Cigarette smoking is an unhealthy and costly habit that can lead to lung cancer, heart disease, and death. Nearly one in five deaths in America is the result of smoking. According to the Center of Disease Control and Prevention, this unhealthy habit causes more deaths yearly than HIV, car accidents, murders, suicides, and illegal drug or alcohol use combined.
The only way to assure that you don’t suffer smoking related diseases is to quit smoking now. Long-term smokers have equated nicotine addiction to that of heroin. Therefore, if you want to quit smoking, it’s important to give your 100% effort.
Try these tips to help you quit smoking in less than 30 days:
1. Weigh the pros and cons. Life is harder for smokers. Not only are the health risks major cons, but smokers are also forced into exile from restaurants, bars, and friends’ homes when they want to light a cigarette.
Once you begin compiling your list, you’ll find that there isn’t one benefit to list under the pros section, but you’ll likely need a second sheet of paper to keep writing negatives in your cons section.
Smoking is expensive! In some states, cigarettes can cost as much as $10 per pack. If you’re a pack-per-day smoker, you’re shelling out $300 per month in order to nurture a habit that is decreasing your quality of life. If you quit smoking, you’ll have an extra $3,600 per year in expendable income.
2. Slowly, but surely. Quitting cold turkey is rarely an effective method to quit smoking. Rather than quitting altogether immediately, choose to minimize your cigarette intake until you’ve reached 0 cigarettes per day.
In 20 days, you can quit smoking! Simply decrease the number of cigarettes you smoke each day by one. So, the first day you’d smoke 20 cigarettes, the second 19, the third 18, the fourth 17, the fifth 16 and so on. You’ll hardly miss the extra cigarette. By your 21st day on this plan, you’ll be smoke free!
To sweeten the deal, set the money aside that you’d spend on cigarettes for a fun purchase. By day 20, you can have up to $200 saved up. $200 can buy quite a lot at an outlet mall or a deal savvy website.
3. Immerse yourself into new hobbies. Reward yourself for your efforts to quit by immersing yourself into new hobbies. Join a lavish gym, bowling league, or cake decorating club, or simply vow to cross off those ever expanding home improvement projects off of your list.
When you’re joyfully occupied, you’re less likely to give into your craving for a cigarette. Sure, you may catch a craving every now and then, but if you’re able to postpone the craving a few hours, chances are good that you don’t want the cigarette too badly after all.
Use your time to volunteer. Rather than devoting your free time to personal activities, consider volunteering your time to the needy. If it weren’t for your effort to quit smoking, you may never have acted on this wonderful opportunity. Therefore, use this as ammunition to continue both your quitting and community service efforts.
Quitting smoking certainly isn’t an easy task. If you’re realistic in your abilities to quit smoking, you’ll increase your chances of success. It’s very unlikely that you smoked a pack per day from the very inception of your smoking habit. Therefore, taking it slowly rather than quitting cold turkey may provide you with the best chance of success.
Whichever path you take, you must be committed to becoming smoke free. But once you’ve beat the smoking habit, you can breathe a fresh sigh of relief because you’re not only saving money, but your life.
