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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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The First Few Days of Quitting Smoking – What to Expect

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

The first couple of days after you quit are the hardest to deal with. It gets easier as time goes on, but the first 72 hours are the absolute hardest. Luckily, if you know what to expect, it makes it easier to cope with.

Why 72 hours? It takes about that long for your body to completely stop the effects of nicotine. While there are still traces of nicotine in your blood after 72 hours, it has stopped affecting you at this point.

As the nicotine levels in your blood decrease, you will begin to experience the physical symptoms that come from nicotine withdrawal. Irritability and cold symptoms are the most noticeable, but there are a few others that generally won’t be noticed unless you’re looking for them.

The irritability and general lack of patience will be the most noticeable. You may notice yourself less able to concentrate, and more likely to snap at friends and colleagues. Explain to them beforehand that you’re quitting smoking and what to expect.

On the third day, cravings will be at their worst. You will generally experience frequent cravings for cigarettes, and it may take completely over your thoughts and cause you to be completely unable to work, thinking that smoking will make you able to think once again. This is the way that cigarettes keep you hooked, by making you believe that you need them to function.

Keep pushing through it, and your mind will slowly realize that it doesn’t actually need cigarettes to keep working. As time goes on, you will feel fewer and fewer cravings, and will be able to function better.

Quitting smoking doesn’t have to be hard! I quit in an afternoon while reading these guides on quitting and, surprisingly enough, smoking as it tells you to do.

The First Few Days After Quitting Smoking

Article Source: The First Few Days of Quitting Smoking – What to Expect

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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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Smoking – It’s All in Your Mind (Or – Why the Patch Doesn’t Work)

  • Posted on July 1, 2009 at 7:57 pm

Your want to smoke isn’t caused by the decrease of nicotine levels in your blood, despite what many people want you to believe. It’s because your mind is trained to desire cigarettes at various points during the day.

There’s a very simple example to demonstrate this. Do you smoke every, say, hour? No, you smoke when you’re on the phone, when you’re in the car, or right after you’ve had a fight with your wife. Your smoke to relieve stress, not to satisfy your craving for nicotine.

You don’t hear yourself say “wow, I could sure go for some nicotine right now.” Instead, you say “huh, let’s take a break and have a smoke.” There’s a key difference there, and it’s something that few people who want to quit realize.

Just as smoking is something your mind desires, quitting has to be done by dealing with your desires directly. You have to figure out what your mental triggers are and how they work in order to stop your urges for cigarettes. The nicotine patch, gum, and the like don’t work because they treat your physical addiction to nicotine.

You’ve probably heard of a ton of people who are on the patch yet still want a cigarette. If cigarette addictions were physical addictions, that would never happen because their want for nicotine would be resolved by their replacement therapy, but it’s not.

Again, smoking addiction is caused by your mind and its want for cigarettes, not from any sort of physical conditions.

Now that you understand how smoking works, you’re ready to learn how to quit smoking and kick your habit.

Smoking – It’s All in Your Mind

Article Source: Smoking – It’s All in Your Mind (Or – Why the Patch Doesn’t Work)

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