We Offer You A Challenge: Start A New Life
Smoking is the most prevalent disease in the world and is related to almost thirty pathologies, some of them very serious.
Smoking is the most prevalent disease in the world and is related to almost thirty pathologies, some of them very serious.
Surely if you smoke you have heard countless times that you have to quit, that it is bad for your health... We cannot tell you otherwise, because this is the only truth. Indeed, smoking is a chronic and addictive disease recognized by the World Health Organization as a mental and behavioral disorder. Currently, it is the most prevalent disease in the world and is related to the appearance of 29 other pathologies (cancer, lung diseases, heart diseases...). In addition, as a consequence of tobacco addiction, more than 50.000 people die in Spain every year. Why do you keep smoking? What makes it so hard to quit?
why do we smoke
- Tobacco consumption is a complex behavior that is explained based on two major factors: physical addiction, caused by nicotine, and behavioral habits.
- As with other activities, such as brushing your teeth after eating, smoking is a learned behavior that becomes a habit for these reasons:
- Practice: Did you know that if you smoke a pack of tobacco a day for 25 years, you will have repeated the act of lighting a cigarette 182.500 times? And that you will have put the cigarette in your mouth some 2.737.500 times? You will have repeated few acts or will repeat them on so many occasions throughout your life. Therefore, the behavior of smoking ends up being automated.
The association: When you smoke, you don't stand still, you are always doing other activities at the same time, such as driving, having a coffee, being with friends... and its realization ends up being associated with having a cigarette in your hands. If you did not have it you would find yourself uncomfortable and incomplete.
Reinforcement: When you smoke, you think that every time you smoke it has positive consequences for you, since it stimulates the pleasure centers of the brain. For all these reasons, a behavior learned at one point, over time, ends up becoming a habit of stable and maintained behavior.
When you want to quit smoking, in addition to overcoming nicotine addiction, you have to learn to carry out daily activities without tobacco, which is often very complicated.
What to do then if it's so hard
The first thing you have to do is search within yourself for the motivation that will help you quit smoking. If you are not motivated, you will not achieve it, the decision to leave it can only come from you. Each person is moved by certain reasons in our day to day, so you have to look for yours. Write each and every one of them, they are all valid, and compare them with those that invite you to continue smoking. See which way the scale leans, if it falls to the side of giving up your habit, don't hesitate and start your new life.
Seek help. Do not do it alone, especially if you have already tried it on previous occasions without success. Check with your doctor about the different psychological (behavioral and motivational) and pharmacological treatments (nicotine replacement treatments (patches, gum, varenicline or bupropion) that exist and whose success has been clinically proven.
Choose which day to start your new life. We recommend that it be within about 3 weeks to be able to prepare, and provided that the circumstances surrounding that date are appropriate. That is, do not choose a date when you have an excessive workload, exams, a social event... because then it will be more complicated. Your D-day has to be framed in favorable circumstances.
Know what your daily tobacco consumption habit is. Record each of the cigarettes you smoke for a week, writing down the time you do it, what activity accompanied that cigarette and how you felt when you smoked it. At the end of the week you will be able to get a more concrete idea of what your habit is like.
During the two weeks prior to the chosen date you have to reduce cigarette consumption to promote this process. Some advice that can help you achieve this is that you do not smoke as soon as you feel like it, let a while pass; do not accept cigarettes that are offered to you; smoke brands of tobacco you don't like, preferably without nicotine; extend the time between when you get up and the first cigarette, and between when you finish eating and the cigarette after.
The day before D-Day, get rid of everything that makes you want to smoke and organize activities to keep you busy during this first day of your new life. Starting on the chosen day, when you get up, think "Today I'm not going to smoke!" This has to become your daily goal.
If you need help to start your new life, you can download our 'Guide to quit smoking HappyAir' and consult with our specialized health professionals through the email cuentanos@lovexair.com
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