We all heard why smoking is bad for our health: we learnt in science that it increases the chances for having an heart attack or lung cancer and reduces life expectancy and TV keeps repeating that it affects our breathing, our hair, our skin and many other body parts. However, did you know that it takes 15 years to bring the body back to what it was before smoking according to the Mundial Health Organization?
Thus, I decided that I should start now if I wanted to be fully healthy again by my 30’s and even if I was the biggest smoker ever, I managed to put an end to this bad habit in two steps.
Know yourself
Whatever our reasons to start smoking, we are all following a pattern while doing so: it can be a solution to stress, a automatism after work, a social tool brought out with friends. The thing is to change that pattern and thus, not putting yourself in the situation triggering the need to smoke. To achieve your goal, try to keep you occupied when the hour to smoke comes, go in different places with your friends, try a different way to go home…The thing is to stop associating smoking with a situation and to resist: don’t forget, the urge to smoke generally lasts for 5 minutes. Thus, a conversation with a friend or a video might get the cigarettes out of your mind
Know your brain
Let’s talk science: why is it so hard to stop smoking? There is a molecule in our brain called dopamine which releases a feeling of pleasure and which is stimulated by nicotine. However, time goes on and we go through a phenomena called “tolerance”: the pleasure disappears and thus, we need to smoke more for the same effects. The trick to stop smoking will be to associate pleasure with another activity and to let the brain rebalance its chemistry. Some people will use nicotine patches or pills, others will turn to food or sport. But most of all, this is an environment with no tentations that will help you make the healthy decision. Tell people around you!