What To Expect When You Quit Smoking

The smoking ban is just over a week away so many of you will be wondering what to expect when you quit smoking. Here are a few things smokers experience in the days after you quit.

Expect to want to eat a lot - your body will want food because:

* Eating releases endorphins (one of the body's natural pleasure drugs) and makes us feel good - we eat when we have split up from a partner, when we are feeling down, when we lose our job etc.

* When nicotine leaves your system, your body realises it's blood sugar levels are extrememly low - so you will want to eat a lot

* Constant snacking easily replaces the smoking routine - doing something with your hands every half an hour or so

You will probably have a heavy cough, such as the one you normally have in the mornings. During the night your body extracts the several thousand chemicals from cigarettes - you've spent 6-8 hrs without smoking. When you quit you'll experience this cough a lot more. And as there are several cupfuls of tar deposits in your lungs, you will feel a strong taste in your mouth and nose - because they are cleaner and because the chemicals have to pass through them to leave your body

A lot of people experiece a 'Smoker's dream' - s it has been a while since you have smoked you can often day dream about smoking or the thoughts you have of smoking throughout the day combine to make you dream at night about smoking.

You can often interpret this as if you have just smoked, and it can seem even more realistic if you have recently coughed - the tar and smoke taste in your mouth and nostrils will make you really think that you have smoked. If you do experience this realise that it's just a dream, so brush your teeth or carry some mouth wash to heal keep the taste away

You may find that you are constantly thinking of smoking - don't let yourself fall into this trap - 9 times out of 10 it will lead to a relapse.

Fidgeting - you spend about an hr or more smoking every day - keep your hands busy with something other than food & cigarettes.

Routines - you have a lot of routines that revolve around, start with or end with a cigarette. You need to find ways to re-establish new routines that are completely unrelated to smoking.

You'll be able to taste food much better - just be sure that you don't eat more but that you enjoy it more. This will help you prevent weight gain.

Problems and stress - don't let yourself fall into the trap of thinking that a cigartte will solve the problem, make it easier to deal with or go away - cigarettes do not releaive stress and they do not help you beat problems. If start smoking again all that will happen is that you will create another problem - your return to smoking.

There are a lot of things that will happen to you when you quit smoking. So it is important to expect the unexpected and be prepared. Be prepared for the pitfalls and plan on how you are going to beat them.

How much do you spend on cigarettes?

It may not be the biggest reason for quitting for you, but money is certainly a big issue when it comes to stopping smoking.

Most smokers are completely unaware of how much they are spending on cigarettes. To work out how much you spend try the following exercise:

How much do you spend on a pack of cigarettes? ______
How many packs do you smoke a day? ______

Multiply that figure by seven
(to figure out how much you spend on cigarettes in a week) ______

Multiply that figure by four
(to figure out how much you spend on cigarettes in a month) ______

Multiply that figure by twelve
(to figure out how much you spend on cigarettes in a year) ______
(if you smoke a 20 pack a day this figure will be about £1680)

How many years have you been smoking? ______

Multiply that figure by the amount you spend in a year to find out how much money you have spent on cigarettes in your life. ______

Multiply the amount you spend in a year by three
to figure out how much you will spen in another three years ______

Multiply the amount you spend in a year by five
to figure out how much you will spen in another five years ______

Multiply the amount you spend in a year by ten
to figure out how much you will spen in another ten years ______

That's a lot of money isn't it! That's how much you are throwing away a year on cigarettes, and not only that but you are paying to poison yourself.

BUT have you thought of the opportunity cost? Opportunity cost is an economic term used to figure out how much money you have actually spent on something.

The opportunity cost of smoking is the things that you could have bought if you hadn't spent that money on cigarettes. So if you smoke a 20 pack a day you are spending about £1680 a year, what could you have bought with that?

30 pairs of jeans
6-8 months of repayments on your car
4-6 months of repayments on your mortgage
112 CDs
A holiday for two weeks for two to Mauritius
A 50 inch TV with Surround Sound System - and still have a few hundred to spare

These are the things that you are missing out on by smoking. So if you want to buy these things in addition so smoking you will have to spend another £1680.

So when you look at it you are actually spending twice the figure you came to above (e.g £1680) on cigarettes a year. Which means it is actually costing you £3360 a year to smoke! Thats's the opportunity cost - you have lost the opportunity to buy the other things by spending the money on smoking!

Now you know what's it's really costing you to smoke.

Does Cutting Down Work?

Tick, Tock, Tick, Tock.

That's the sound of the clock on the smoking ban in England. Only weeks to go now.

And many smokers will be thinking of cutting down, so that on that day or in the days around it they will be smoke and addiction free.

But for those of you who don't already know, let me show you how and why cutting down doesn't work.

Firstly, you are still smoking. So you are not removing the nicotine from your system - this is normally acheived in 72 hrs when you go cold turkey. When you cut down you just prolong the time it takes you to remove nicotine from your system - it is another form of NRT - giving yourself less nicotine over a longe period of time.

As a result of this you are going to be suffering more withdrawal symptoms and much more intensely. The reason being is that withdrawal symptoms are caused by your last cigarette - the way they play with your insulin levels affects the sugar in your blood and causes you to feel off and badly want food.

When you stop smoking completely these symptoms dissapear after a few days, and if you know how can be minimised and prevented. But by still smoking you are playing with your blood sugar levels and making yourself feel worse all the time.

And the main reason that cutting down doesn't work is that you are making every single cigarette you smoke very precious and special. You lust for your next cigarette, you think 'God I wish I could have one, but I've got to wait ... amount of hours. That cigarette is going to be so damn good I can almost taste it.'

The only thing you will acheive by thinking this is that you will mkae cigarette even more important to you - you will want them even more that ever. Why? Because you are forcing yourself to do without them, and then rewarding yourself for doing that - it's pointless and self-demoralising.

If you want to stop quickly and with the least amount of physical and mental hassle, quit cold turkey.