the risk of my being a burden on my family and friends because I can't walk far enough to go shopping.
• To be a better role model by stopping smoking.

Financial

• To spend less of my hard earned money on something that is killing me.
• To save money for a trip to Europe.

Imagine yourself in the future if you don't succeed in stopping smoking. In 5 years, what will you look like? What will your health be like? How do you feel? Tired? Worn out? What will you be able to do? Did you have a stroke of heart attack? Repeat the process for 10 years out. 15 years.

Now imagine yourself in the future if you DO succeed in stopping smoking. In 5 years, what will you look like? What will your health be like? How do you feel? Energetic? What will you be able to do? Walk a mile? Run a Marathon? Repeat the process for 10 years out. 15 years.

Lock your reasons for stopping smoking and the view of your healthy self into your mind. Keep them there as much as possible. Post some on your bathroom mirror, your refrigerator, your coffee pot, the steering wheel of your car. When ever you want a cigarette, bring all of these things to mind.

Triggers

Stopping smoking requires knowing why you smoke now. What are your triggers? What patterns of smoking have you established? Think about it. Every time you light up think about what came just before. Do you light up every time you get up in the morning? Do you have a cigarette with your morning coffee? Do you smoke after every meal? Do you crave a smoke when things get tense? Do you use smoking to help you relax or to think?

You can keep a diary of your smoking to help you with determining your triggers. Don't assume you know them all. Can your recall each and every cigarette you smoked yesterday? When was it? What were you doing? Who were you with? How were you feeling? What made you light up?

Put a card in your pocket or your pack of cigarettes to ask yourself why do you need THIS cigarette? Discover all your triggers to help you in stopping smoking.

Interrupt the pattern

Smoking is an automatic habit or response. In actually stopping smoking you must interrupt the automated response. Make yourself aware of each cigarette by using the opposite hand or putting cigarettes in an unfamiliar location or a different pocket to break the automatic reach.

Put a Popcycle stick, nail file or something else in your cigarette pack to remind you to think about what you are doing. Why you are doing it.

The foreign object in your cigarette pack reminds you to interrupt the pattern. Stop and think about what you were doing when you reached for the pack. Were you upset? Sleepless? Tense? Bored?
Here are some more strategies to interrupt the automatic process and assist you in stopping smoking.

Every time you smoke, give yourself over to the experience fully. Watch your motions as you draw out the cigarette, put in your mouth, light the lighter and bring it to the end of the cigarette. Watch the flame as it's sucked into the end of the cigarette. Watch the glow of the tip of the cigarette. Feel the smoke and heat being drawn into your lungs, then exhaled out your mouth and/or nose. Where is the cigarette as you exhale? What does your body feel? your head? your eyes? your nose? your stomach? Your arms? Do you tilt your head? Hunch your shoulders?
This is what is called a mindfulness exercise to bring the act of smoking from the unconscious / automatic process to the forefront of your actions, into your conscious awareness. It also can help you gain insight into what it really does to you. Does it make you think clearly? or just give you a chance to take a break? Does it make it hard to breathe? Does it smell? Does it burn?

Change brands often so you can associate negative responses with smoking. Most people like to smoke the brand they are used to and not any other. But if you don't change often, you could get used to the new brand.

Put your pack somewhere inconvenient. Leave it in the car instead of your purse or pocket. Put your carton on a shelf where you need a ladder. Or put it in the basement, so you have to go downstairs to get more.

Enjoy having a clean-mouth taste and maintain it by brushing your teeth frequently and using a mouthwash.

Continue to replacement processes.