Quitting smoking is the best decision anyone can make to improve their overall health. If you’ve been trying to kick the habit, now is the time to start strategizing.
Research shows that making a plan and building a support system of family, friends and professionals will increase your chances of successfully quitting smoking and beating nicotine addiction.
Here are 12 simple tips for quitting:
- Make a plan. Talk to your doctor about strategies such as quitting “cold turkey” versus nicotine replacement therapies.
- Take one day at a time. If you can give up cigarettes for 24 hours,
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you double your chance for success. - Tell your friends, family and co-workers that you plan to quit and rally them to help you stick with it.
- Consider using approved medications – gum, patch, lozenges, spray, inhaler, Chantix or Zyban – to help you quit.
- Use free resources available from the New York State Smokers’ Quitline: 1-866-NY-QUITS (1-866-697-8487) and www.nysmokefree.com, the New York Smokers’ Quitsite.
- Avoid risky situations or behaviors that were comfortable when smoking.
- Remove all ashtrays, lighters, matches and cigarettes from the house. Just seeing them can make you want to smoke.
- Start eating sugarless hard candy or chewing crunchy
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vegetables – like carrot sticks – to keep your mouth busy. Consider using cinnamon candy, because its “burning” sensation mimics the feeling of smoking and kills the craving. - Drink plenty of water. It helps keep you feeling “full,” and prevents you from overeating and gaining weight. It also helps “cleanse” your body of the toxins from years of smoking.
- Practice breathing deeply or take a walk when you’re craving a
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cigarette. Smoking involves taking long deep breaths, but now it’ll be fresh air rather than chemicals entering your lungs. - Remind yourself why you are quitting – and reward yourself every day you make it without smoking.
- Ignore your age! While older smokers are less likely to try to quit, when they do try, they’re more likely to succeed.
Intensive tobacco dependence treatment programs are available at the University of Rochester’s Healthy Living Center, including face to face counseling and cessation medication. If you would like more information, please call (585) 530-2050.
Have a safe and happy holiday!
Scott McIntosh, Ph.D., is director of the Greater Rochester Area Tobacco Cessation Center and associate director of the Smoking Research Program at the James P. Wilmot Cancer Center at URMC.
