Post by Ann on Jun 29, 2004 12:28:46 GMT -5
“15 Vital Keys to Prepare Yourself To Stop Smoking!
Before making your next effort to stop smoking, there are 15 very important things that you should do to prepare yourself for the quitting process. Taking these steps will help insure both short term and long term success.
1. Recognize that there are millions of smokers in the world who have found a way to stop smoking permanently and enjoy a fruitful, healthy, happy life without smoking. If you don't believe me - just ask your friends who have already quit. Ex-smokers are usually the most vocal about wanting you to quit. There is a reason. They have found out that life is better without smoking. Now and then I will run across an occasional ex-smoker that says "Yes, I quit but I'm miserable." They are usually ones who quit on their own without any help and without properly preparing themselves for the quitting process. Therefore, they are also very likely to be among those who someday will return to smoking. But if they are still not smoking they must have found some good things about not smoking.
2. Admit to yourself that smoking might have detrimental effects to your health and well being and therefore may have an adverse affect on your overall success and happiness in life. It's true. The facts are in. Smoking does cause all the things the doctors say they do - and many many more.
3. Give up any thoughts you might be harboring that you are one of those smokers who will never be able to stop smoking permanently. It's not true. I've had 60 year smokers and 4 pack a day smokers go through my program and happily stop smoking. I know it's easy to start thinking that you are incurable. It's particularly easy to think that way if your experiences have been anything like mine were. After 30 years of smoking 2 to 3 packs a day and 20 years of trying to quit (1000 times), I still wasn't able to end the addiction permanently until I sought help.
4. Admit to yourself that smoking has become an addiction and that you need some help if you are ever to eliminate it from your life completely. Recognize that it is not just a nasty little habit that you can quit permanently any time you want to. If it was, you wouldn't still be a smoker.
5. Give up any thoughts you might harbor that to stop smoking permanently you will have to subject yourself to a lifetime of enormous weight gain, tension, nervousness, irritability and craving a smoke. Not true. You can live a normal, happy, healthy, productive life without any desire to smoke.
6. Go into training for quitting . Just like an athlete goes into training for a tournament or a soldier trains for going into battle, you need to prepare yourself before you try quitting again. Football and basketball teams spend countless hours in pre-season practice and then many more practice hours during the season. They do this in order to condition themselves to do a good job and to be able to meet and overcome any crisis that arises. Just like the athlete, you need to condition yourself before you stop smoking so that you can have a successful experience and be able to meet and overcome any crises that arises. You need to condition yourself mentally and physically for the quitting process.
7. Start conditioning your mind by telling yourself on a regular basis that to stop smoking permanently will be the most important single thing that you will ever do for yourself. Believe me, it is. The World Health Organization has labeled cigarette smoking as the greatest single cause of preventable death and disability the world has ever known. They further state that no single discovery or action could do as much to improve the world's health as having every smoker stop smoking permanently .
8. Condition your body too. Recognize that smoking has had an adverse effect on your health and has drained vital minerals and vitamins from your body affecting your physical, mental and emotional health. Therefore, that you need to prepare yourself nutritionally before you quit smoking. Every athlete knows that their performance is enhanced by being in good physical condition. This allows them to meet the physical requirements of the game and overcome obstacles. The quitting process can be significantly enhanced if you are in good physical, mental and emotional condition when you start the quitting process. Start now on a regimen of vitamins, minerals and protein to help build yourself up physically, mentally and emotionally before you start the quitting process.
9. Start to inform yourself about the health hazards that smoking presents. Most smokers spend their smoking life avoiding articles on health and smoking because they really don't want to know. Now that you are seriously considering quitting smoking, you need to know. Go to your local library and take out some books on smoking and health or research past editions of the Readers Digest. They have done an outstanding job through the years of reporting good, factual information in very interesting articles on smoking and health.
10. Learn how to relax before you stop smoking. Buy some relaxing cassette tapes to listen to: Music, meditation, self-hypnosis, seashore sounds, etc. Check at your local music store. Most smokers say, "I can't relax without my cigarettes." In a sense, it is true but it is not because cigarettes relax you - just the opposite. When you puff on a cigarette, it speeds up your heart rate and your brain waves. The smoker tends to believe that cigarettes relax them because for years now, when taking time to rest from a chore - (or from anything), they have become accustomed to using that time to light up a cigarette. So they associate smoking with relaxation.
11. Search your memory back to when you started smoking and ask yourself why you started. What were your reasons? What did you anticipate smoking would do for you? Do you still want to smoke for those same reasons? For most of us, the original reasons for starting were because of peer pressure and a desire to look older, more mature, more masculine (or feminine). Since peer pressure now is aimed at getting us to quit smoking - and most of us no longer have a desire to look older - your reasons for smoking now have nothing to do with the reasons you started. In fact, smoking has been proven to be an aging factor. Continued smoking usually makes one look older then their age - partly by supplying them with more wrinkles then that of the average nonsmoker. It is estimated that the average smoker has energy levels of non-smokers 10 years older than they are.
12. When you are around smokers, watch them smoke. Ask yourself if it makes them look more glamorous, macho, healthy - like the cigarette ads would like you to believe, or whether most smokers appear less dynamic and vital then nonsmokers.
13. Ask people who have already quit how they did it! Ask them what things they did that seemed to help them along the way. Most ex-smokers will be glad to share their ideas with you. They may not all work for you, but you likely will find some ideas that can help you quit or at least give you the courage to try. If you run into someone that had a real rough time or is unhappy without their cigarettes, disregard their comments. They were probably ill prepared to quit and have not yet learned the positive aspects of quitting. Don't take lessons from losers.
14. Set a target date for quitting - a month or two from now. Set it after holidays or special events that may be smoking related. (That is, don't set it for the day before New Year's Eve, or the day before a wedding, a poker party, dinner with friends, etc.)
15. Acknowledge that you may need help if you are ever going to accomplish your goal of being completely SmokeFREE. I have had former drug addicts and alcoholics go through my program and acknowledge that previous attempts at trying to stop smoking on their own had been more difficult than giving up drugs or alcohol. If you have ever tried to learn anything new in your life, whether to speak another language or learn a new trade or game, you have probably sought help of some sort to gain this knowledge. Why then would you think that trying to accomplish one of the most difficult things you may ever attempt should be done without help from others? “<br>
Bill Carrol
Website: www.azstarnet.com/~bcarrol
Before making your next effort to stop smoking, there are 15 very important things that you should do to prepare yourself for the quitting process. Taking these steps will help insure both short term and long term success.
1. Recognize that there are millions of smokers in the world who have found a way to stop smoking permanently and enjoy a fruitful, healthy, happy life without smoking. If you don't believe me - just ask your friends who have already quit. Ex-smokers are usually the most vocal about wanting you to quit. There is a reason. They have found out that life is better without smoking. Now and then I will run across an occasional ex-smoker that says "Yes, I quit but I'm miserable." They are usually ones who quit on their own without any help and without properly preparing themselves for the quitting process. Therefore, they are also very likely to be among those who someday will return to smoking. But if they are still not smoking they must have found some good things about not smoking.
2. Admit to yourself that smoking might have detrimental effects to your health and well being and therefore may have an adverse affect on your overall success and happiness in life. It's true. The facts are in. Smoking does cause all the things the doctors say they do - and many many more.
3. Give up any thoughts you might be harboring that you are one of those smokers who will never be able to stop smoking permanently. It's not true. I've had 60 year smokers and 4 pack a day smokers go through my program and happily stop smoking. I know it's easy to start thinking that you are incurable. It's particularly easy to think that way if your experiences have been anything like mine were. After 30 years of smoking 2 to 3 packs a day and 20 years of trying to quit (1000 times), I still wasn't able to end the addiction permanently until I sought help.
4. Admit to yourself that smoking has become an addiction and that you need some help if you are ever to eliminate it from your life completely. Recognize that it is not just a nasty little habit that you can quit permanently any time you want to. If it was, you wouldn't still be a smoker.
5. Give up any thoughts you might harbor that to stop smoking permanently you will have to subject yourself to a lifetime of enormous weight gain, tension, nervousness, irritability and craving a smoke. Not true. You can live a normal, happy, healthy, productive life without any desire to smoke.
6. Go into training for quitting . Just like an athlete goes into training for a tournament or a soldier trains for going into battle, you need to prepare yourself before you try quitting again. Football and basketball teams spend countless hours in pre-season practice and then many more practice hours during the season. They do this in order to condition themselves to do a good job and to be able to meet and overcome any crisis that arises. Just like the athlete, you need to condition yourself before you stop smoking so that you can have a successful experience and be able to meet and overcome any crises that arises. You need to condition yourself mentally and physically for the quitting process.
7. Start conditioning your mind by telling yourself on a regular basis that to stop smoking permanently will be the most important single thing that you will ever do for yourself. Believe me, it is. The World Health Organization has labeled cigarette smoking as the greatest single cause of preventable death and disability the world has ever known. They further state that no single discovery or action could do as much to improve the world's health as having every smoker stop smoking permanently .
8. Condition your body too. Recognize that smoking has had an adverse effect on your health and has drained vital minerals and vitamins from your body affecting your physical, mental and emotional health. Therefore, that you need to prepare yourself nutritionally before you quit smoking. Every athlete knows that their performance is enhanced by being in good physical condition. This allows them to meet the physical requirements of the game and overcome obstacles. The quitting process can be significantly enhanced if you are in good physical, mental and emotional condition when you start the quitting process. Start now on a regimen of vitamins, minerals and protein to help build yourself up physically, mentally and emotionally before you start the quitting process.
9. Start to inform yourself about the health hazards that smoking presents. Most smokers spend their smoking life avoiding articles on health and smoking because they really don't want to know. Now that you are seriously considering quitting smoking, you need to know. Go to your local library and take out some books on smoking and health or research past editions of the Readers Digest. They have done an outstanding job through the years of reporting good, factual information in very interesting articles on smoking and health.
10. Learn how to relax before you stop smoking. Buy some relaxing cassette tapes to listen to: Music, meditation, self-hypnosis, seashore sounds, etc. Check at your local music store. Most smokers say, "I can't relax without my cigarettes." In a sense, it is true but it is not because cigarettes relax you - just the opposite. When you puff on a cigarette, it speeds up your heart rate and your brain waves. The smoker tends to believe that cigarettes relax them because for years now, when taking time to rest from a chore - (or from anything), they have become accustomed to using that time to light up a cigarette. So they associate smoking with relaxation.
11. Search your memory back to when you started smoking and ask yourself why you started. What were your reasons? What did you anticipate smoking would do for you? Do you still want to smoke for those same reasons? For most of us, the original reasons for starting were because of peer pressure and a desire to look older, more mature, more masculine (or feminine). Since peer pressure now is aimed at getting us to quit smoking - and most of us no longer have a desire to look older - your reasons for smoking now have nothing to do with the reasons you started. In fact, smoking has been proven to be an aging factor. Continued smoking usually makes one look older then their age - partly by supplying them with more wrinkles then that of the average nonsmoker. It is estimated that the average smoker has energy levels of non-smokers 10 years older than they are.
12. When you are around smokers, watch them smoke. Ask yourself if it makes them look more glamorous, macho, healthy - like the cigarette ads would like you to believe, or whether most smokers appear less dynamic and vital then nonsmokers.
13. Ask people who have already quit how they did it! Ask them what things they did that seemed to help them along the way. Most ex-smokers will be glad to share their ideas with you. They may not all work for you, but you likely will find some ideas that can help you quit or at least give you the courage to try. If you run into someone that had a real rough time or is unhappy without their cigarettes, disregard their comments. They were probably ill prepared to quit and have not yet learned the positive aspects of quitting. Don't take lessons from losers.
14. Set a target date for quitting - a month or two from now. Set it after holidays or special events that may be smoking related. (That is, don't set it for the day before New Year's Eve, or the day before a wedding, a poker party, dinner with friends, etc.)
15. Acknowledge that you may need help if you are ever going to accomplish your goal of being completely SmokeFREE. I have had former drug addicts and alcoholics go through my program and acknowledge that previous attempts at trying to stop smoking on their own had been more difficult than giving up drugs or alcohol. If you have ever tried to learn anything new in your life, whether to speak another language or learn a new trade or game, you have probably sought help of some sort to gain this knowledge. Why then would you think that trying to accomplish one of the most difficult things you may ever attempt should be done without help from others? “<br>
Bill Carrol
Website: www.azstarnet.com/~bcarrol