What is keeping you from Quitting?

Have you ever explored your thoughts and feelings about what is keeping you from quitting? You have reasons to smoke and if you are reading this blog you have reasons to quit. What are these reasons? Contemplating on your life, your values, and checking to see if smoking fits in with these basic attributes that make you who you are.
Many times we are ambivalent about changes, especially important changes like quitting tobacco. If we explore these thoughts and feelings it becomes easier to have a thought out decision based on core values, instead of just going along and making a decision by not deciding... just continuing the statis quo. I would encourage you to make a list either with pen and paper or taking a quiet moment and comtemplating your future and what you want it to look like.
When you reach the time and place when you decide to quit I hope you will look to your strengths especially the strengths you demonstrated when you made earlier quit attempts. What are the things that worked before and why did you try before are both important questions to ask at that time. Look at your values and life style and change in ways that will reflect who you are and who you want to be. I know you can find the strength to quit.

Snowy Day

Last evening as I left work I felt like everywhere I looked was dirty; the roads, my car, the snow banks. Today I woke up to 5 inches of snow. It looks so beautiful, fresh and clean. Have you ever wanted to have a fresh start. One day you have a cough, your tired of the bad breath, the need to go outside for a cigarette, just everything about smoking. Have you ever felt like you wanted a "do over" a chance to begin fresh. When you quit smoking you do begin a fresh start, a cleansing of your body from toxins, tar and nicotine. Here is a list of how long it takes to start the healing, benefitial changes after your last cigarette.

20 minutes:

• Blood pressure drops to normal
• Pulse rate drops to normal
• Body temperature of hands ad feet increase to normal

8 hours:

• Carbon monoxide level in blood drops to normal
• Oxygen level in blood increases to normal

24 hours:

• Chance of Heart attack decreases

48 hours:

• Nerve endings state regrowing
• Ability to smell and taste is enhanced

2 weeks to 3 months:

• Circulation improves
• Walking becomes easier
• Lung function increases up to 30%

1 to 9 months:

• Coughing, sinus congestion, fatigue, and hortness of breath decrease
• Cilia re-grow in lungs, increasing body's ability to make mucus, clean the lungs, and reduce infection
• Body's overall energy increases

1 year:

• Excess risk of coronary heart disease is half that of a smoker

5 years:

• Lung carcer death rate for average former smoker (one pack a day) decreases by almost half
• Stroke is reduced to that of a non-smoker 5 -15 years after quitting
• Risk of cancer of the mouth, throat and esophagus is half that of a smoker's

10 years:

• Lung cancer death rate similar to that of nonsmokers
• Pre-cancerous cells are replaced
• Risk of cancer of the mouth, throat, and esophagus, bladder, kidney and pancreas decrease

15 years:

• Risk of coronary heart disease is that of a nonsmoker

American Cancer Society; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Valentines Day-Things We do for the Ones We Love

Tomorrow we express to our loved ones, by actions, words and deeds, how much we love them. Is there a better way to express that love than the decision to Quit using Tobacco. Smoking affects all of the people we love and especially those nearest to us. I would like to encourage you all to weigh the pros and cons of tobacco use and all of the reasons why you would like to quit and use Valentines as the day you begin that path. Happy Valentines, my hope is that this will be your time to succeed.