Without a solid plan in place, giving up smoking is an extremely difficult task. Although some people can throw out their cigarettes and go cold turkey, that’s a tough route to take.
Here are some steps that will make the process easier and ensure that you are more likely to succeed.
Set a quit date
Set a quit day and stick to it, whether that be right now or sometime in the future.
Take a look at your calendar and be honest with yourself. Do you have to deliver a massive presentation at work next week that would be a more stressful undertaking if you are in the process of quitting? Set a more convenient date. It is far easier to avoid cigarettes if you don’t have to deal with stressful situations.
Choose a day when you can avoid stressors and when you will be free to focus on your goals.
Identify your triggers
Your smoking triggers are the things that inspire the urge to smoke and they’re usually both consistent and habitual.
For example, do you always have a cigarette with your morning coffee? If you do, the coffee is your trigger. Maybe you always have a cigarette on your morning break. The break is the trigger. Just think about when and where you have usually smoked.
If you’re not sure what your triggers may be, there are free apps that enable you to log every occasion on which you have a cigarette along with what you are doing at the time. Log your smoking habits for a week and look for patterns emerging.
You could undergo behavioural therapy as this will help you to identify your triggers and create avoidance tactics that work.
Choose the right aid
Going cold turkey can make withdrawal symptoms feel much worse. Nicotine addiction is the biggest obstacle to stopping smoking. For this reason, most smokers choose a quitting aid to make the process less taxing. There are no stop smoking treatments that will work for everybody. The effectiveness of any smoking cessation aid or smoking cessation programme will vary from individual to individual.
Some smokers choose nicotine gum, others nicotine patches or a nasal spray. Many are now choosing vaping which has been shown to be one of the most effective quitting aids (more on that later).
Find the smoking cessation interventions that you can rely on and remember that you can always change these, if you find that your choices aren’t working. The method that helped your friend may not be as effective for you. Seek the help of health professionals, if you can’t settle on the right quitting aid for you.
Build a support team
Finally, tell your closest friends or family members that you’re quitting smoking and let them know how they can help. perhaps you’d like someone to shout at when your cravings are getting to you. After all, there’s nothing more irritable than a smoker quitting! Maybe a regular dinner date to look forward to would be helpful.
You are far more likely to succeed if you have support. It makes sense to ensure that those around understand what you are doing, what you are going through and how to help you.
To read the full post, please visit: https://vapekit.co.uk/blog/how-to-quit-smoking-for-good-the-ultimate-guide/?msID=78b8aed9-b6ba-4139-959e-53620e11f407
