How to quit smoking: 2016

Thứ Hai, 1 tháng 8, 2016

A Look at Stroke Risk Associated With Smoking

Smoking puts your brain at major risk by dramatically increasing the chances of having a stroke, and stroke is a major concern because it’s the fourth leading cause of death in the United States. Smoking is one of the greatest risk factors for having a stroke; however, your risks multiply if you also have other risk factors such as being overweight, having high blood pressure and cholesterol, and getting too little exercise. Smokers are at risk of having a stroke nearly 10 years younger compared to the non-smoking general population. Fortunately, the National Stroke Association says that as many as 80 percent of strokes can be prevented by addressing your lifestyle risks.

What Smoking Does to Your Circulation

Smoking reduces the amount of oxygen in your blood, which is one of the major ways that it contributes to having a stroke. When there’s less oxygen in your blood, your heart has to work harder to pump the blood through your body compared to a non-smoker.

Smoking also makes blood clots more likely to form and increases the amount of plaque buildup in your arteries. The combination of the blood clots and increased plaque are the right conditions for a stroke to occur.

The arteries leading to your brain are especially vulnerable to damage by smoking. As these arteries shrink and tighten, it may be impossible for adequate blood flow to get to your brain and creates the right conditions for an aneurysm to occur. Smoking damages smaller blood vessels, making them more likely to rupture.

Factors that Make Stroke More Likely

Not everyone has the same risk of having a stroke – not even all smokers. Some people are at increased risk of stroke because of other health and lifestyle factors.

People with sleep disorders are at much greater risk of having a stroke. Men with obstructive sleep apnea have nearly double the stroke risk of the general population, and women with sleep apnea also face increased risks, though not to the same degree. The more severe the obstructive sleep apnea, the greater the stroke risk.

Women who use birth control pills are also at a significantly increased risk for stroke. Medical and public health officials warn that women over age 35 should not smoke and take birth control pills, because these combined behaviors present a potentially deadly risk. There is no safe amount of smoking for women on birth control pills.

Men who smoke more than a pack of cigarettes a day are also at a greatly increased risk of stroke.

Effects of Stroke

Stroke can be fatal and can kill you instantly. However, even if you’re lucky enough to survive having a stroke – which is the case nearly 85 percent of the time – you can be left with permanent damage after having a stroke.

People who have had strokes often need to go back to learning the basics. After having a stroke, it is not unusual for people to be able to forget important details about their personal history, to become unable to recognize family members and friends, and even to need to learn how to walk and talk again.

Because the brain controls all of your body’s functions, a stroke can impact any one of them. Many people struggle with coordination after a stroke.

Rehabilitation is possible, but is a lengthy process and the success rate depends largely upon how motivated you are and how severe the stroke was. Many people are unable to return to their previous careers after a stroke, which can cause depression.

Prevention

Stroke is extremely preventable in the vast majority of cases. Here are some of the things you can do to reduce your risk:

Quit smoking. If you can’t quit, at least try to cut down. Recent studies have also shown that menthol cigarettes are linked to a higher risk of stroke, compared to non-menthol cigarettes.
Do not smoke if you are a woman taking birth control pills. Find a non-hormonal alternative for contraception.
Get some exercise every day. You don’t have to spend your whole life in the gym, but even a 30 minute walk most days of the week can be enough to keep your blood pressure low enough to reduce your stroke risk.
Follow a healthy diet. A poor diet is linked to high cholesterol, which can further increase your risk of having a stroke.
Manage your stress, which will help to keep blood pressure levels low.

One thing that is strongly in your favor is that your risk of stroke goes down dramatically very quickly after you quit smoking. Although the risk of cancer remains increased for many years after you quit smoking, the risk of stroke goes down to nearly of a non-smoker in just 18 months on average. Your body starts the healing and repair process soon after you quit.

Resource: quitsmokingcommunity.org

Chủ Nhật, 31 tháng 7, 2016

What Is the Most Effective Way to Quit Smoking?

While there are a number of ways to quit smoking, not all of them are equally successful. Here we will break down What Is the Most Effective Way to Quit Smoking that has been used with the most success by those who quit. Keep in mind that success rates will not be the same for everyone. In the end, quitting comes down to a personal decision, the amount of willpower you have and a variety of factors affecting your daily life. But if you want the best chance of success, then these are the methods you should be trying.

Nicotine Replacement

More people successfully quit smoking when they use some sort of nicotine therapy than by almost any other measure. This could involve applying a nicotine patch, using nicotine lozenges, or any other form of nicotine therapy.

What this does is, hopefully, reduce the amount of nicotine going into your body. Gradually, you decrease the amounts you are taking each day and finally get rid of the nicotine and nicotine replacement entirely. This weans your body off of smoking slowly without having to just cut back on cigarettes over time. You will still feel the effects of nicotine on your body, but you won’t be suffering from all the negative effects of smoking a cigarette. It’s not the safest way to quit smoking, but it works the best for the largest number of people.

Trigger Avoidance

For everyone who smokes, there are certain triggers that cause you to crave cigarettes more than you would in most situations. For some people, that trigger is a stressful situation. For others, they simply have a set time and place where they smoke, perhaps when they are on break from work or when they are talking on the phone.

As you quit smoking, these triggers will become even more powerful at creating cravings. If you want to stop yourself form giving in to the cravings, you need to ensure that the triggers never activate. So that means actively avoiding situations that make you feel like you need a cigarette. And if you are used to having a cigarette during something you do every day, then occupy yourself otherwise during those times.

If you would normally smoke while on the phone, then keep a pen and paper handy to just doodle and scribble while you talk. If you would smoke on your lunch break, then do something to keep yourself engaged and distracted from smoking during that time.

Cold Turkey

It may be hard to believe, but the majority of people who have successfully quit smoking have done so by quitting cold turkey. They decided that they would never take another cigarette and they followed through on that promise to themselves.

Now it may seem odd that more people could quit this way than any other, especially since most experts advise that you never try to quit cold turkey. But these statistics come straight from the American Cancer Society. More than 80% of those who have successfully quit smoking did so by the cold turkey method. Now you can’t just decide to stop smoking and have no plan beyond that and expect to be successful. Many of those who have quit cold turkey did so with a lot of support from other people.

The surrounded themselves with people who cared about them and their success and they made a detailed plan about how they were going to go about quitting. This involves lot of willpower, constant reminders why they were quitting and people who were looking out for their wellbeing.

Slowly but Surely

You could also try to quit by just cutting back on your cigarette use until you no longer need a cigarette anymore. This is ideal for heavy smokers who are really deep into their habit. You can just slowly cut back how much you smoke from day to day and week to week.

You take yourself form a pack a day to a pack a week and then a cigarette every other day. This gradually depletes the amount of nicotine in your body and makes the cravings easier to resist, but it may not work for everyone.

And that is the story with each of these methods. They are going to work well for some people, but not for everyone. You may know someone who quit cold turkey, but that doesn’t mean you will be able to do it. Quitting is something personal, and each individual has to find their own best way to do so.

Resource: quitsmokingcommunity.org

Thứ Bảy, 30 tháng 7, 2016

6 Tips to Help You Quit Smoking

Once diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), the first thing your doctor will suggest is for you to quit smoking. While quitting won’t reverse any damage already done, it will prevent further damage. So a wise move is for you to start quitting, and to start quitting today. Here are six tips to help you get started.

1. Learn what’s in a cigarette. Did you ever consider what you are inhaling each time you puff on a cigarette? If you knew, it might gross you out, maybe even make you cringe, and hopefully increase your desire to quit. Surely you knew about the nicotine, but all it does is get you hooked.

Every cigarette also contains over 5,000 chemicals, many of which you would never even think about putting in your body. Here, I’ll name a few: Acetone (paint thinner), ammonia (household cleaner), arsenic (rat poison), butane (lighter fluid), carbon monoxide (car exhaust), cadmium (used in batteries), cyanide (deadly poison), hydrogen cyanide (poison used in gas chambers), lead (a heavy metal),naphthalene (used in mothballs), polonium (cancer causing radioactive element), tar (used to fill potholes), and DDT (banned insecticide).

7 Signs of Lung Cancer >

There are 36 more known cancer-causing agents in every cigarette.

2. Learn what health problems smoking causes. Cigarette smoking has been proven to cause allergies, heart disease, asthma, cancers, emphysema, chronic bronchitis, heart disease, osteoporosis, raynaud’s syndrome, stroke, ulcers, pneumonia, infertility, bad breath, and diminished sense of smell. Some studies have also linked it with dementia and alzheimer's disease. You’re also at an increased risk of getting colds and flus.

3. Learn the short-term benefits of quitting. Now for the good: As soon as you quit, changes start to occur in your body that set you on a path to improved health.

Within 20 minutes your blood pressure and pulse rate will already begin to return to normal, circulation to your hands and feet improves, and fibers in your bronchial tree begin to move again, removing irritants and bacteria. Within eight hours carbon monoxide and oxygen levels in your blood returns to normal.

Within 24 hours your risk of heart disease already starts to decrease. Within 48 hours your nerve endings begin to regrow. Within 72 hours your breathing becomes easier as your lung capacity begins to increase.

In two weeks your circulation starts to improve, and your lung function may increase by as much as 30 percent.

4. Learn the long-term benefits of quitting. Within 1-9 months your energy will increase, and your breathing greatly improves due to the regeneration of your bronchial tree. Your ability to spit up mucus greatly improves, thus improving your ability to clean out your lungs, thus diminishing your risk of developing pneumonia.

After quitting for 3-5 years, your risk of dying of a heart attack decreases to that of a nonsmoker. In 10 years, your risk of dying of lung cancer decreases to that of a nonsmoker. Your risk of developing other cancers that cigarette smoke has been proven to cause (mouth, throat, esophagus, bladder, kidney, etc.) also greatly diminish after 10 years of nonsmoking.
5. Ask your doctor for help. Surely you can quit on your own, but you don’t have to. There are a ton of nicotine products that your doctor can prescribe so you can be slowly weaned off nicotine, and there are even some over-the-counter products. There are gums, fake cigarettes, lozenges, inhalers, patches, and all sorts of options designed to help you.

There are also medicines such as Zyban and Chantix to help you deal with the withdrawal symptoms and the urge to smoke. Studies also show that a combination of a nicotine substitute and a medicine like Zyban and Chantix have the best success rate.

Every person is different, so what works for you may not work for others. Ideally, you should work with your doctor to find a method to help you quit, and then stick with it.

6. Know other people will support you. Talk to your spouse, your children, and your friends. Talk to others who have already quit. There are also many support groups both online and in your community.

You can call numbers like 1-800-NY-QUITS or 1-800-QUIT-NOW. You can alsoclick here for a variety of other options. There are many people who want to help you quit, and who will do whatever they can to help.

Bottom Line: Quitting smoking is one of those things you should do for yourself because it’s the right thing to do. The best way to quit is to make the decision today, and then set a stop smoking date. When that date comes up, you’ll wake up a nonsmoker, and set yourself on a course to a healthier you.
Resource: healthcentral

Thứ Sáu, 29 tháng 7, 2016

29 Things Only a Person Who’s Quitting Smoking Would Understand

1. Someone suggested that you try baby carrots when you're having a craving, which is clearly ridiculous. You can't smoke a carrot.

2. Finding out that the smokers’ helpline isn’t there to take cigarette delivery orders.

3. It’s time for bed and you feel like your day never started because you didn’t have a morning smoke.

4. Is there anything better than a cigarette with a cup of coffee? Is there?!?!

5. Two days after quitting, if someone said, "Pick one: A cigarette or incredible sex, right now,” it would be the toughest decision of your life.

6. Phantom cigarette: The sensation that a missing cigarette is still attached to your lips.

7. When you set a date to quit smoking, it quickly devolves into a rough approximation of the month in which you might start to consider thinking about quitting.

8. The pact you made with a friend to quit together means you have to turn on ninja mode anytime you sneak a cigarette.

9. Hello, health. Goodbye, James Dean-level coolness.

10. After you quit, each day feels like a sentence without —

11. You heard that nicotine may slow the progression of Alzheimer's, and you rationalize that it's actually better for your health to smoke.

12. One of the reasons you started smoking was to impress some cool older kids. The worst part is, it probably worked.

13. Another reason you started is that your mother always told you not to. So yeah, Mom, it kind of is your fault!

14. When the guy at work suggests that you write down your feelings every time you crave a cigarette, all that comes out on paper is: "This guy is driving me crazy."

15. When you try to replace cigarettes with gum or a lollipop, you realize you're suddenly the weirdo with the lollipop.

16. Stress makes you want to smoke. Feeling tired makes you want to smoke. Hearing that it will rain in two weeks makes you want to smoke.

17. You wear so many nicotine patches that you've started looking like a mummy.

18. When your doctor tells you that you should quit, you begin to think that you really ought to find a different doctor.

19. Nicotine gum is just like regular gum, except it comes with side effects like dizziness and nausea.

20. You calculate how much money you’re saving by quitting, over and over again.

21. While flipping through a pamphlet on how to quit smoking, you start fantasizing about smoking the pamphlet.

22. You start jogging to keep yourself from smoking but soon discover that you can jog and smoke at the same time.

23. What do non-smokers do after a nap? After vacuuming? After doing anything?

24. You know what's delightful after a good hard workout? Don’t say a cigarette. Don’t say a cigarette.

25. You openly declare to friends that you're going to quit. Then you try to convince them that they must have dreamed it when they catch you smoking a week later.

26. Instead of lighting a cigarette, you light a candle or some incense. Now it looks like you're living in a romance novel.

27. You've tried hypnosis to quit. You still smoke, but now you also quack like a duck whenever anyone says "button.”

28. Friends have found you staring longingly at used cigarette butts on the ground.

29. You've read this entire list and really feel like you deserve a cigarette as a reward for your dedication.

Resource: healthline.com

Thứ Năm, 28 tháng 7, 2016

Passive smoking: protect your family and friends

Secondhand smoke is dangerous, especially for children. The best way to protect loved ones is to quit smoking. At the very least, make sure you have a smokefree home and car.

When you smoke a cigarette (or roll-up, pipe or cigar), most of the smoke doesn't go into your lungs, it goes into the air around you where anyone nearby can breathe it in.

Secondhand smoke is the smoke that you exhale plus the 'sidestream' smoke created by the lit end of your cigarette.

When friends and family breathe in your secondhand smoke – what we call passive smoking – it isn't just unpleasant for them, it can damage their health too.

People who breathe in secondhand smoke regularly are more likely to get the same diseases as smokers, including lung cancer and heart disease.

Pregnant women exposed to passive smoke are more prone to premature birth and their baby is more at risk of low birthweight and cot death.

And children who live in a smoky house are at higher risk of breathing problems, asthma, and allergies.

How to protect against secondhand smoke

The only surefire way to protect your friends and family from secondhand smoke is to keep the environment around them smoke free.

The best way to do that is to quit smoking completely. If you're not ready to quit, make every effort to keep your cigarette smoke away from other people and never smoke indoors or in the car.

Always smoke outside
Ask your visitors to smoke outside
Don't smoke in the car or allow anyone else to

The risks of passive smoking

Secondhand smoke is a lethal cocktail of more than 4,000 irritants, toxins and cancer-causing substances.

Most secondhand smoke is invisible and odourless, so no matter how careful you think you're being, people around you still breathe in the harmful poisons.

Opening windows and doors or smoking in another room in the house doesn't protect people. Smoke can linger in the air for two to three hours after you've finished a cigarette, even with a window open. And even if you limit smoking to one room, the smoke will spread to the rest of the house where people can inhale it.

Children and passive smoking

Passive smoking is especially harmful for children as they have less well-developed airways, lungs and immune systems.

It's estimated that more than one in five children in the UK live in a household where at least one person smokes and, as a result, they're more likely to develop:

asthma
chest infections – like pneumonia and bronchitis
meningitis
ear infections
coughs and colds

Children are particularly vulnerable in the family car where secondhand smoke can reach hazardous levels even with the windows open.

It's estimated that smoking in cars produces concentrations of toxins up to 11 times higher than you used to find in the average smoky pub.

To protect children, there is a new ban on smoking in cars and other vehicles carrying children. From October 1 2015 it is against the law to smoke in a private vehicle if there’s a young person under-18 present.

Read about the new law on smoking in private vehicles.

How safe is e-cig vapour?

E-cigarettes don't produce tobacco smoke so the risks of passive smoking with conventional cigarettes don't apply to e-cigs.

Research into this area is ongoing, but it seems that e-cigs release negligible amounts of nicotine into the atmosphere and the limited evidence available suggests that any risk from passive vaping to bystanders is small relative to tobacco cigarettes.

In England, the Government has no plans to ban vaping indoors (although some employers have banned them in the workplace) but some health professionals recommend avoiding using them around pregnant women, babies and children.

Read about the safety of e-cigarettes.

Resource: nhs.uk

Stopping smoking is good for your mental health

Being smoke-free helps relieve stress, anxiety and depression and gives you a more positive outlook on life. These benefits apply to all smokers, not just those with pre-existing mental health problems.

We all know that stopping smoking improves your physical health. Here are 10 health benefits of stopping smoking. But did you know that stopping smoking is also proven to boost your mental health?

Although most smokers report that they want to stop, many continue because they’re convinced that smoking helps relieve stress andanxiety.

But it’s a complete myth that smoking helps you to relax. The reality is that smoking actually increases anxiety and tension. Smokers are more likely to develop depression or anxiety disorder over time than non-smokers. And cutting out cigarettes triggers a big improvement in mood.

It’s a myth that smoking improves mood

Why do smokers with and without mental health problems falsely believe smoking improves their mood?

Scientists think it’s because they confuse the ability of cigarettes to abolish nicotine withdrawal as a beneficial effect on their mental health.

Smokers tend to feel irritable, anxious and down when they haven’t smoked for a while and these unpleasant feelings are temporarily reversed when they light up a cigarette. That creates the impression that it’s the smoking that has improved their mood, when in fact it’s smoking that caused the psychological disturbances in the first place.

The mental health benefits of quitting smoking

Studies show that people's anxiety, depression and stress levels are lower after they stop smoking when compared with those who carry on smoking and that their quality of life and mood improves. Also, the improved levels of oxygen in the body means that ex-smokers can concentrate better.

Smokers with mental health problems

The psychological benefits of stopping smoking are just as striking in people who already have a mental health disorder as those without. Stopping smoking helps their mental health symptoms and can lead to reduced doses of anti-psychotic medicine.

This is welcome news because people with diagnosed mental health problems, including anxiety, depression or schizophrenia, are two to three times more likely to take up smoking and also tend to smoke more heavily than the general population.

It’s estimated that 30% of all smokers have a mental health problem and that two of every five cigarettes smoked in England are smoked by people with a mental health problem. Smokers living with a mental health problem also have a life expectancy eight years less than the general population, very likely as a result of the physical ravages of smoking, such as lung cancer.

Stopping smoking helps more than antidepressants

One theory as to why people with mental health problems are far more likely to smoke than the general population is that they perceive nicotine gives them immediate relief from the unpleasant symptoms of anxiety, depression or schizophrenia.

But the opposite is true. People with psychiatric problems are likely to feel much calmer and positive and have a better quality of life after giving up smoking. In fact, the beneficial effect of stopping smoking in people with psychiatric problems is greater than that of antidepressant therapy for mood and anxiety disorders.

Many people living with mental health problems have successfully quit smoking and report a wide range of benefits as a result.

8 tips to stop smoking

If you want to stop smoking, contact your local NHS stop smoking services, these provide the best chance of stopping completely and forever.

Here are eight ways to boost your chances of stopping smoking. This advice applies to people with or without a mental health problem:

1. See an NHS stop smoking adviser. It's free and will massively increase your chances of quitting.

2. Use either a nicotine patch, plus one of the faster acting nicotine replacement products (such as the nicotine nasal spray) or the prescription medicine, Champix, and make sure you use them for at least six to eight weeks. Stop smoking treatments may be especially helpful for people with mental health problems if they’re combined with talking treatments. Read more about stop smoking treatments.

3. If you take antipsychotic medicines and want to stop smoking it's very important that you talk to your GP and/or psychiatrist before you stop as the dosage of your prescription drugs may need to be monitored and the amount you have to take could be reduced.

4. It helps to avoid drinking alcohol or using psychoactive drugs when you stop smoking to boost your chances of success.

5. According to the Mental Health Foundation, people with depression and other mental health conditions can find it particularly difficult to give up smoking and experience stronger withdrawal symptoms and craving. Here's some advice on how to cope with cravings.

6. Because smoking is often used as a way of coping by people with mental health problems, it’s important to find other ways of dealing with stress. Use these 10 stressbusters.

7. Don’t worry too much about putting on weight when you stop smoking. If you eat healthily and keep active you should be able to keep weight gain to a minimum. Read how to stop smoking without putting on weight.

8. The Royal College of Psychiatrists has advice for people with mental illness on quitting smoking.

Resource: nhs.uk