3 questions you should ask yourself before you try to quit smoking

You may have gone out and bought some nicotine gum. You may have made sure that it’s not going to be a stressful week at work. You might even have thrown away all your cigarettes and ashtrays. But are you really ready to quit smoking?

There are many reasons to quit, but if you are not doing it for the right reasons, you have a very slim chance of stopping smoking for good. Nicotine replacement therapies like nicotine gums and patches can help you kick the physical habit, but you will still need a certain level of mental fortitude in order to stop smoking for good. If you are quitting for the right reasons – this mental attitude will come easily. If you are quitting for the wrong reasons your chances of long-term success are slim..

If you answer yes to the following three questions, you are ready to quit:

1. Are you quitting for yourself – not because of pressure from someone else?
2. Have you chosen a date when you want to quit by?
3. Have you thought about what it will be like when you are a non-smoker?

And here’s why these three questions are important:

Are you quitting for yourself?

We all like to feel we are altruistic people willing to make sacrifices for others. However, when it comes to nicotine withdrawal, our brain can be a compulsive devil on our shoulder full of “well one can’t hurt”, “we’ll start tomorrow properly”, “I’ll only smoke half” advice. Deep down we programmed to look after number 1. The thing we care about most is ourselves (hopefully). You need to be quitting for yourself in order to be able to combat the little “cravings devil” on your shoulder. If you are quitting for someone else, your defenses against cravings are weakened because your self-protection mechanisms are not fully engaged.

Have you chosen a date to quit by?

Until you have, all your plans are wishy-washy. You need a goal. You need to write this quit date down and look at it every day until you quit. This technique has proven itself through many successful who have written goals down – then gone on to achieve them. If you don’t believe me, do a web search for “write down your goals”.

Have you thought about what it is like as a non-smoker?

If you answered yes to this question it indicates two things.

1) You are employing visualization to achieve your goal. Visualisation of your goals is another powerful tactic that many successful people have proven to work. You can create an online vision board that will help you encapsulate your goals and your life after smoking. It sounds whacky, but it works.

2) You are thinking deeply about quitting and its consequences. You are mentally further down the road to quitting than someone who is just thinking about the act of quitting. You are kind of pre-acclimatising yourself to life after cigarettes and this gives you an added chance of succeeding.

Which ever method of quitting you choose, the above questions hold true. If you choose to quit using nicotine gum or patches, you will need to be mentally ready to fend off psychological cravings once the nicotine replacement therapy has dealt with the physical cravings. If you chose to go to hypnotherapy, being in the right frame of mind can drastically affect its results.

If you do not answer yes to the above questions, don’t worry. Hopefully this article has given you some insight into the mindset you need to achieve in order to quit for good. All you need to do is go away and re-assess your reasons and timelines for quitting. One day you will be smoke free, healthy and happy.

The Damage Smoking Does

Penile Disfunction

Your penis can be shorter and not work correctly if you smoke:

• Smoking can reduce the length of your erect penis. Smoking damages blood vessels reducing blood flow to the penis. Reduced blood flow leads to increased collagen formation and a reduced level of elastin in the penis. Elastin is the tissue that lets you penis expand to its full length.
• Smoking can also effect your ability to get it up, and keep it up. Smoking damages the blood vessels leading to the penis reducing the bloodflow that pumps into the penis to make it erect. Also, nicotine in the brain can cause penile tissue to spasm, further reducing blood to your penis. Lastly, the valve that traps the blood in your penis can be impaired if you have nicotine in the blood stream – letting the blood leak out and making your erection softer.
• Smoking also damages your sperm. It can reduce the number of sperm you produce, the sperm may be an abnormal shape and they will not be able to swim as far.

Stop smoking today

Heart Disease

Smoking increases the likelyhood that you will have heart disease:

• People who smoke a pack of cigarettes a day have more than twice the risk of heart attack than non-smokers.
• Women who smoke and also take birth control pills increase several times their risk of heart attack, stroke and peripheral vascular disease.
• Cigarette smoking increases the risk of coronary heart disease by itself. When it acts with other factors, like a poor diet, it greatly increases risk.
• Smoking increases blood pressure, decreases exercise tolerance and increases the tendency for blood to clot. Smoking also increases the risk of recurrent coronary heart disease after bypass surgery.
• Studies show that cigarette smoking is an important risk factor for stroke. Inhaling cigarette smoke produces several effects that damage the cerebrovascular system.
• 105,000 people in the UK die from coronary heart disease each year.

Stop smoking and lower your chances of dying of heart disease

Lung Cancer

Lung cancer is the 2nd most common cancer in the United Kingdom.

• The more you smoke, the more likely you are to get lung cancer but it is the length of time you have been a smoker that is most important
• Men who smoke one pack a day increase their risk 10 times compared with non-smokers.
• The more you smoke and the longer you smoke, the greater your risk.
• If you stop smoking however, the risk of lung cancer decreases. Year on year, abnormal cells are replaced by normal cells. After ten years, the risk drops to a level that is one-third to one-half of the risk for people who continue to smoke.
• Lung cancer normally takes many years to develop. Incidence tends to peaks between the ages of 55 and 65 years.

Quit smoking and save your life

Tooth Decay

Smoking can rot your gums and teeth:

• Saliva cleans the mouth and teeth and protects them from decay. Smoking reduces the flow of saliva reducing this protection.
• Smoking damages the flow of blood to the gums and teeth. If the teeth do not get enough nutrients, they will die and drop out.
• Smoking drastically reduces the amount of vitamin C in the body. Vitamin C is needed to keep your gums healthy.
• Smoking raises the temperature of the mouth damaging oral cells.
• The cancer causing chemicals in smoke can give you oral cancer. Smokers are 18 times more likely to develop oral cancer than non-smokers.

Skin Wrinkles

You can age yourself 20 years by smoking:

• By age 40, the facial wrinkles of smokers are similar to those of 60 year old non-smokers. Eventually smoker’s faces may appear wrinkled, gaunt, and may be affected by a slightly yellow tinge.
• Smoking causes narrowing of the blood vessels in the outermost layers of your skin. This impairs blood flow to your skin, depleting it of oxygen and important nutrients, such as vitamin A, vitamin E and vitamin C.
• Smoking damages collagen and elastin – fibres that give your skin its strength and elasticity. As a result, skin begins to sag and wrinkle prematurely.
• Repeated exposure to the heat from burning cigarettes and the facial expressions you make when smoking – such as pursing your lips when inhaling and squinting your eyes to keep out smoke – may contribute to wrinkles.

Vitamin Reduction

Smoking drastically reduces the levels of some key vitamins in your body:

• Vitamin C: Smoking drastically reduces you levels of vitamin C. Vitamin C is one of the body’s main antioxidants. A smoker needs to increase their vitamin C intake to around 2000mg a day.
• Vitamin D: This vitamin helps you use calcium to strengthen your bones. Smoking reduces levels of vitamin D, hence calcium use. Smokers will have a lower bone density and might more easily break a bone.
• Vitamin E: Vitamin E is another antioxidant. Smoking reduces levels of vitamin E in your body. When vitamin E levels are low, the tissues of the lungs become vulnerable to attacks from toxin and cancer causing free radicals.

Find out how much smoking has damaged your health and wallet so fa.

Why are you addicted to nicotine?

Now for the sciency bit:

• We have natural nicotine-like chemicals in the brain
• These chemicals keep our mood stable. Some of them pep us up – some relax us
• When you introduce nicotine into the body two things happen
1. It destroys naturally occuring chemicals that pep us up or relax us
2. It stops the body producing as much of these natural chemicals
• When these two things have occured – you are officially addicted. Your brain will compel you to ingest nicotine to fill the receptors that are usually sated by naturally occuring chemicals

How nicotine gum works

Nicotine gum works by releasing nicotine, which your body craves during quitting smoking, into your blood stream through the lining of your mouth. As you chew nicotine is mixed with saliva and is absorbed into your body. It is transported to nicotine receptors in the brain which are then satisfied.

Who is nicotine gum good for?

Nicotine gum is a great way of getting nicotine into your body quickly. Chewing is a great stress reliever – so if you found yourself using cigarettes in stressful situations, nicotine gum is probably for you.

How to use nicotine gum

Nicotine gum is a medicine. You must read the instructions that come with it completely. You must quit smoking before using nicotine gum. Here’s a general guide to using nicotine gum:

1. In the first six weeks you chew the gum every one or two hours
2. You then drop down to chewing a piece of gum every two to four hours
3. In the final stage of quitting you chew a piece of gum every four to eight hours
4. You chew the gum until you feel a tingly sensation in your mouth. This might take 10 or 15 chews. This sensation is the nicotine being released
5. Stop chewing when you feel the tingling and place the gum in your cheek tucked down by your gums. The gum is still doing its work here
6. When the tingly sensation is totally gone – chew the gum again until it returns
7. Keep doing this until the tingly sensation doesn’t come when you chew. This means all the nicotine is gone from the gum
8. Wrap the gum up and throw it away
9. To start with you should be using nine or more pieces of gum a day
10. If you get really bad cravings you can chew another piece of gum straight after finishing one – you must not do this frequently though

Nicotine gum brands

There are two major brands of nicotine gum:

• Nicorette gum
• Nicotinell gum

Both of these gums come in two flavours, fruit and mint. Get the lowest prices on nicotine gum here

Side effects

Chewing the gum to fast or frequently can cause lightheadedness, dizziness, hiccups, nausea, vomiting or insomnia. You should be free of your nicotine addiction after 12 weeks. If you still feel the need to chew nicotine gum after 12 weeks – see your GP.

Here’s a short video we made to explain a little bit more about nicotine gum: