Are You Sure You Really Want To Stop Smoking?

Have you tried to quit smoking? Maybe you made a new years resolution to do this with good intentions but drifted back to your old habits by the end of January.
This is not untypical, giving-up smoking is very difficult and requires considerable determination and willpower to do it on your own. It is estimated that only 5-10% of smokers who try to quit without any help will achieve their aim.
Nicotine addiction is strong and you will get unpleasant withdrawal symptoms but the main problem is the psychological addiction. This refers to the way that you come to associate particular actions, being in certain situations and certain feelings with smoking. When these occur taking out a cigarette seems the natural thing to do and you feel a strong craving to do so.
Below are some points to consider:

• Be sure that you really want to quit. Do not do it to please someone else because you will not have the motivation and, despite whatever help is available, you are unlikely to succeed.
• Make notes of all the points in favor of quitting so that you can return them if you find yourself wavering. In particular work out how much money you will save and what you can do with it.
• Prior to quitting it is important to track your smoking and the daily triggers that cause you to smoke. Understanding the details of your smoking habits and triggering emotions or activities will be vital in your fight to stop smoking.
• Select a date when you plan to quit and make sure that family, friends and colleagues know about it. This way you put pressure on yourself to go through with it and people should support you and avoid putting temptation in your way.
• Have a clearout at home and work and get rid of everything related to smoking in any way.
• Consider your smoking habits and plan healthy alternatives to smoking in the situations you used to smoke. If this is difficult you should consider avoiding these situations whenever possible. Be careful not to replace smoking with eating unhealthy foods.
• Get some support. This might be a local support group, an online program or just family and friends. This will make it much more likely that you will keep going.

There are also a wide range of commercial products available which can help. Most of these aim to ease the physical withdrawal symptoms in the early days. These include prescription drugs, homeopathic remedies and nicotine replacement programs of various types. There are also various therapies that can teach you how to train your mind to stop associating certain situations with smoking. Perhaps the most successful of these is hypnosis. You still have to want to stop and it is not for everybody but many people have said that this made the difference in them becoming a long term non-smoker.
The bottom line is that the key answer to the question "how to quit smoking" is to really want to do it and be prepared to do whatever is necessary to succeed.