Make Quitting Smoking A Little Easier

Throw Away All The Cigarettes You HavennYes. Throw them away. I don’t care how much they cost you, just throw them away. I’m sure you would rather give them to friends who smoke rather than throw them away, wouldn’t you? nnDon’t!nnBelieve me when I say that if you give them to your friends, I’ll bet my bottom dollar you’ll ask for a cigarette back from them when your resistance is at a low ebb. Worse still, due to the Law of Reciprocation, your friends (however supportive about your attempt to give up) will feel awkward not giving in, as they will feel they already ‘owe you’ since you gave them a bunch of free cigarettes earlier. Take my advice and just throw them all away.nnnThrow Away Your LightersnnWhat? Even my cool Zippo? Yep. Even that. The sooner you remove the things that are causing you to mistakenly associate ‘cool’ and ‘smoking’ from your life the better. nnJust think of all the cool things you will be able to do once you’ve kicked the habit. For instance, breathing without sounding like Hannibal Lecter, running up a flight of stairs without wanting to hurl on your shoes shortly afterwards, breathe near people without them recoiling in disgust…..nnnDo Some Serious ExercisennTake some form of significant exercise and write down the result. What did you do? For how long? How did you feel? Were you happy with your performance?nWrite it all down on a small card and keep it with you. If you feel like you need a cigarette, look at the card to remind yourself of one of the many reasons why you need to do this.nnnAvoid Your Smoking Buddies For A WeeknnOK. I knew you wouldn’t like this one. But it’s only for a week whilst you set up the groundwork for you being a proper ex-smoker.nIf your spouse smokes then see if they can limit the smoking to one room, and agree a time frame. Better still, get them to smoke outside!nnnWrite Down Something You Have Always Wanted To DonnSave the money you would normally spent on smokes and spend it a this thing – you’ll be surprised how fast the money accumulates.nnnDon’t Tell All Your Friends/ColleaguesnnThis is a little unusual, but bear with me whilst I explain my thinking here. I think if you tell everyone you are going to give up smoking, it is all they are going to ask you about when you are trying to keeping it out of your mind. One tactic you can try is to say you have a throat infection and can’t smoke. This will stop people offering you a cigarette and stop any pressure of the “are you finding it difficult to stop smoking?” type questions occurring on a minute by minute basis.nnnRemember This…..nnThis is the easiest way to increase your health by such an incredible factor by basically doing nothing. When the cravings strike, just remember, the physical cravings subside after 5 minutes, the rest is purely in the mind. If you can distract yourself with something else for that period of time then you can and will beat the cravings when they occur.nnn