Are you ready to stop smoking?

[March 2007] Stopping smoking is one of the most amazing gifts you can give yourself. Millions of people all over the world have stopped smoking, and you can too!

Once you’ve decided you are ready to stop, write down the main benefits of being a non-smoker for you personally, using positive language. For example, ‘being a great role model for my children’, ‘having lots of energy’, ‘feeling fit and healthy’, ‘knowing that I’m free’.

Once you’ve made your decision, set yourself a quit date, and commit to it.

Our thoughts and beliefs about smoking are what often keep us trapped in the smoking prison, so examine yours carefully. Many of these are based on myths such as ‘smoking helps me relax’ and ‘smoking helps me concentrate’, or ‘it takes willpower to quit’. The fact is, you can stop smoking easily, if you go about it in the right way.

Staying on track once you’ve quit:

Once you have stopped smoking, make sure you have a strategy to keep on track.

Some tips:

• Never doubt your decision. As a smoker, you have been harming yourself with absolutely no gain. Stopping smoking is like stepping out from under a grey cloud that has been hanging over your head for however many years.
• Avoid coffee, tea and alcohol for the first three days, and drink lots of water. This will help calm any jittery nerves you may have, whilst speeding up the healing process in your body.
• Change your thoughts. If you have a ‘smoking thought’ – think about something positive instead, such as ‘isn’t it great to be free.’ Practice this technique regularly.
• Keep a journal. After the first three days, you’ll feel a lot more relaxed and positive, and you’ll also feel more energetic. Realise that you are in the process of physically recreating your body as a vibrant, healthy non-smoker, and write down your experiences in a journal.
• Breathe! Deep breathing is a great way to reduce tension and as you take deeper, slower breaths, oxygen floods into the small airways in your lungs. This is literally a breath of fresh air! So take three deep breaths several times a day. Here’s how: Place your hands over your stomach, with the fingertips touching. As you take a deep breath, feel your fingers separating. The oxygen is now getting into the deeper parts of your lungs. Feel how easy it is to breathe now that you are once again a non-smoker.
• Get moving, even if it’s only a walk around the block. This will release endorphins, the ‘feel good’ hormone and you’ll come back refreshed and relaxed.
• Stick to a well balanced diet. Enjoy occasional treats, but make sure you are also giving your body the fuel it needs to function properly, and don’t skip breakfast.
• Take a mini mental holiday, using the power of your imagination. Close your eyes and relax. Now imagine you have stopped smoking for a year. What does it feel like? Create vivid mental images and make them as realistic as possible. Notice how healthy you look, and how great you feel, and how clean everything smells, and all the things you have bought with the money you have saved. Use all five senses to create your own incredible future!