Working to Save Your Health – One Cigarette at a Time

Attempting to quit smoking is never easy; working to reduce your intake of cigarettes as well as actually quitting fully is always a hard process.  If you have tried to quit cold turkey before, you have probably experienced a large number of problems.  This is one of the hardest methods to quit smoking that there really is.  This can really make the process of quitting smoking so much harder than it really is.  If you have struggled to quit cold turkey before, there is still help available to you.  Simply having trouble quitting smoking immediately does not mean that you are doomed to smoke forever.

If you are aware that you have had problems in the past quitting you are ahead when it comes to the next attempt.  Being fully aware of your problems will enable you to create a plan to combat the complications that you experienced.  For example, if you find that you are far too interested in smoking to just quit fully you might need to approach the process of quitting in a different manner.  One of the most successful options you could pursue is quitting slowly.

Quitting all at once may be something that you are not capable of doing.  This is not uncommon at all; in fact, many people have great difficulty if they attempt to quit cold turkey.  If you take your time and quit slowly you will find that the process of quitting goes much easier.  Slowly cutting out a few cigarettes each day will allow you to slowly decrease the amount of cigarettes that you smoke, without feeling as if you are completely suffering.

One of the most important things to remember if you are quitting slowly is you need to occupy your time during the period when you are typically smoking.  If you have elected to skip smoking at specific times, you need to ensure you stay busy during these times.   This would mean finding a way to keep your mind occupied that will not involve keeping your hands idle, after all if your hands are idle you are much more likely to slip up and smoke again.

If you find that you have a very strong temptation to smoke during these times, you need to create a specific task that you will do whenever the urge is strong to smoke.  Looking into nicotine gum or possibly even chewing regular gum may be all of the help that you need to avoid the temptation to smoke when you are most tempted.  Regardless of how quickly you are trying to smoke, you should always cut out no more than two cigarettes a day until you have established a successful pattern.

If you have gone a week with the reduction of two cigarettes successfully, it would then be time to decrease another two cigarettes.  Going slow will allow you to easily see the point where you start to have serious problems, but at the same time build up your self-control.  In the very least, you will begin to see improvements in your health due to the decrease of cigarettes that you are smoking still.  Of course, as everyone knows, it is much better to simply quit smoking fully, but this is not always possible for everyone.

Making sure that you are successful the next time you attempt to quit smoking is going to involve a great amount of commitment on your part.  Additionally, it will also take a serious desire for you to actually quit and improve your health.  If you are merely working at quitting slowly you need to be aware of the potential problems and ready to take control of your habits in order to effectively make new habits that will set you up for a much healthier lifestyle.  Avoiding the bad habits that smoking causes is certainly not easy; taking the time to really grasp at the small benefits that you start to achieve is critical to success and will find you in much better health.