When is the best time to quit smoking?

I know that a lot of smokers often think that there is always a best time to quit smoking.

Whether that be for your New Year's resolution, on your birthday, for lent, just before you go on holiday or vacation, for women when you are pregnant or when you move house.

The 'best times' you could choose are endless. And you might also think that there are bad or 'worst times' to quit smoking. Like after a breakup with a partner, before Christmas when you know that you'll probably have some sort of family squabble, when you are highly stressed, when you lose your job or just before a big night out.

You may not realise it but the timing is never right or wrong. Or worst or best. The problem or success in quitting smoking comes from your approach and your outlook towards your task - quitting smoking.

With the exception of being pregnant there is no 'best time to quit smoking', and this only becomes the best time to quit smoking because it can harm you and your baby. In all other cases you probably see the 'best time' as a situation or mement in time.

What you should be doing is finding your best state of mind. Let's say that you promised yourself that you would wuit smoking, when you were 30 or 40 - a very common belief / hope in most smokers, while also disguised procrastination!

You're putting it off for now! But's that's not what I'm getting at. So let's say next week is your 30th birthday and you have a big party organised. You know you want to stop smoking and now is the 'best time' because you promised yourself, and it means you can stop poinsoning yourself with all that harmful smoke.

That's great! But then you start to think that you can't remember the last time you went to bed without smoking a bed time cig. You reminisce about the great cigarettes you give yourself after a workout at the gym, the ones you read with your book, or what about the ones you have while you're on the phone?

And you consciously and unconsciously start to panic that you just won't be able to cope without cigarettes. You wonder what you are going to do when you are bored, or when you are waiting nervously for some exam / test results, or how you are going to cope with stress.

What will usually happen is that most smokers will either consciously or unconsciously feel that they just can't do it, it's too hard. So they stop! And they end up blaming themselves for believing that a.) the time is 'wrong' and b.) they just 'can't' quit.

Then makes is so, so much harder the next time. And people wonder why it takes 7 attempts to quit smoking with will power and why nicotine patches and gums etc only have a 16% success rate! A rate which whe you look at it is a 84% failure rate!

Anyway, the problem was not that it wasn't the best time to quit smoking. It was their mind set.

They set off reminiscing and focusing on the good things and great cigarettes they would leave behind! This then sets them up for a fall before they even started! The mind will go after the very thing you focus on. And if you focus on the cigarette that you are going to miss then one of two things will happen.

1. You'll very soon end up smoking again, or

2. You'll manage to quit, but your life will be a living hell! Everytime you seen someone smoking you'll wish you could have 'just one drag' nad you'll punish yourself for life!

I know plenty of these people - but the shame of it is that they just don't want to listen and can't take the obvious truth - stop thinking about cigarettes! Problem solved!

So if you are looking for the best time to quit smoking, Stop! And find your best state of mind.

Make sure you really want to stop smoking, and that you will never look back over your shoulder reminiscing or wishing you could smoke again.

Then my friend you can look forward to a richer, healthier, fresher and happeir life. Don't let your thoughts focus on the things you are going to miss. Instead concentrate on the things you are going to gain.

Are you looking for things to say to get someone to stop smoking?

If you are looking for things to say to get someone to stop smoking then you're going to have a hard time.

Let me explain, no matter how much you love someone and they love you, trying to get someone to stop smoking will probably cause an argument. Smoking is a way of life for smokers, they enjoy it, it's a part of practically everything they do.

From the minute they wake up, to the minute they go to sleep - often a day will start and end with a cigarette. Smokers often don't know or can't remember when things were different. And if you try to get them to change this, you're probably going to be on the receiving end of a cold shoulder!

Most people don't like change, especially from something they like. And all smokers, even the ones that want to stop smoking, enjoy some of their cigarettes. Maybe it's the one after sex, maybe it's the cigarette they have with their coffee or maybe they love finishing a meal and relaxing with a cigarette.

So if you're trying to find things to say to get someone to stop smoking you're only going to succeed in annoying them!

Telling them that they are going to die or that they are aging at three times the rate than the rest of us or that their clothes smell terrible will get both of you nowhere. And it might even work against you, and make them smoke more. Either just to annoy you or because hearing all these things stresses them out.

I know this from personal experience. I once tried to help an ex-girlfriend stop smoking (when I was learning about helping others to stop smoking) and it failed miserably, in fact we almost broke up because of it!

So what can you do? A couple of things really. Firstly find out if they want to stop, and if so let them know that you are willing to help. But don't push them or bring it up constantly, they'll get annoyed, trust me!

Secondly, help them find a new focus in life. I know many ex-smokers who do nothing but fantasize about having 'just one cigarette.' This is not healthy, and they are miserable for it! So help them find a way to make sure that when they stop smoking they really, really enjoy life for making this positive chage.

And with all the money they are saving, around about $2,000 a year for a pack a day smoker, they can invest in a new car, a new expensive holiday or vacation or two, some new clothes and a make over or a new TV. Whever it is help them to see that their life is better once they stop smoking.

So if you if you really want to know what kinds of things to say to get someone to stop smoking, you should put yourself in their shoes - if someone wanted you to give up something you really enjoy and just can't stop doing, how would you feel and what would it take to get you to stop?

Do you have any ways to prevent smoking habits?

I don't think I need to tell you that smoking is a habit as well as an addiciton! But in my oppinion smoking is about eighty percent habit and twenty percent addiction. So I think it's pretty important for you to find ways to prevent smoking habits.


Think about the cigarettes you have had today, the ones you had yesterday and the ones you've smoked over the last week. How many of them come at the same time of the day, every day?

If you take a few minutes to think about your daily routines, it's certain that cigarettes play a key role in your habits. I mean do you have a cigarette 1st thing in the morning as soon as you roll out of bed, or when you put the kettle on or when you walk out the door to work?

What about in the car, as soon as you get off the bus, tube or train before walking in the office door?

Then there are break times, the after meal cigarette, stress reducing and 'head-clearing' cigarettes you have. These are a very, very small selection of the smoking habits you have.

When you stop smoking, these times, events, places, people and emotions will remind you to smoke. And if you don't find at least a few ways to prevent smoking habits you're going to face a difficult time!

The first thing to do is find out each and every single one of your smoking habits. So write them all down - each cigarette you smoke has a reason for it. You either needed it or you smoked it to resolve a problem.

The best way to pevent your smoking habits is then to either resolve the problem, find a new solution to replace the cigarette or break the link all together.

What you need to do is break and prevent your smoking habits so that no time, place, feeling, problem or event makes you smoke again. Once you've done that my friend, you will be well on your way to stopping smoking and the very importantly - staying stopped!

Nicotine Withdrawals

Is this a big problem you face when you stop smoking?

Almost every smoker I know blames their cravings, excessive eating, headches, irritable moods, uncomfortable bodily feelings and even sore arms and knees down to nicotine withdrawals!

The simple truth is that your nicotine withdrawal cannot cause all these things! For a start, the amount of nicotine you inhale is so little that you cannot become addicted to it! Ok so you're thinking - what? Everybody knows that nicotine is addictive!

Well that's what we've all bee led to believe. So let me give you a few small examples to clarify my point. Nicotine is a poison. If you were to inject the total amount of nicotine in each cigarette into your body, or drop it on your tongue - you would die in a matter of seconds.

Between 60 - 90% of the nicotine in each cigarette dissappears in the sidestream smoke ( also known as second hand smoke), so you are only receiving a fraction of the nicotine you believe you are.

Each and every sinlge night since you started smoking, you have slept anywhere from 6 - 10 hours. But have you woken up every night on the hour or every forty five minutes to have a cigarette? We both know the answer to that one!

If nicotine is more addictive that heroin how come you can go each and every night without a cigarette for seven or eight hours, while a heroin addict will suffer heavy sweats, go into shock, experience uncontrolable kicking movements and will get dihorrea, if they don't get their fix?!!

So all those side effects you get when you stop smoking are not down to your nicotine withdrawals because you are not addicted to nicotine! If your body really were dependent on the substance, which is a poison, you would need your nicotine fix right throughout the night wouldn't you!

The terrible side effects you experience when you stop smoking are not nicotine withdrawals, but they are the symptoms of your body's heavy cleaning process. Each cigarette has 4,700 chemicals in it and each year you smoke you deposit 3/4 of a cup of tar into your lungs.

This is going to require some heavy duty clenaing to remove. So your body is stressed and under a huge strain to remove those chemicals. So no wonder you are going to feel off and uncomfortable.

When you have a stomach bug you feel bad don't you? That's party because your body is working overtime to remove and kill off the bug. It's the same with smoking.

You're not experiencing nicotine withdrawals, instead your body is out of sync as it tries to remove the nicotine, lead, candle wax, lighter fuel, carbon monoxide and tar in each cigarette, from your body.

The next time you think to yourself I can't take these nicotine withdrawals, remember that you feel this way because your body is trying to remove these chemicals from your body, not get more!

The best ways to solve these feelings you've confused with nicotine withdrawals? Eat. That's what I said! If you eat the right kinds of foods, you won't gain weightt, and you will be giving your body the energy it needs to clean out all the gunk.

Do you need help to stop smoking?

Ok, so this is something a lot of smokers ask - do I need help to stop smoking?

The answer is yes , and no! Yes in that you need help in finding out what to do and how to do it. And I don't mean, you need someone to tell you to quit because it's killing you! And I don't mean you need someone's help to figure out that you need strong 'willpower'!

And no you don't need help to stop smoking, because once you know the secrets to stopping smoking, you can do it all on your own. You will be your biggest motivator and only you will be able to control your attitude, your outlook and your approach to stopping smoking! No one else can help you with this!

So what help do you need to stop smoking? Well, you should find either friinds who have stopped - with little or no problems or someone who knows how to stop the common stop smoking side effects.

It is more than likely that the things that worked for your friends will work for you. But bear in mind that you will power will play absolutely no role whatsoever in helping you to stop smoking.

So if your friend stopped using their will power, they are either one of the very, very, very few who has managed to do so. Or they used a combination of will power and some other treid and tested teqniques, wether they are aware or not.

But your friends' little tricks and techniques can help you. Things like, drinking lots, and lots, and lots of water will help you. Why? Well water helps your body flush out nicotine and the other chemicals from your body. Helping you to minimize and prevent the bad side effects.

Maybe your friends started going to the gym or picked up a new hobby - these are two very good dissassociation and distraction techniques. They help you focus on something else other than cigarettes.

And perhaps your friends found that eating lots and fruits and veg helped. This helps prevent weight gain and minimize the side effects. Fruit and veg have many vitamins and minerals that you simply cannot find in processed, fast and frozen foods.

This helps prevent and minimize side effects, as most of them are your body's way of teeling you that you need food to provide energy to remove the toxins and poisions from your body. And they are a low in calories and fats, which means that you will minimize weight gain when you stop smoking.

So if you're looking for help to stop smoking, ask your friends what worked for them, put those things into action and remember that only you can stop smoking. Having pushy friends will only make things worse.

Once you know what to do to make the stopping process easy, quick and enjoyable - yes it can be enjoyable if you adopt the right approach, you need to set a plan and stick to it. This is the best way to help yourself to sto smoking!