How to get started on quitting smoking
by Darren Warmuth
If you're a smoker, there will come a point in your life, and it may even be now, that you will seriously be thinking of quitting. There are any number of reasons why this may be. Perhaps you don't cherish your lovely smoker's cough. Perhaps you are becoming more concerned about your health. It doesn't really matter. The fact is that we know what smoking does to us, how it is affecting our lives and that eventually, we need to stop. But actually moving forward with that plan is sometimes the hardest part.
Being that there are so many treatment options availble nowadays, it can seem a difficult task in choosing the right one. What I always suggest is to look at each one for its own merits and downfalls and with this information try to pick the one tha fits best within your lifestyle. By doing your homework first, choosing the method that will work for you becomes far easier.
This was very difficult for me to choose at the time of my quitting as I had no idea as to which method was right for me. So the obvious first stop was to my local health practitioner to see which method had the fewest side effects and yet had a high success rate.
We discussed many of the methods available and their side effects, but we also focused a lot of the conversation on the psychological part of quitting as well, since for most people, including myself, that would be the most difficult part of quitting smoking.
Preparing yourself mentally to quit smoking is not something that I even considered. I always assumed that to quit smoking, you did just that - quit! Maybe go on a wild emotionally charged fit for a week or so when nobody wants to be around you and that's it, you're done. I hadn't even thought about the fact that quitting would necessitate lifelong lifestyle changes.
So after the conversation with the doctor and after choosing the treatment method I was comfortable with, she told me to pick a quit day a couple of weeks out and use the time in between to prepare for my new smoke-free lifestyle. In those two weeks it became evident how much my life revolved around smoking and how much I wished to be rid of the habit. So I began to take positive steps like smoking outside; throwing out my ashtrays; and even cleaning my carpets, bedding and curtains.
As I will tell anybody, quitting smoking is one of the hardest things you will ever do in life, but it is also probably the most self-satisfying tasks you can accomplish. There is nothing, and I mean nothing, that will give you a better feeling of self-worth than knowing that you no longer need to worry whether you have enough cigarettes to last the night, nor whether
Looking for a method to stop smoking? Better be sure to check out Darren Warmuth's article on the best way to get started quitting smoking You are welcome to reprint this article - but get your own unique content version here.
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