Quit Smoking

QUIT SMOKING

INTRODUCTION

1. During the last 30 years, millions of people in countries like United States and England have realised the harmful effects of smoking and have stopped smoking. On the contrary, during the same period millions of Indians have picked up smoking. It has been observed that if elders of the family are smokers, it does not take long for the younger of the family to pick up this bad habit.

2. Smoking increases the risk of heart attack. An average smoker is two times more susceptible to heart attack than a non smoker. Nicotine causes narrowing of coronary arteries. 25 year old man smoking two packets of cigarettes a day, is expected to die atleast 8 years earlier than a non smoker of the same age.

3. Analysis of various studies reveal the following facts:-

(a) There are 18 different kind of poisons in a cigarette. While some attack the delicate membranes of the wind pipe, others enter the blood stream and interfere with the normal circulation throughout the body.

(b) Those who smoke twenty cigarettes a day are twenty five times more susceptible to lung cancer than a non-smoker.

(c) With each cigarette roughly 20 mg of smoke tar/nicotine is introduced into the body.

(d) Passive smoking is as harmful as smoking.

PREPARING TO QUIT

Stages of Quitting

4. Giving up smoking is not an easy process. Many ex-smokers have claimed that stopping was one of the hardest things they ever had to do. Quitting is not an event, it is a process. Cessation of smoking, more importantly remaining a non-smoker thereafter is a continuous process. It is important for a smoker to know, when he would like to be a non-smoker. The process of giving up smoking can be outlined as four stages:-

(a) Pre-contemplation.

(b) Contemplation.

(c) Action.

(d) Maintenance.

5. Pre-contemplation Stage. Smoker gets annoyed by suggestions of quit smoking. He may be actively resistant to quitting. Pleas from family and friends are side...