Best way to lose weight: Quit Smoking

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A Quitting Smoking Timeline

This quitting smoking timeline will be of interest to anybody who has just quit or is planning to quit and wants to know how long they are likely to have to put up with the symptoms of withdrawal. Symptoms can vary from person to person but in this article we will show an example _quitting smoking timeline_ that the average person might expect when they stop smoking ‘cold turkey’.

If you use any kind of nicotine replacement therapies then symptoms are likely to last longer (although they may not be so severe) because the body is still getting nicotine and the addiction continues. If you use certain other therapies such as acupuncture or prescribed medications, you may escape experiencing some of the symptoms. So this quitting smoking timeline can only be an approximate guide and will not apply to every individual.

Quitting Smoking Timeline

20 minutes after finishing your last cigarette, your pulse, blood pressure and the temperature of your hands and feet will be back to your normal.

After 8 hours, the nicotine in your bloodstream will have fallen to around 6% of its maximum. Blood oxygen and carbon monoxide levels will be normal.

After 24 hours, anxiety will peak. On the positive side, your risk of a heart attack is already beginning to fall.

After 2 days, irritability is at its highest, but damaged nerves are beginning to heal and your senses of smell and taste will be improving. Already your body is experiencing significant benefits from quitting.

After 3 days, cravings will peak. This is not the end of cravings by any means but they will start to become less frequent and less intense after today. The lungs begin to heal and breathing starts to become easier. Your body would now test 100% nicotine free.

After 1 week, you are probably experiencing craving around three times a day. If you time your cravings, you will find that they only last two to three minutes, though it probably feels a lot longer. Keep telling yourself that you only have to hold out a couple of minutes each time.

After 2 weeks, cravings have dropped to an average of once per day.

After 3 weeks, receptors in the brain have returned to normal. Craving episodes will be rare after this. You may still think about smoking often, but that is not the same as craving. Being an ex-smoker is much easier from here.

After 3 months, the risk of smoking-related heart attack will be significantly less. Circulation has improved. If you catch a cold, you will be less congested and symptoms should clear up faster than they did when you smoked. Lung function is better and physical activity like climbing stairs will be much easier. If you had a smoking-related cough, it should have cleared (if not, see a doctor).

After 1 year, the extra risk that smokers have of suffering heart attack and stroke has reduced to half what it was when you smoked.

After this, the rate that things improve will depend even more on individual factors like how long you smoked, the age you were when you started, and how many cigarettes you smoked per day. As a very rough guide for the average person:

10 years: your risks of developing stroke, diabetes or pancreatic cancer are the same as for a person who never smoked. Lung cancer risk has reduced by up to 50% of the extra risk that applies to a smoker.

15 years: your risk of developing coronary heart disease is the same as that of a person who never smoked.

20 years: your risk of all smoking-related diseases is virtually back to what it would be if you had never smoked.

But first, you need to understand where you’ve gone wrong in the past… Treating just the physical addiction to smoking. But it can only be removed completely by using targeted psychotherapeutic techniques. NOT by ignoring it and hoping it will go away. And CERTAINLY NOT by throwing even more nicotine at it, in the form of patches or gum. You MUST deal with BOTH parts of your addiction the right way, or you will keep getting those cravings forever…

Specific, step by step instructions ? we show you exactly what to do, so nothing is left to chance. You choose the timeframe ? implement the method at your own pace, as you feel comfortable. Tried and tested method ? this cutting-edge method has been successfully used to cure thousands of happy ex-smokers. Permanently removes your mental dependence at the subconscious level ? resulting in a permanent end to mental cravings.
Check out PermaQuit now.

Remember that these are rough averages and cannot be assumed to apply to individual cases. Non-smokers can suffer from lung cancer and other diseases too. We are not medically qualified and neither this quitting smoking timeline nor any of the other information on this site is intended to provide health advice of any nature.

A Quitting Smoking Timeline

Acupuncture For Smoking: Does It Work?

More and more people are turning to acupuncture for smoking in their efforts to quit. It is one of the most acceptable and popular alternative therapies for nicotine addiction as well as many other health issues. But what is acupuncture, what happens during a treatment and does _acupuncture for smoking_ really work? In this article we will examine all of these questions.

What Is Acupuncture for Smoking?

Acupuncture is a traditional Chinese method of treating all kinds of health issues. It is based on the belief that our vital energy travels along channels known as meridians, which run through all parts of the body. When these become blocked, disease occurs. Acupuncture treatment is thought to release the blockages so that the energy can flow freely again and the body will heal itself.

While that sounds great for healing sickness, it may be hard to understand how the same process could help with smoking addiction. But surprisingly, acupuncture has a good record of success with all types of addiction, even hard drug use.

What Will The Acupuncturist Do?

An acupuncturist will treat smoking like any other health issue. First he or she will ask you a series of questions about your health and lifestyle. Acupuncture is a holistic treatment focusing on the whole person rather than just the disease, so some of the questions may seem irrelevant to your desire to quit smoking. Nevertheless they are important.

Acupuncturists use two main treatment methods: needles and moxa. In addition, they may use massage and similar physical therapies.

Acupuncture For Smoking

Needles are as thin as a hair. They are much thinner than injection needles. In fact, several acupuncture needles can fit inside the hollow center of a regular hypodermic needle. There is little risk and they should not cause pain. You will probably feel something more like a tickling sensation when they are inserted. They will then be left in for a period of around 30 minutes. This can be a very relaxing experience.

Moxa is another name for the herb mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris) which is processed into solid sticks or pyramids and burnt over the acupuncture points. Your skin will not be burnt at all, although it may feel warm. Burning moxa may also be applied to the outside end of an acupuncture needle to increase the intensity of needle treatment.

Treatment will center on certain acupuncture points. For smoking treatment, some of the most commonly used acupuncture points are around the ear and on the wrist. Other points may be included to release energy blockages more generally.

Finally, your acupuncturist may also prescribe a herbal treatment. This will usually be based on the principles of traditional Chinese herbal medicine.

Does Acupuncture For Smoking Really Work?

Proponents of acupuncture for smoking and other addictions say that it works, and works very well. It seems to reduce nicotine cravings significantly, as well as helping quitters with the associated withdrawal symptoms such as irritability, sleep issues, anxiety and difficulty in concentrating.

In addition, it can make cigarettes taste bad so you are less tempted to smoke one. But if you have quit, don’t light a cigarette to test this! Any rush of nicotine while you are quitting will only make the withdrawal period longer.

One of the biggest benefits of acupuncture for smoking for many people who want to quit is that it can also help with the desire to overeat. In fact acupuncture is often used to treat compulsive eating and other food disorders. So if you are overweight or have concerns about the possibility of gaining weight when you quit smoking, tell your acupuncturist and they may be able to help you quit without gaining at all. You may even lose weight when you are being treated with acupuncture for smoking.

Acupuncture For Smoking: Does It Work?

Pregnancy and Smoking: The Facts

Pregnancy and Smoking are very dangerous for you and your baby. Your doctor will have told you that _pregnancy and smoking_ are not a good mix, if you didn’t already know. But at the same time you may know of people whose parents smoked who seem perfectly normal and healthy. Maybe your own mother smoked when she was pregnant with you. So what is the problem?

Unfortunately statistics show that if a woman smokes during pregnancy the baby is much more likely to suffer from certain issues. This doesn’t mean that every child will be affected in an obvious way. Maybe you and your friends escaped – but maybe you would have been even healthier if your mothers had been non-smokers.

Scary Pregnancy and Smoking Facts

The facts about pregnancy and smoking can be scary. The time when you are newly pregnant or thinking about starting a family is an excellent opportunity to stop smoking because you have this extra motivation. Your doctor and probably your family too will support you even more than they would at other times. Take some time to think about these risks if you are considering quitting.

The problems with pregnancy and smoking begin before you are even pregnant. Smoking affects fertility in both men and women. So if you both smoke and you want to start a family, it would be a great idea to quit together now.

Pregnancy and Smoking

How does smoking harm a fetus? From the moment of conception, the growing fetus is nourished by nutrients and oxygen passed to it in the mother’s blood through the placenta. Smoking reduces the amount of oxygen in the blood and replaces it with poisonous carbon monoxide, so less oxygen reaches your baby. At the same time, some of the other toxins in smoke are carried in the bloodstream and can affect the healthy functioning of the placenta.

Because of these factors, there is more chance of something going wrong during the pregnancy. The issues with pregnancy and smoking mean that women who smoke are more likely to have a miscarriage or a baby who dies in the womb.

Facts about Pregnancy and Smoking

If the baby survives to birth, some of the effects of pregnancy and smoking on a newborn include

* lower birth weight
* more chance of premature birth
* twice the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (‘cot death’)
* twice as likely to be hospitalized in the first 8 months of life
* more likely to suffer from ear infections, bronchitis and other diseases.

But in the end it is your choice to quit or not. Nobody can force you to quit, nor can they do it for you. The more you smoke, the greater the damage to the baby, so if you just reduce your smoking it is better than doing nothing. But the best thing is to quit.

If your pregnancy is stressful for any reason, it may seem like a difficult time to stop smoking. Remind yourself that nicotine is not helping your stress, it is contributing to it. It only seems to help because your body has become addicted. If you can get through the first couple of weeks without cigarettes you will find that you are much more relaxed. It is worth doing this for the sake of your baby if you can, because of the negative links between pregnancy and smoking.

Pregnancy and Smoking: The Facts

Smoking Withdrawal Symptoms: How To Handle Them

Smoking withdrawal symptoms can be difficult to live through, both for the quitting smoker and for anybody close to them. When we take the long term view, it is clear that quitting is a very positive thing to do, but the first few days or weeks can be a difficult time. In this article we will look at the different withdrawal symptoms that you may have, so that you know what you are up against and can assure yourself that it will pass.

Smoking Withdrawal Symptoms

When we have been smoking for anything more than a few months, quitting can give us _smoking withdrawal symptoms_ including irritation and anger, overeating, depression, difficulty concentrating and anxiety as well as the craving for tobacco products which can be overwhelming at times. Let’s take these one by one.

Irritation and anger

Most people who quit smoking become irritable. They are not a lot of fun to be around for the first few days. Some people may even have violent mood swings. Nicotine replacement therapies such as patches or gum can be very helpful in reducing this symptom. They make it easier on the smoker and on his or her family and friends.

Depression and anxiety

Smoking withdrawal symptoms

Some people suffer from depression and anxiety as smoking withdrawal symptoms. These can be serious so if you have this problem, talk to your doctor about prescription meds including Zyban, an anti-depressant that also reduces the physical smoking withdrawal symptoms.

Overeating

There are two reasons why people often overeat when they quit smoking. The first is the habit of having something in your mouth. You can deal with this by using regular sugar-free gum. But it is also true that nicotine acts as an appetite suppressant.

If you are a slim person without a tendency to overeat, you do not need to be concerned. Any weight gain that you have will almost certainly be temporary. If your weight has not begun to reduce again six months after quitting, you can probably lose the excess very easily by adopting healthier eating habits for a while.

If you are already overweight, on the other hand, the fear of gaining more weight may be enough to prevent you from quitting. If you do quit, you will be tempted to light a cigarette if you gain a single pound. In this case nicotine replacement gum can be an excellent aid. It gives you something to chew on and also delivers appetite-reducing nicotine.

Combat Smoking withdrawal symptoms

Smoking withdrawal symptoms can sound scary. However, the first thing to remember if you are bothered by the idea of smoking withdrawal symptoms is that in fact, these symptoms are caused by the nicotine itself. It’s not because you are not smoking now that you begin snapping at all of your family and friends – it’s because you began smoking all those years ago. If you had never smoked you would not experience these symptoms.

Imagine if you could easily use the same method that allowed Paul Peyton, a heavy smoker for more than 14 years, ? to permanently quit overnight… Wouldn’t that be wonderful?Well, guess what – you can. In fact, ANYONE can do it.But first, you need to understand where you’ve gone wrong in the past… Treating just the physical addiction to smoking. But it can only be removed completely by using targeted psychotherapeutic techniques. NOT by ignoring it and hoping it will go away. And CERTAINLY NOT by throwing even more nicotine at it, in the form of patches or gum. You MUST deal with BOTH parts of your addiction the right way, or you will keep getting those cravings forever…

So how long does it take before smoking withdrawal symptoms end? The answer is that if you quit cold turkey, you can expect them to become much less acute in just a few days. You may continue to feel them in a less intense form for 1-3 weeks, and they may continue to trouble you in a mild form for longer, but the worst of them will be over in 5-7 days. Isn’t it worth holding out against smoking withdrawal symptoms for that short time, in order to be free of addiction for the rest of your life?

Smoking Withdrawal Symptoms: How To Handle Them

Why People Smoke: The Apparent Benefits Of Smoking

Benefits of smoking are the only thing that keeps anyone smoking these days. Non-smokers and smokers alike may wonder why people smoke. It has been proved over and over to be a very unhealthy thing to do, both for smokers themselves and for those who are subjected to secondary smoke. In this article we will look at why people smoke as well as why it is so hard to quit.

Benefits of Smoking?

There are two aspects to the question of why people smoke. The first is why do people start, when they know that it is unhealthy and a difficult habit to break. The answer to this is that most people start smoking as teenagers when they are likely to want to push boundaries and do a lot of unhealthy things. Being still young they do not consider the future as much as an older person would.

They do not think they will get addicted, and they think they will be able to quit later, which is true if they do not die of it first, but they do not think about how difficult it will be, or the damage to their health that they will do in the meantime – or they do not care, because they are only concerned with what is happening right now.

The second question is why do people continue to smoke? Why is it so hard to quit? Why do some people quit for a while and then begin again, even though they would say that they don’t want to?

Apparent _Benefits Of Smoking_

The answer to this lies in the addictive qualities of nicotine. Smoking is not just a habit, as many non-smokers believe. Nicotine is a poison but like many recreational drugs it is something that you want more and more of until you become dependent on it. The body neutralizes its poisonous qualities by adapting to them (although they can still have long term health effects). So then when you suddenly quit, your body has a bad reaction and sends out panic signals telling you to please provide some of that nicotine again, fast.

Another reason why people smoke is the perceived psychological ‘benefits’ that many people experience. Maybe deep down a person likes to be thought of as a risk-taker, a ‘bad boy’ or girl. These factors are often motivational when a person starts to smoke, but they can also explain why people smoke many years later. A person aged 50 may feel that they are young and rebellious again every time they light a cigarette – and that can be a powerful feeling.

Why People Smoke at Work

At work, smoking can give you the excuse for a much-needed break from the office environment every hour or two. Smokers usually enjoy getting together with other smokers and they may chat to people that they would not otherwise have any contact with. More importantly, they probably have friendships, family relationships, perhaps even a marriage, with other smokers. They are afraid that they may lose those people if they quit smoking. This fear may be unconscious but it is still there, pushing the person to keep on smoking.

So there are many factors that may seem like benefits to smoking. They motivate smokers to continue. Often, the smokers themselves are not aware of them. If you are a smoker wanting to quit, one of the best things that you can do is to sit down and make a list of the benefits that you get from smoking. Be specific: name other smokers that you like to spend time with, for example. Then think about how you can achieve those aims without smoking. Looking at why people smoke – and especially, why you yourself smoke – can actually help you quit.

Why People Smoke: The Apparent Benefits Of Smoking

Interesting Statistics About Smoking

Statistics about smoking are frightening. In this article we will look at figures produced by the US government and the World Health Organization. Some of the facts that you will see on this page will probably astonish you.

Statistics About Smoking In The USA

In the USA, more than 20% of all deaths are smoking-related. Around 20% of American adults now smoke (21.5% of men and 17.5% of women), and of course some smokers die from other causes, so it is clear that smoking can still contribute to serious diseases even after a smoker quits. This is not a reason not to quit, however – the sooner you quit, the less likely it is that you will die of a smoking-related disease.

Smoking in the USA is on the decrease. The number of American smokers is now less than half what it was 50 years ago. Nevertheless, smoking rates in some ethnic and social groups are still very high. Over 30% of adults who identify as Native American smoke, for example. People without a college degree are much more likely to be smokers than college graduates.

Smoking in the USA is more common in some states than others. Perhaps it is not surprising that Virginia, with its tobacco-growing economy, has the highest prevalence with almost 27% of adult residents being smokers. Smoking rates are generally higher in the Midwest and Southeast than in the Western and Northeastern states. The lowest proportion of smokers is found in Utah with just 9%.

Statistics About Smoking Worldwide

_Statistics About Smoking_

While the number of smokers is falling in developed countries like the USA, Western Europe and Australia, it is still rising in many other parts of the world. Around 33% of the adult male world population smokes, and around 20% of young people aged 13-15 smoke worldwide.

The proportion of smokers is highest in the WHO’s East Asia and Pacific region, with almost 66% of adult males being current smokers.

In a survey in China, it was found that over half of the adult population still does not know that smoking causes lung cancer. 96% of people there did not know that smoking causes heart disease. Even in the UK, where smoking rates are much lower and you might expect the population to be better informed, 98% of women did not know that smoking has been found to contribute to cancer of the cervix (the neck of the womb).

On average, every cigarette smoked reduces a person’s life expectancy by 5 minutes. It also takes around 5 minutes to smoke a cigarette. So you might say that a smoker loses 10 minutes of useful life every time that they light up.

Nicotine is not the only factor in smoking-related diseases. More than 4000 different toxins or carcinogenic (cancer-causing) substances have been found in cigarette smoke.

Around 50% of people who smoke for 15 years or more will die of the effects of smoking.

These are just a few of the statistics about smoking that have been discovered by national and worldwide surveys.

Imagine if you could easily use the same method that allowed Paul Peyton, a heavy smoker for more than 14 years, ? to permanently quit overnight… Wouldn’t that be wonderful?

Well, guess what – you can. In fact, ANYONE can do it.

Check out PermaQuit now.

Sources for these statistics about smoking:

Fact Sheet on Smoking and Tobacco Use from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA.

WHO fact sheet on smoking statistics reported at about.com.

Interesting Statistics About Smoking