People can act really stupid when they’re young. A classic example: convincing yourself that smoking cigarettes is cool. You start with one stick until you eventually graduate to smoking two to three packs per day. Cigarette addiction soon develops.
Must Have A Quit Smoking Plan
One Navy guy (Wil Dieck) smoked nonstop for 10 years and had a serious cigarette addiction. It all stopped in 1978. He left the Navy smoking two packs daily. Then, some six months after getting out, he realized risking his health for several minutes of pleasure from smoking didn’t make sense. Even though he exercised, he knew his strength and stamina weren’t what they used to be. He came to the conclusion that a quit smoking plan was in order – one that would get rid of the nasty habit permanently.
These days you can quit many different ways, but back in the day, smokers relied on hypnotherapy for smoking, coupled with a good dose of willpower. The Navy man slightly deviated from the usual and used a variation of the two methods.
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Everyone knows that there are thousands of chemical compounds in cigarette smoke, many of them are toxic. It is these chemicals that cause the harmful effects of smoking. But simply displaying a long list of intimidating names, and even pointing out which are harmful, isn’t particularly helpful. When it comes to medicine, understanding the dosage is the key factor to understanding how cigarette smoke affects your body.
Many of the compounds that are in cigarette smoke are found in only trace amounts, in the range of nanograms, or one-billionth of a gram, for one cigarette. One gram weighs about 3/100 of an ounce so 1 g is about 0.0353 oz., not a large quantity. Nevertheless, there are a dozen or so chemicals that are not only potentially toxic, but found in significant quantities.
Tar, for example, is a part of nearly all cigarettes. It is found at varying levels, from 10-14 mg per cigarette. Even so-called ‘low tar’ cigarettes typically contain 8-9 mg. Just like its counterpart that coats chimney walls, it produces a black substance that coats the linings of the lungs. It’s this coating that interferes with the action of your alveoli.
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Many smokers tell me that the reason they smoke cigarettes is to deal with stress but they still want to quit. They also tell me that no matter what method they use to try to quit smoking, the act of quitting increases their level of stress. For many people this double-whammy makes it doubly hard to stop. So if this is you or someone you know, understanding what creates stress and finding healthier ways to deal with it will help in that struggle.
First let’s analyze why cigarette smoking can seem pleasurable. At low dosages, nicotine, the main chemical in cigarettes, is a stimulant. Using nicotine increases your heart rate and raises your blood pressure. Those biological changes in your body interact to produce psychological ones in your mind. At certain levels the reactions to nicotine are perceived as pleasurable. At higher levels, nicotine seems to induce a relaxing state.
Both of these effects can appear to alleviate stress. The stimulation of nicotine generates alertness. This can be associated with a positive feeling. Of course this feeling is actually induced by the dopamine generated in your brain, which causes other changes to its pleasure centers. This release of dopamine has a clear and direct influence on your stress level. An easier and healthier way to create dopamine in your brain is to exercise.
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People that don’t smoke are wonder why other people smoke. In fact they are often incredulous. Don’t they know that smoking causes lung cancer? Why would they suck and blow their lives away? Don’t they know they’ll get addicted and die? Don’t they realize that they’re blowing their second-hand smoke at other people and exposing them to all those cacogenics?
These are some of the most common complaints that non smokers have about smokers. It is also is the reason behind why people smoke remains largely a mystery to them. Because it brings up so many issues like health, science, media influence, economics, and freedom of choice, smoking still manages to cause a lot of controversy.
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Children smoking cigarettes is nothing new. I used to smoke when I was a teenager. In fact, back in the 60s, before we were all aware of the terrible effects of cigarette smoking, it was considered to be very cool for teens to smoke. I smoked Marlboro’s because I wanted to be as cool as that famous guy in the cowboy hat I saw on billboards and in magazine ads. Back then he was even on the TV. He smoked by the campfire and was even portrayed riding his horse with a cigarette dangling from his mouth. After riding a motorcycle I have a hard time believing that someone would want to ride a horse like that.
I also tried smoking Camels. In fact when I started smoking I smoked Camel Reds with no filters. Even though they tasted terrible, my friend Frank and I thought we were cool. What’s interesting is that the pack is emblazoned with a camel with a desert backdrop. I never did quite get the meaning of that. Did it mean that the cigarettes taste as bad as a camel smells? Or was the illustration supposed to mean smoking one would give you an exotic experience similar to smoking opium? I guess I’ll never know.
Today everyone, at least in the United States, has been educated to know that smoking and cigarette addiction increases your odds of getting lung cancer, emphysema and a host of other health problems. The issue is that even with this information, many kids today, just as I did 40 years ago, still consider smoking to be cool. In fact a couple of years ago I found that my daughter was experimenting with smoking tobacco and I did everything I could to prevent it. The good news is that I was successful and she doesn’t smoke. The reason I’m telling you this is that as a parent, you might think that children smoking is uncommon, or that your kids won’t be tempted to smoke. What you need to do is think again. The fact is that 1 in 4 high school students smoke cigarettes. Over 4,000 kids that take up this deadly habit every week, that’s in the United States alone.
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A while ago I posted an article titled 8 Stop Smoking Tips that Work. Some people have asked me if I knew another method or two to help them quit smoking and I do. Here they are:
1. Start an exercise program. When you exercise you put your body into motion. Getting into motion is an excellent way to remind you why you want to quit smoking. An added benefit of exercise is that it can reduce your stress and help you relax, which is often an excuse smokers will use to continue smoking cigarettes.
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Most smokers will tell you that they want to quit smoking. Now if you’ve never smoked you might think it’s as simple as throwing them in the trash. However, if you have never smoked you don’t understand the facts about cigarette addiction. Cigarettes’ main ingredient is nicotine and it doesn’t take long for it to make you want more of it, and getting away from it can be brutal. For someone who wants to quit smoking it can be a long hard road.
The good news is that it is very possible to for you to find a method to quit smoking that works for you. Understanding how nicotine affects you can help you quit smoking when you put this information to use.
One thing that most people don’t understand about nicotine is that nicotine is not what makes smoking bad for your health. It is not good, of course, but it is not really what can go on to cause cancer and other smoking related conditions and diseases. The nicotine is not the problem. What causes the most damage in the lungs is the tar that comes from the cigarette, and also, the other chemicals that tobacco companies add, most off which you may not be aware. If you really want to quit smoking look up information on tobacco products online, you will find out a lot more about those chemicals.
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Are you looking for a method to quit smoking? If you’re a smoker you’ve probably looked for all kinds of ways to quit smoking.
You want to know something interesting? Did you know that people from various cultures have been smoking tobacco in rituals or just for enjoyment for many centuries? Until the fairly recent past, people did not become addicted and nobody smoked anything near the equivalent of a pack a day. People just did not have to worry about wanting to quit smoking. It was merely an occasional pleasure or a significant event. So why is this problem today? Why do so many people want to quit smoking?
In the latter part of the 20th century doctors began issuing stern warnings on the horrible effects smoking has on a person’s health. This was presumably a new discovery. It kind of sounds like the new discovery of the $700 billion problem that fell out of the sky a few years ago and onto the United States taxpayer’s shoulders, seemingly without warning! Well that’s the same thing that happened with cigarettes. Even though tobacco manufacturers today offer advice and methods on how to quit smoking, this seems a bit incongruent. These are the same companies that sell millions of cigarettes around the world and that sell the nicotine patches to help you quit.
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The one thing that all of the hundreds of people I’ve helped to quit smoking will all agree on is this, smoking purely and simply is a bad habit. Interestingly enough, so will almost everyone you meet who has a cigarette addiction. Besides being an invitation to dire health problems down the road, it’s an unattractive and expensive habit. Over the years, cigarette companies have done their best to encourage their product’s sales and keep people in this nasty habit. This is despite being barred from advertising on television and in magazines.
A major issue here is that cigarette smoking is a generational problem. It wasn’t until the early 1970s that cigarette smoking was revealed to be a major contributor to lung cancer, emphysema and COPD. By then, there were hundreds of millions of people with cigarette addictions all over the world. Once they found out the truth, many of these people looking for a method to quit smoking so they could get out of their life-sapping addiction.
As you know, children learn by example. Many cigarette smokers’ children have taken up the habit as a result of their cigarette addiction. And then the kids got hooked too. Even when their parents quit smoking their kids did not. They tell themselves, “Hey, my Mom smoked for thirty years and she’s doing just fine. It can’t be that bad!” Well I don’t care if your mom smoked for 30 years and now wrestles grizzly bears for a living, the odds are that if you smoke cigarettes, the results will catch up to you. Those results will be some very unpleasant health consequences.
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I was watching one of my favorite Sunday morning broadcasts, CBS’ “Face the Nation” when I heard Bob Schieffer ask John Boehner, the House Republican leader, if he still smoked cigarettes. The House Republican leader replied that he still smoked. Bob went on to point out that he is both an ex-smoker and cancer survivor. He knows first hand the effects of cigarette smoking on one’s health.
Bob then went on to comment that President Obama is also a smoker. I researched this comment and found that he is a smoker, but he only smokes in private. I guess that’s good. At least he’s not exposing his family and friends to second hand smoke.
This bothers me. We have two of the leaders of our country, a Democrat and a Republican that both smoke cigarettes. What is puzzling to me is that while both of these gentlemen are tasked by their constituents to make decisions on spending our health care dollars, both of them show a complete lack of interest in health.
According to aboutus.com “smoking-related deaths costs the nation about $92 billion a year in the form of lost productivity.”
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