World No Tobacco Day - May 31, 2007

Today has been declared 'World No Tobacco Day' by the World Health Oraganisation, a day that has been celebrated since 1988. With this year's theme being 'Smoke Free Environments'.


With the upcoming ban in England, Canada celebrating a year being smoke free and other nations around the world falling into line with the no smoking in public places policy, it is becoming harder for smokers to find places to smoke.

Smoke free environments is the basis of the smoking ban and the no smoking in public places policy. Obviously the health of non-smokers being subjected to second hand smoke is the issue here.

As a non-smoker myself I dislike returning home from a few beers in a pub or bar or public event, only to wake up to a room smelling of the smoke that is emmitting from my jacket, clothes and hair.

But that isn't the worst problem, by far. And although there has been a lot of publicity about it not many people, especially smokers, realise that second hand smoke is actually much, much more dangerous than the smoke you as a smoker inhale with every drag.

When you smoke, you are only inhaling a maximum of 40% of the nicotine in a cigarette - the rest goes up in smoke from the tip of your cigarette. If all the nicotine in a cigarette was injected into a human body we would die almost instantly.

And when you inhale the 4,700 odd chemicals in a cigarette are filtered by the filter - so you are only getting a small dose of the poisons - it is still dangerous and obviously leads to illness. But it is nowhere near as concentrated as the dose that is in the smoke emmitting from the tip of your cigarette.

A majority of the poisons and toxins in a cigarette are released from the smoke in the tip of the cigarette - that means that the non-smokers areound you are receiving a higher concentration of poisonous and toxic chemicals, with no choice in the matter, than you a smoker!

And the worst bit is that at least 80% of the poisons and toxins in second hand smoke cannot be seen - only about 20% of the chemicals in second had smoke can be seen in the form of the white smoke from the tip of the cigarette.

Most of the dangers of second hand smoke are subttle - so as non-smokers even though we may waft away or move away from a smoker we are still inhaling thousands of poisinous chemicals!

This is why so much emphais is being placed on smoke free environments. Next time you light up remember that you are inlaling much less chemicals than those around you - and they don't have a choice.

You may be thinking that you as a smoker don't have a choice either, because you are addicted. But once you learn a few truths about smoking and nicotine you will realise that you have a much bigger choice in the matter than you think.

Smoking and Work

With just over four weeks to go until the smoking ban in England the number of employers who are helping their workforce stub out cigarettes is still low.

Despite most employers believing that quitting smoking considerably reduces absenteeism, increases productivity and improves self-motivation, only twenty percent of employers are offering help and advice.

For you to be a success, you need the backing of your employers. The backing can come in any of a number of ways, from paid days off to attend seminars and financial help to pay for courses to offering advice on the most effective methods of stopping smoking.

Whatever it is employers need to get involved to help their staff stop smoking. Many have no smoking policies in place already but until they are willing to help their employees, they won't be doing enough.

Quitting Smoking and Stress!!

I've already covered it in my blog but as you know, stress plays a mojor role in your smoking activities. But today I'm talking about stress after you quit smoking.

Stress is one of the three major reasons for relapse, the other two being weight gain and withdrawal symptoms. It will usually play in your mind, when you are thinking about quitting smoking, that you won't be able to cope with difficult situations, problems and without stress without your trusty cigarette.

But the thing is, that is as far as it goes for most smokers. There are very few smokers who plan on what they are going to do, not just about stress but about any of the areas of their life that smoking affects and involves. When you take a step back, will see that a majority of your daily activies begin with, revolve around or end with a cigarette.

Without a plan on how to handle these situations you are surely destined to fail, but for now I'm just going to talk about stress and problem situations.

All of us, including non-smokers and ex-smokers, face stress and problems every day of our lives. And we all deal with these situations in different ways. For example, some of us take our frustration out in the gym or on the track or in a form of controlled agression in a tem sport, others take five minutes 'down time' or go for a walk, some drink excessive amounts of coffee, others drink and some, like you probably do smoke.

Everyone has their different coping mechanisms, and without judging any of them for being more or less effective or appropriate we can probably agree that smoking is the least positive and productive method. Yet you and millions of others do it.

So let's move forward to the days and weeks after you quit smoking. Some smokers are ok at handling a little stress but let me run you through an example of a typical day in your life. Just to let you know don't get on edge when you read this, but do put yourself in the following situaions and see how they would affect you.

7am you're up and about getting ready for the day ahead, you're thinking that a cigarette would go great with your cup of tea / coffee but you forget about it and carry on. You've had your breakfast and you are about to head for the door but you can't find your keys.

You spend ten minutes tearing the place apart and in your rush you knowck over a glass and it smashes all over the floor, no time to clean it up now. You continue to search frantically only to find that they were under some papers in the place you always leave them - you're running ten minutes late.

So you're in your car / on the bus / train tube / and there is a delay, there's been an accident and you can't get through. you're now another ten minutes late. Finally you arrive into work - just and immediately there is a phone call for you from a difficult customer or business associate. You deal with it but you are already seriously stressed and you haven't even sat down yet.

Break time arrives and all your smoking buddies go out for their cigarette break while you go for a cup of coffee or tea, only to find that there is no sugar or milk because everyone else has used it up.

Half an hour later your boss walks in, in a terrible mood because of something at home, and barks at you all that you will have to stay behind at least an extra hour today because someone made a huge mistake and you all have to work together to fix it.

Lunch time arrives but when you get to your usual eating place, they have run out of your favourite sandwhich or meal. The rest of the day is a mad rush to try to get everything done in time so you can get out of work as easly a possible. But it's all worthless as you get to the bus stop / tube and your ride has already left, you've got to wait around another fifteen minutes.

You finally get home, in the rain with your hair all over the place. You are greeted at the door by your angry partner who grills you on where you've been and asks if you remebered to buy a birthday present and card for your friend's birthday party that night - you forgot. An argument breaks out and now you're in no mood to eat.

The evening carries on like this and you are so stressed that you can only do or think of doing one thing - light a cigarette. You smoke it and feel good for about a minute, but then you hate yourself for the rest of the night for caving in.

Ok. So maybe the day and the situations have been slighly exagerated but this is a very typical and possible day that you could go through. And there are other possible factors like kids, car trouble, petty arguments, you heel breaks or you rip your trousers the possibilities are endless.

If you fail to plan on what you are going to do to reduce or handle stress then you are serisouly likely to relapse and then end up hating yourself for doing so. So you need to do two things for stress relief - find an immediate solution - somthing that can be done there and then, and secondly find something you can do at the end of every day to let go of all the tension built up during the day.

Even if you're day goes by relatively stress free it is a good idea to spen half an hour or so at the end of every day relaxing or exercising or whatever you like, so you can get used to relaxing and taking your mind off things without cigarettes. That way when you do have a bad day you are already used to dealing with it.

Stopping smoking is relatively simple when approach it correclty and plan.

Quit Smoking Ban 1st July 2007

With the upcoming ban in England smokers are being bombarded left right and center with 'why quit', 'how to quitt' and 'you should quit' campaigns.

But the thing is, you want to have to quit smoking. But I'm sure you already know that. So you know that no ban, a pushy partner or family and certainly no ad campaign with the daughter of a smoker on permanent breathing apparatus is going to have the slightest difference to you. Unless you want to quit.

So when you do decide to quit it's because you want to. Here are the five phases you will go through when you quit smoking.

1. Pre-contemplation: During this phase, you are not thinking seriously about stopping smoking in the near future.

2. Contemplation: Here you are actively thinking about stopping but are not quite ready to make a serious attempt yet. You may say to yourself, “Yes, I'm ready to stop smoking but, I'm under a lot of stress and I don't want to gain weight”, or “I'm not sure if I can do it.”

3. Preparation: When you reach this step you are serious about stopping within the next month and you may have even tried to stop in the past 12 months. You will usually have a plan as to how you will do it.

4. Action - Stopping Smoking with Help: This is the first 6 months when you are is actively finding ways to kick the habit.

5. Staying Stopped: This is the period of 1 week to 5 years after stopping when you as an ex-user are aware of the danger of relapse and you actively take steps to avoid it.

You probably know which of these phases you are at right now. And you will only move on when you are ready.

Keep in mind when you get to phase 4 that you will need a little help - this is important. It can be in the form of a quit buddy, a family member a friend or a professional. The person will be able to provide support and some good ideas and a distraction if things get to you and you are tempted.

Be aware though that with this upcoming ban NRT will be pushed on you as if it is the number one and best cure. When pure and simple - it is NOT. NRT just prolongs the withdrawal symptoms you suffer when you quit because it prolongs the time it takes you to remove nicotine from your system.

Normally this time is 72 hrs when you go cold turkey, but it can be up to 12 months with NRT. If you think that cutting down or NRT is going to help you, think again. Both of these forms just put you under more pressure and on edge.

When you quit smoking with these methods you also put a strong emphasis on your next cigarette - punishing yourself for not being able to have it now. And with NRT you do the same - as the 'hit' or 'buzz' of the nicotine isn't the same in a patch, gum, loznge etc. You are effectively punishing yourself.

To quit in the easiest and quickest and most effctive fashion, you need to do it cold turkey. Then you need to find out how to stay stopped - prevent relapse and how to make it easier by preventing withdrawal symptoms and weight gain. And then you need to find a way to enjoy your life after cigarettes - while removing them from your desires, habits and attitudes.

How long does it take to quit smoking?

Just a quick one today - do you know how long it takes to quit smoking?

I bumped into a friend today who started smoking again after five months off - this was her fourth failed attempt to stop smoking. She started again due to a bit of weight gain and stress.

Unfortunately she didn't realise that weight gain can be prevented and stress an be relived by other means, and that smoking doesn't reduce stress (see blog below) it actually increases it.

I didn't want to go into much detail about the stress but I did give her some info on preventing weight gain.

The thing is though, that most smoker will take seven attempts before they can manage to stop smoking permanently! And even then they struggle to stop thinking about cigarettes at parties, in the pub / bar etc.

But if you realise that your will power has no influence on your ability to stop smoking, that you can prevent weight gain and withdrawal symptoms and that you really need to find something to take your mind off cigarettes - you are going to find it much easier and you will stop, much much quicker.

7 Smoking habits and how to break them

Every single smoker has smoking habits or as I refer to them smoking links. That is - things, people, places, emotions, events or routines that begin with, revolve around or lead up to a cigarette.

To stop smoking successfully, you need to find out what your smoking habits and links are. These are the things that make you smoke, make it difficult for you to stop and can cause you to smoke again when you do stop.

Here are seven of the most common smoking habits. You no doubt will have one or two of these and perhaps even all of them.

1. Smoking when you get up - either right away or within half an hour - in bed, waiting for the kettle / coffee maker to finish, getting out of the shower etc.

2. Smoking on your way to work - either on the walk or drive there or just before you step in the door / building / site etc.

3. Smoking at the end of a meal - usually with a cup of coffee / tea or after finishing your food.

4. When you pick up the phone - not necessary during a phone call but also before you pick up the phone. You do this because you feel that you may be talking for a while and you'll need a cigarette or you'll hear something you don't like or you enjoy sitting down chatting with a friend on the phone with a cigarette in your hand.

5. When you hear some bad news or are stressed - maybe there is a problem at home with the family or children, or your house gets broken into or yo have a flat tire or you burn the food you were cooking for a dinner party

6. When you need composure / self-confidence / concentration - maybe you are about to meet a partner's parents for the first time, or you know you have to deal with an awkward customer, or you are entering an exam or test

7. You are about to go on a long haul flight / train journey / business meeting / spend time with your family for several hours e.g. birthday parties / Christmas et.c

These things keep you smoking - if you didn't need to acheive a feeling of relaxation, concentration, composure, calmness,confidence, ease, pleasure etc. you wouldn't smoke when these situations and events happen.

So first of all you need to find out what makes you smoke (other than nicotine addiction). When you have found that out, you have two options.

a. Learn how to deal with that situation, event etc without cigarettes

or

b. Ensure that you break the link and establish a new routine

For most people option two is the best - re-programming yourself into new patterns of behaviour, habits and routines is probably the best way to stop smoking quickly. So take the following into consideration when you stop smoking:

You need to find alternative ways to acheive those feelings of compoeure, relaxation, confidence etc. And you need to create new routines that are completely disassociated from smoking and cigarettes. Try the following fot eh seven habits lsited above.

1. Move the position of your bed, get out of the other side of the bed or sleep with your head where your toes used to be and vice vesa. Also immediately drink a glass of water juice or milk and change any routine you have. This will help you to re-establish a new wake up routine that doesn't involve cigarettes. This chanage confuses your brain and prevents any triggers from reminding you to smoke.

2. Take a different route to work and arrive ten to fifteen minutes earlier than you are used to. Again the change in routine confuses your brain into a pattern diasassociated with smoking.

3. Immediately after you finish your meals or food, drink a glas of water, juice or milk. And go for a five minute walk or just get up out of your seat and sit somewhere else. You can also start off by sitting in a different place.

4. Find something to play with when you are on the phone - eithe a stresss ball or a coin or a pen. Also move the position of your phone and do not sit in the same place you used to when talking on the phone

5. Try some breathing techniques or find new methods to boost your confidence - think about how you have done it before and how you felt good and confident about yourself before you smoked.

6. Again try some breathing techniques. Also avoid thinking about how stressful the situation actually is. The majority of the time the stress is only so huge because you made it so huge - there is no point in worrying. Worrying is only having a fear or anxiety a bout a thing that could happen - if it does happen deal with it. But it is almost definitely not going to happen

7. Forget about cigarettes. The most common reason for relapse is because you constantly think about cigarettes! You think 'I haven't had a cigarette since...' or 'I've still got another .... hours till I can have a cigarette.'

This tye of thinking is the basis of why diets almost always fail - you are concentrating on the things you cannot have. if you are dieting you are thinking 'oh I wish I could have some of that chocolate but I just can't' - you are constantly thinking about the one thing you can't have!

And if you are constantly thinking about it - you are going to want it more. So forget about cigarettes and how you cannot deal with life without them and how long it has been since you had one.

Just move forwards, know that you have stopped and change your focus elsewhere.

I can't emphasize this enough - 99% of smoking and stopping smoking is in the mind! Not will power but knowing how to adjust your thinking.

Can you see yourself as a non-smoker?

If you are thinking about quitting smoking, or are currently trying to quit it's really important that you are able to see yourself as a non-smoker.

And I don't mean just thinking 'Yeah, well I'm quitting aren't I?' or 'Well I'm trying, we'll see what happens.'

I mean you must be able to see yourself dealing with every day situations, keeping yourself entertained, drinking, finishing meals, waking up, driving to work, having your lunch and especially enjoyng your life as a non-smoker.

If you cannot see yourself as a non-smoker handling these situations and enjoying life then you need to re-think your attempt to stop smoking.

If you don't really want to stops moking, if you don't want to remove all desires to smoke and all urges and lust for cigarettes you are shooting yourself in the foot and making your job ten times harder.

There are many ex-smokers out there who, after ten years without smoking still want a cigarette - they still ust after them and wish for 'just one.'

This is self-defeating and if you do not plan on how to beat this mindset, you, if you do actually succeed in stopping smoking, will go from being a smoker who thinks he wants to stop to a non-smoker who wants a cigarette.

This creates an unhappy you who does want cigarettes, who believes that his life is actually worse since stopping smoking and who is unhappy with himself for having to 'give up' his pleasure.

There are only two outcomes when you become an ex-smoker who wishes he could smoke.

1. You hate yourself for having to give up your source of stress, relief, satisfaction, pleasure and confidence and therefore being unable to live happily as a non-smoker - which is the very thing you and those wanted for you when you decided to stop smoking.

or

2. You return to smoking.

Neither is a prosperous result.

Whatever you do make sure you plan on how you are going to live your life when you stop smoking.

You need to find something that will take the focus away from smoking, something that will overpower and eliminate the disire to smoke and something that will help you to enjoy your life as a non-smoker.

If you don't take time to plan these things you will surely turn into permanently miserable non-smoker who wishes he could have a cigarette. And what's the point in quitting smoking if you aren't going to be able to enjoy it?

See yourself as a happy non-smoker, want it and plan on how you are going to acheive it.

Tobacco & Cigarette Smoking Addiction

Recently while waiting in a queue for a take-away I got chatting with a woman when she asked me what I did for a living. As usual when I mention to people that I'm a hypnotherapist and a stop smoking specialist, she beacaue quite intrigued. It then emerged that she smoker forty a day and had been doing so for about twenty years.

She asked me what my secrets were and I revealed a few things she didn't know. One of those secrets was about tobacco and cigarette smoking addiction and the relevance of the mind in a smoker's lifestlye.

I mentioned that smoking wasn't 100% nicotine addiction based, or anywhere near that close in fact. I was then surprised to see that she became a little defensive and said that she was addicted and just couldn't stop, she just couldn't do it!

I went on to explain about how over those twenty years she'd tied smoking to many activites and now it was more her mind that made her smoke than her addiction to cigarettes. But she was still having none of it! " just can't stop, I'm addicted and ...I'm addicted... that's why I smoke!

So I asked he a question: How many cigarettes did you say you smoke a day?.... forty?
She: Yes.

Me: And how many hours of the day are you awake?
She: About sixteen.

Me: So you're awake about sixteen hours a day and asleep for the rest - that's eight. And in those sixteen hours that you are awake you smoke forty cigarettes - thats about two and a bit every hour isn't it?
She: Yes that's right.

Me: Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night FOR a cigarette? Not woken and then had one, but woken especially to have a cigarette?
She: No not that I can remember

Me: So if you're so addicted to nicotine how is it that you smoke forty in sixteen hours when you're a wake but not a single one, in the twenty years that you've been smoking, during the night?
She: I don't know I'm addicted.

Me: Surely if nicotine was that addictive of a substance your body would MAKE you wake up to have a cigarette every half an hour, or you would have to chan smoke a pack every morning to get the nicotine fix you'd missed out on, wouldn't it?

Me: Why is that you don't smoke?

And without a moments hesitation her response was

She: Well, when I'm a sleep I don't think about smoking do I?

I let this sink in for a moment.

And then I said: What has thinking got to do with smoking and addiction?

The look on her face when it clicked was brilliant!

She realised that she only smoked because she thought she had to smoke - and that is the same situation every single smoker out there finds himself in - he thinks he has to smoke. But when he can't smoke - when he's asleep - he doesn't smoke!

Smoking isn't just about being addicted to nicotine, it's also a lot about what your mind believes. What it believes it will get if you smoke and what it believes it will lose out on if you stop.

Tobacco & cigarette smoking addiction are not as powerful as your mental addiction.

Smoking Ban Looms Closer In England & NRT

The smoking ban in England is now only 48 days away and many businesses, especially in the drinks and catering industry are preparing for the new legislation. Which ranges from implementing the ban to displaying no smoking signs.

This makes it harder for smokers to find places to smoke and will also help those who want to stop. But for those who do want to stop, they face a daunting task. With NRT being promoted as the best and only solution buy websites doctors and advertising. Despite the fact that after one year since starting a course of NRT most smokers return to smoking.

What is even more suprising is that anti smoking groups recommend NRT - despite the fact that they know NRT has a very small success rate. It seems that no-one realises, or won't admit, that there is no point in using NRT when you quit smoking.

NRT merely provides your body with more nicotine - the one substance you are trying to remove from your body. Herion addicts are not given more heroin in another form - they are given alternatives. The weaning process of NRT makes your quit worse by delaying the time it takes to remove nicotine from your system - sometimes by up to one year!

The best and only way to quit smoking is to stop the supply of nicotine - or go cold turkey as it has now become known. This is the easy part - it's the NOT starting to smoke again that causes smokers problems. So you need to find and remove the things that make you smoke.

The prevention of nicotine withdrawal symptoms, cravings, desire to smoke again, weight gain and relapse is then most important thing to do. Finding proven and tested methods to do these things is of utmost importance if your quit is to be successful.

NRT just prolongs the amount of time it takes to remove nicotine from your system (72 hrs if you go cold turkey), it costs you a lot of money and it does nothing to prevent you from relapsing.

No Smoking Ban Spreads

The Dubai Municipality has ordered restaurants shopping malls and other such public places to be smoke free or to have seperate lounges for smoker.

As this is quite costly to produce a seperate closed off area it looks set that all restaurants and cafeterias will enforce the no smoking ban.

Even one of the richest places in the world can't escape the looming anti-smoking movement

How To Quit Smoking Factsheet

Study this factsheet on how to quit on your own quickly & pain free

1. You must really, really want to stop smoking

If your family, freinds, children, partner or doctor are pushing you into it, have a think and ask yourself if you are doing it for you or them. Your sucess rate will be ten times higher if you're doing it for yourself.

2. Adopt a positive attitude - the I'm stopping smoking because I'm ready for a change in my life.

Cigarettes were a part of my past but not my future. When I'ves topped smoking I will enjoy life so much more because I will have lots more money - nearly two grand a year more (for a 20 a day smoker), fresher breath and the ability to taste food to its fullest, higher self-esteem, control and confidence and I will feel better in my own ability to deal with life.

Avoid a resentful and negative approach. The - I'm 'giving up' smoking, how am I going to live my lve without cigarettes? All of my friends will be smoking and I'll just have to sit there and watch or avoid them, that's going to be torture. Cigarettes are my friend, how am I going to reduce stress, enjoy myself, cure boredom and have time to myself from now on?

This negative outlook only leads to a belief that you either can't stop or that life after will be hell. You know both of these are untrue. Especially as there are hundreds of other ways out there to enjoy life, reduce stress, cure boredom etc. You also dealt with stress before you started smoking and so do millions of other people out there.

Stopping smoking is a positive step - a step forwards want it to happen, don't resent it.

3. Find out what makes you smoke.

Learn why and how addiction has such a big hold over you. Discovering the truth about this chemical is a major step.

Findout what other things make you smoke - do you smoke - as soon as you get up, on your drive to work, when stressed, as an excuse to leave a boring person/group, to feel confident in new surroundings or with new people, because it makes sex better, with a cup of tea or coffee, after a meal?

You probably think that all of these things make you feel better or give you something. Find out which other situations and things make you smoke and then remove and replace them with new patterns of behaviour or substitutes - but not food!

4. Find new ways to enjoy life, reduce stress, pass the time, cure boredom.

You need to get the good things you get from smoking from somewhere else - what's the point in 'giving up' the good things in your life, or the one thing that gives you all those good things? Find other sources for these good things.

Other good sources include, sessions at the gym, a jog or short walk, a new hobby, time with your children/partner/family/friends, trips to a health spa, a weekend retreat, learning to cook or picking up a sport you've negelectec for too long, only you know what will work for you.

These new habits, hobbies, passed times and patterns of behaviour will show you that there really is life after cigarettes - much more in fact.

5. Set a stop smoking date - and look forward to it.

Most pitfalls smokers face are their own making - just the way you think about smoking and cigarettes affects your success. If you're thinking about how much you are going to miss cigarettes or that after your stop smoking date you will never, EVER be able to smoke again you are shooting yourself in the foot.

Remeber you WANT to stop smoking, welcome it with open arms as a new lifestyle not a burden.

6. Prevent relapse.

There are three main reasons for relapse

a.) Negative thinking - that is lusting after cigarettes when you get bored, stressed, see someone else smoking or when you think 'just one won't hurt. This will only ever lead to another cigarette.

b.) Weight gain - most smokers see this as inevitable and most experts or doctors say - it's better to gain a few pounds than it is to die of smoking. Yes this may be true but it doesn't exactly help you does it?!!

Avoid weight gain by eating healthy foods, avoid snacking, take vitamin and mineral supplements to give yourself the foods that your body needs without over eating, avoid substituting food with cigarettes and if you are used to smoking after meals - ensure you finish your meal and then stop eating!

c.) Withdrawal symptoms - these are caused by your body's reaction to a lack of nicotine. When you stop smoking you can ease thes symptoms by drinking plenty of fruit juice and water to flush the nicotine out of your system.

Also avoid confusing a craving for food with a nicotine craving.

If you follow these six steps your task will be much easier. Bear i mind that NRT just prolongs the amount of time it takes to remove nicotine from your system - cold turkey is 3 days - NRT can be anywhere between 3 - 12 months!

Smoking Quit Tips & Things You Can Do For Stress Relief

Stress relief or relaxation is a major reason smokers give for not being able to quit smoking.

However, as a smoker you've probably not asked or thought - why and how does smoking relieve stress? But this is a very important question if you are a smoker who needs cigarettes when you encounter a problem, or hear bad news or rely on cigarettes to calm your nerves.

Relying on something other than yourself for stress relief is a major barrier to quitting smoking. If you are like most smokers you probably find it difficult to calm yourself without cigarettes. This has a negative effect on your quit for two reasons.

1. When you stop smoking you lose your stress relief tool and often stress yourself out more, resulting in a return to cigarettes

2. You are subconsciously telling yourself that you personally are not good enough to deal with that particular, or any other stressful, situation on your own and without cigarettes. This knocks your self-esteem and builds on the belief that you cannot stop smoking.

And if you believe that you can't handle a situation without cigarettes, then the likelihood is that you won't ever be able to stop.

So what is the solution? There are two things you need to do.

Firstly you need to realise that cigarettes and nicotine do not reduce stress, in fact they increase it. How?

1. When carbon monoxide and nicotine enter your brain they reduce the amount of oxygen you get. Oxygen is the fuel of the brain, and without it we struggle to function properly, think clearly and without oxygen we also struggle to concentrate.

It is a fact that nicotine and carbon monoxide starve the oxygen in a smokers body, and it is also a fact that the brain needs oxygen to concentrate - ask a doctor. Oxygen is the basis of all activity in the body - any effort the body makes from thinking to running is harder with less oxygen.

Carbon monoxide and nicotine prevent oxygen from reaching your brain and the other organs in your body - this simplay cannot help you to relax or concentrate.

2. Nicotine is a vaso-constrictor – it contracts your veins making them smaller and narrower. When you smoke your veins and arteries shrink in size, meaning that your heart has to work harder to pump the same amount of blood around your body, but through a smaller space.

Add to that, the fact that tar and the other chemicals are deposited in your veins reducing blood flow even more. The resulting strain means that a smoker’s heart will beat an additional 35,000 times per day more than a non-smoker and their blood pressure is also ten to twenty points higher than it should be.

3. The effect that nicotine has on the insulin in your blood puts your body under constant stress. Every forty five minutes or so, when you smoke, your body blocks the release of insulin. Once the nicotine has worn off insulin is re-released, but then you have a cigarette again (instead of naturally replenishing your blood sugar levels) and you block the insulin again.

This stop start process puts a huge strain on the body – a non-smoker’s body will only reduce the flow of insulin when he really needs it – when he hasn’t eaten in a while. But smokers make their body’s stop-start this process twenty times more, or more a day than a non-smoker.

4. The several thousand chemicals, poisons, toxins and carcinogens in a cigarette force your body into a state of shock. Every time you smoke your body has to adapt to the presence of the foreign harmful chemicals. Each of those chemicals are deposited in your veins, organs, lungs, heart, arteries and other organs in your body.

When you don’t smoke for a few hours your body does it’s best to clear out all those foreign substances.

You experience this process through a ‘smoker’s cough’ in the day and also in the morning, when your body has had eight hours or so to start the cleansing process. You also cough up a lot of phlegm. Both of these attempts to clean out your body put your body through a rigorous cleansing process every time you stop smoking, every day of your smoking life.

A non-smoker will only experience this cleansing process, as extensively as you do when they have a virus or infection or if they smoke a cigarette.

The truth is that you only believe cigarettes and nicotine can relax you. And that is the key – you believe.

It all comes back to what you think. Because you tell yourself that cigarettes calm you, you think they do. Because you tell yourself that they help you concentrate, you think they do (despite the fact that you are putting a huge strain on your system – your heart beats an extra 35,000 per day due to the reduction in vein size making your blood pressure higher).

So even though cigarettes and nicotine are having a harmful and weakening effect on your body, which you have always known, you believe that they make you stronger and more capable of dealing with life. It is a clever trick that the tobacco companies have played on you.

They have shown you on films, on TV and in commercials that cigarettes help you concentrate, relive stress, beat problems, enjoy sex more and that they make men more manly and women more sexy.

You have to give them credit because it has worked and it is still working! But once you take a step back and look at the overall picture, you can see that advertising and your beliefs have led you to believe that you need cigarettes and nicotine, and that they bring you many benefits. When in fact that is all in your head!

It can’t just be the placebo effect (believing something makes it happen) that makes me concentrate and relax can it? Well the truth is that there is a little bit more to it than that.

Smokers may feel a little more relaxed when they smoke for two reasons.

Exercise:

Before we go into the details, either smoke a cigarette or put your hand to your mouth, as if you were smoking a cigarette and inhale just as you would a cigarette. If you are just inhaling, rather than smoking a cigarette make sure you do it several times.

Make sure you do one of the two before you read on, and also notice any patterns that develop and pay attention to your breathing

Smoking As A Way To Relax / Relieves Stress

1. When you smoke your in-breath is much stronger than when you breathe normally. Try it again, inhale as if you were smoking a cigarette. You will notice that you are breathing in a lot more air each time you inhale from a cigarette, than when you breathe normally – this is because you are breathing through your diaphragm, which sucks in a lot more air.

And with this extra air also comes more oxygen – your brain and body’s fuel, this can sometimes be up to 20% more oxygen than you get through normal breathing.

In effect every time you smoke you are just practicing deep breathing exercises – you are providing your body and organs with more oxygen, which helps you relax, to a degree. I say to a degree because that extra oxygen is not enough to compensate for the strain that the chemicals in a cigarette put on your body.

2. A few minutes ago when you smoked that cigarette or inhaled as if you were smoking, you should have also noticed another pattern. The other pattern is the way you exhale. Just like your in-breath was stronger and deeper, your out-breath was also stronger and deeper. And what happens when you breathe out heavily?

Try it. You feel relaxed. Have you noticed that we we laugh and sigh we are exahling? Despite the smoke putting a strain on your body, when you exhale you feel good.

Again when you smoke all you are doing is doing a deep breathing exercise – deep breaths, with more oxygen, and deep and long out-breaths – releasing stress! That is why smokers claim that cigarettes help them to relax. But you don’t need to have an IQ of 180 to figure out that this isn’t productive.

The fact of the matter is that smoking doesn’t actually reduce stress, or help you concentrate. It actually puts your body under more stress. Each time you stop smoking your body has to go through the cleansing process.

Every time you have a cigarette you put your body under stress. Then your body tries to clean out the chemicals, which again makes you feel uncomfortable, and puts you under stress. Then when your body realises it has extremely low blood sugar you get pangs and cravings because your body needs sugar – it becomes stressed.

You then have a cigarette to relieve that stress. Then after forty five minutes or so the process starts all over again! You are just going around in one huge destructive and pointless circle.

People say smoking reduces stress, when in fact – the stress is caused by the last cigarette – when the nicotine and chemicals enter the body it is put under a huge strain. And when nicotine leaves the body it becomes stressed because there is no nicotine to release sugar into the blood.

Tobacco increases stress and then relieves it when you smoke – smoking is basically like hitting yourself over the head with a hammer because it feels really good when you stop!

A major reason why people say they can’t or won’t stop smoking is – they feel they would be giving up a very effective stress management technique. But once you stop smoking for a short period of time, you will become calmer, even under stress, than when you were a smoker.

The second thing you must do to overcome this problem is to find an alternative stress relief method.

Although you know that smoking does not reduce stress, in the back of your head you may still rely on cigarettes. So you need to find alternative things you can do for stress relief when you stop smoking.

There are many things you can do, only you will know what works best for you - wether it be a session in the gym, reading a book, spending time with your children, breathing exercises, spending time on your hobby or disctraction techniques.

Most of the above methods are not instant - you have to make plans for them - but this ie very important - they will all take about half an hour to an hour of your day. And when you think about it, you probably spend that same amount of time smoking every day.

But you also need to have a few other things that you can do for stress relief, that work immediately. One such techniques is called an anchor - it ties a good, relaxing, confident feeling to a certain act you can do. It only takes about fifteen minutes of work a few times to become powerful enough to work.

Other things you can do are to learn some effective breathing techniques. And ther are some good ones about. Try exhaling all of the air out of your lungs, without inhaling first. Exhale unitl there is no more, then allow your inbreath to happen automatically. Try this five times.

Also try a stress ball, get up and leave the situation you are in. Take fifteen minutes to forget about work, the problem or whatever it is. Don't go over and over the problem, just forget about it for fifteen minutes and distract yourself doing some mindless daydreaming. Maybe even take a walk.

There are many things you can do for stress relief that don't involve smoking. Once you do stop, you will see that there are plenty more, much more powerful methods out there. But make sure you use at least three or four different methods to keep you from returning to cigarettes.

A quick note on withdrawal symptoms

Nicotine is an appetite suppressant and therefore substitutes your body's natural craving for food. The way nicotine acts an asn appetite suppressant is that it blocks the release of insulin into your blood. And insulin controls the amount of sugar of your blood.

When there is no insulin (due to nicotine's precense) your blood sugar levels are extremely high - prompting your body to think that you are full - as there is plenty of sugar in your blood it thinks you've eaten enough food.

But when you stop smoking your blood sugar levels plummet suddenly - as there is no nicotine to prevent insulin from regulating your blood sugar levels. This sudden and extreme drop in sugar can cause discomforting and unpleasant side-effects. These side-effects include headaches, nausea, irritability and other such symptoms.

These symptoms are commonly refered to as withdrawal symptoms. It is a lack of sugar that is responsible for your withdrawal symptoms, and not as you have been lead to belive - because you are addicted to nicotine.

When you stop smoking suddenly, without providing your body with the vitamins and minerals it needs, you are unprepared for the blood sugar issue.

When you smoke those symptoms and side-effects are covered up by your next cigarette - insulin is blocked from being released and your bloood sugar levels shoot up again. you then rationalyse that you are 'addicted' as this is an obvious sign that your body needs nicotine. The truth is that nicotine causes those withdrawal symptoms by playing with your insulin levels.

It only takes 3 days (72 hours) to remove nicotine from from your body, so when you stop smoking you need to manage your blood sugar levels.

You can do this by eating healthy meals, plenty of fresh fruit juice, healthy snacks and vitamin supplements. This makes the process a whole lot smoother than you ever thought possible.

So stock up on healthy food and stick to it for at least a couple of days before you stop smoking and definitely the few days afterward.

Your attitude and quitting smoking

Attitude plays a key part in stopping smoking. And most smokers don't realise that just by taking the wrong approach when they come to stopping smoking, they are taking one step forwards and two steps backwards.

The attitude, or approach, I'm talking about is the one that is taken by 99% of smokers who start off on the wrong foot without even realising it.

The approach can be summarised by the follwoing phrases:

I can't quit smoking or I can't give up smoking.

This is obviously taking a negative approach - beginning with the words - 'I can't.' Instead a more positive approach needs to be taken. But that does not just mean replacing 'I can't' with 'I can', for example, by saying:

I can quit smoking or I can give up smoking.

It means changing the focus of the phrase - the focus is actually ten times more important that the phrase itself. Think about the words:

Quit Give up

What do they imply?

They imply that you as a smoker, are going to have to 'quit' on the one thing that gives you pleasure and that you are going to have to 'give up' or let go or do without the one thing in the world that you have enjoyed for so long!

The result? A negative approach - instead of going from a smoker who wants to be a non-smoker you are going to a non or ex smoker who is upset that he is 'giving up' his pleasure. Instead you should be thinking 'I'm going to stop smoking, and as a result I will get .... better smelling clothes, hair and breath, more money, more time with my children, better health .....etc.

This approach leads to resentment that you are having to lose out on the one thing that you enjoy. Many smokers then think that they should focus on the bad things that will happen to them if they don't stop smoking. This then causes fear and panic and stress. And what do smokers do to relieve or ease these issues? Smoke!

Instead you should focus on the good things you will get when you stop smoking - they are much more useful to you.

A negative approach - the 'Oh God I'm not sure I can do this' or 'such and such tried to give up and they couldn't, so how can I?' or 'how am I going to enjoy my life after cigarettes?' actually makes it ten times harder for you to stop smoking.

Many smokers who take this approach also have the following thoughts running through their mind:

I can't believe after tomorrow I will never be able to smoke another cigarette again

It's been 8 hours and forty five minutes since my last cigarette

(you see a stranger smoking) Oh that cigarett looks sooooo good, I wish I could have one

Just one drag won't hurt

how am I going to cope without cigarettes?

what if I'm stressed or the house burns down?

These thoughts and others like them lead to the many pitfalls of smoking. And they can be summarised by one thing - a constant focus on cigarettes. All of this stems from a negative approach.

When you stop smoking you should want it, really want it. So there is no point in trying to sto pif you are going to constantly beat yourself up, and make your job ten times harder by constantly lusting after cigarettes.

Stopping smoking is about changing your focus and thinking positively about it. Under no circumstances should you give up or quit smoking!

Instead stop smoking and plan on how you are going to enjoy your life free from the hold cigarettes have on you