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Avoiding Nicotine Withdrawal While Quitting (It’s Easier Than You Think!)

  • Posted on July 2, 2009 at 11:42 pm

Nicotine withdrawal is one of the most feared difficulties that may arise quitting smoking. It’s one of the reasons why quitting is supposed to be hard, but it’s easier to avoid than you may think.

Nicotine withdrawal can be characterized in two ways: physical symptoms arising from nicotine levels decreasing in the body, and cravings for cigarettes. It’s important to know that these two are different.

Physical symptoms of nicotine withdrawal won’t make you want to smoke. They’ll make you irritable and impatient, among other things, but they won’t actively make you want to smoke. Physical withdrawal symptoms from smoking are easy to deal with: simply wait and they’ll go away.

Cravings for cigarettes, however, can be a bit more difficult to deal with. If you’ve ever tried and failed at quitting with the nicotine patch or something of the like, you’ll realize that cravings for smoking can easily take over your mind and prevent the greatest physical remedies for nicotine withdrawal from working.

Smoking works by convincing your mind that it needs to have a cigarette in order to function. You need a cigarette in order to be on the phone, you need a cigarette in order to deal with the drive home from work, etc.

This isn’t exactly the case, however. It is possible to go through the day without even wanting a cigarette. Sure, cigarettes can be addictive, but if you know how to remove yourself from the addiction, it’s a walk in the park, and you’ll never look back.

I tried quitting smoking about a million times through the various quitting methods that everyone says will work, including nicotine gum, some anti-smoking pill, and a couple other home brew methods. They all work from the same flawed principle, however: smoking is not a physical addition, it’s a mental one…

I finally was able to quit after picking up a couple of online books about quitting. It’s amazing just how easy it is once you know the secrets. Learn just what that secret is from these books on quitting smoking and start your life anew today!

Avoiding Nicotine Withdrawal While Quitting Smoking

Article Source: Avoiding Nicotine Withdrawal While Quitting (It’s Easier Than You Think!)

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Irritability While Quitting Smoking (And How to Avoid It)

  • Posted on July 2, 2009 at 10:40 pm

Increased irritability is one of the strangely accepted facts about quitting smoking. As nicotine is slowly removed from the bloodstream, you become irritable and unable to concentrate. Why?

The accepted scientific cause for irritability is that it’s a part of nicotine withdrawal, and has to be dealt with just like the rest of the symptoms of withdrawal. This isn’t exactly the case, however.

Virtually everybody who quits smoking begins to regret their decision a few days in, as their learned connection between daily activities and smoking cause them to have cravings for cigarettes. You become frustrated weighing the benefits of quitting versus the immediate gain of being able to concentrate instead of constantly thinking about smoking.

It’s all understandable, I went through the same thing the first few times I tried quitting smoking, unsuccessfully, I might add. Eventually, you give in to the cravings and go right back to smoking. Alternatively, you could stick to your guns and push through…and keep having the cravings for months. That doesn’t sound very fun at all.

The trick to quitting smoking and not having to look back is to convince your mind, from the beginning, that it doesn’t need cigarettes in order to function. Remember, non-smokers don’t feel the urge to light up when they’re stressed, why should you?

You feel the urge to smoke when, for example, you’re stressed because you’ve trained your mind to believe that smoking somehow eases your stress. Sure, it may take your mind off the fact that you’re stressed, but it doesn’t really solve anything.

Do you want to learn how to quit right now, without feeling any withdrawal? Take a look at these guides on quitting and stop believing that you need cigarettes!

How To Avoid Irritability While Quitting Smoking

Article Source: Irritability While Quitting Smoking (And How to Avoid It)

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Physical Recovery and Changes After Quitting Smoking – What to Expect

  • Posted on July 2, 2009 at 10:40 pm

One of the best things about quitting smoking is just how quickly your body recovers from the ill effects of smoking. While it takes many years to completely recover, your body starts healing itself in just over a quarter of an hour. These are some of the things you can look forward to (and be wary of) in the coming days after stopping smoking.

About twenty minutes after quitting smoking, your blood pressure and heart rate are back to a normal level.

12 hours after stopping, your blood oxygen saturation has become normal, and nicotine levels in the bloodstream are a twentieth of their levels as a smoker.

One day after quitting, you will start to feel the anxiety and withdrawal that comes with quitting smoking. You’ve made it this far, don’t turn back!

Between two and three days from the last time you’ve smoked, your irritability will be at an all time high. You’ll experience several cravings per day for cigarettes, but as time goes on their length and intensity decreases. It also becomes easier to breathe, as your lungs are healing.

After a week, you’ll experience fewer symptoms of withdrawal. Past the three day mark, all withdrawal symptoms are mental, as your body as cleansed itself from the addictive properties of nicotine. Stick with it, because it only gets better from here!

After two weeks, you shouldn’t feel withdrawal any more. Urges to smoke will have dissipated, and you can relax knowing that you have taken control of your life again. In the coming few weeks, irritability, sleeplessness, and depression associated with smoking will subside and you’ll be able to take in just how incredible it is to not be a smoker.

One year after quitting, you are at a massively decreased risk of coronary heart disease, about half that of a smoker. Over the next few years, the rest of your disease risks will return to those of a non-smoker.

The first month is the hardest, but if you stick to it you’ll be rewarded in the end. Make sure that your family and friends know that you’re quitting smoking and to expect you to be more irritable and anxious. The first two weeks after I quit, I was absolutely unbearable to be around, but it went away with time and I never look back and miss smoking.

Remember though, your body won’t start to heal until you’ve actually quit smoking. If you want to quit smoking today, pick up a copy of the EasyQuit System and stop the damaging effects of cigarettes on your body once and for all!

Physical Recovery After Quitting Smoking

Article Source: Physical Recovery and Changes After Quitting Smoking – What to Expect

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Why the Nicotine Patch Just Doesn’t Work to Quit Smoking

  • Posted on July 2, 2009 at 11:47 am

You see it advertised all the time. All of your happy cigarette-free friends want you to buy them, and you see them next to the cigarettes almost anywhere you can buy them. They’re a giant rip-off, though, and don’t actually work to quit smoking.

Why? They treat smoking as a disease, just like the common cold. Everybody wants some kind of “magic pill” that will cure their addiction to smoking, because all of the other ways just seem unbearable. Let’s take a look at the main one for a second here:

Cold Turkey? Most people connect quitting cold turkey with months of misery as your body detoxes itself of nicotine. You’ve heard the horror stories of people quitting smoking cold turkey and being awful company for weeks.

Back to the nicotine patch. It seems like the perfect cure: You slap one on in the morning, and don’t feel any cravings for cigarettes. Repeat for a few weeks, and you’re cured.

The problem comes in when you, like every smoker does, happen upon one of your smoking friends. You’ll rip the nicotine patch off, stuff it in your pocket, and light up a cigarette. Why? Because the nicotine patch doesn’t make you not want to smoke, it just makes you not want nicotine.

Your mental ties with smoking (seeing your friends, getting off of work, etc.) are still there. The tiny little success rate from nicotine patches comes from people who manage to (very much like cold turkey quitters) push through all of those triggers for long enough. That doesn’t sound much better than quitting without the patch, does it?

Before you try to quit smoking, you need to understand exactly how a smoking addiction works. You can learn all about it with this article: How Smoking Addictions Work

Why doesn’t the nicotine patch work?

Article Source: Why the Nicotine Patch Just Doesn’t Work to Quit Smoking

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