7 Self-Help Tips to Stop Smoking for Good

By Patrick Adams

Quitting smoking is hard. The first week is the hardest, as you fight the temptation to light a fag. However, there are self-help tips that will help you stay focused and give in to the urge to smoke.

Trust us, your old age will be thankful you left smoking early on.

Start by removing everything tobacco-related and clean the house

Needless to say, you should get rid of tobacco paraphernalia like packs of cigarettes, ashtrays, lighters, and a snuffbox if you own one. These all act like mental triggers that will counter your efforts to quit smoking.

Furthermore, clean the carpets, curtains, and the upholstery in your house so it doesn’t give out the smell of burned tobacco. You should wash your clothes as well and clean the inside of the office and the car. A pine-scented air freshener should help get rid of the smell of cigarette smoke that can linger for days after you’ve smoked your last fag.

Avoiding harmful nerve stimuli

Smoking might be considered a vice but the undeniable truth is that it’s really a nasty habit that you should look to shake off. It doesn’t help if you take up drinking alcohol or coffee to make up for the lack of smoke in your life.

In reality, nicotine, alcohol, and caffeine have been known to cause mental disorders which will thwart your efforts to stay strong. Give up drinking and coffee for a couple of weeks until the most critical phase of quitting smoking passes. You can replace tea with coffee if you like to sip on a hot beverage as soon as you open your eyes in the morning.

Ask your surroundings for support

Since it’s all in your head, you are going to have doubts and times of weakness. That’s why it is wise to inform your family and closest friends that you are quitting so they can help you by cheering you through the hardest times.

They can hide cigarettes from you and encourage you to stay on the right track. This might not seem like much but it will prove a huge help for you. There is even professional help available in the form of councilors and support groups that are free to attend in most cases because they are organized by public health services.

Vaping as an alternative

The biggest mistake you can make when it comes to quitting smoking is to do it suddenly. This will lead to remission. Leaving cigarettes for good is a process; not an instantaneous action! In order to imitate the sense of inhaling smoke, you can take up vaping in the interim period.

Franchises like Hoopers Vapour offer all the necessary accessories to make a complete switch to a form of smoking that doesn’t burn a gram of tobacco. Inhaling flavored aerosols is more acceptable than inhaling cigarette smoke which studies have shown causes cancer.

Staying strong mentally

You might feel determined at the beginning of your fight to quit smoking but as time elapses, your willpower will dwindle. This weakness of the mind can be countered by finding a really good reason to leave cigarettes for good!

Constantly remind yourself of this reason every time you feel like lighting up a cig. For some, this reason is a genuine desire to lead a healthier lifestyle and avoid diseases that affect the lungs, the heart, the throat, and the prostate, which are among the most common types of cancer.

For other people, the wish to save their family members from secondhand exposure to smoke is the determining factor. Seeing young children caught from exposure to cigarette smoke is a trigger for many people to finally pull the courage and quit.

Reward yourself

You know how you promise your kid a chocolate bar if they do something good or listen to you? Well, adults who manage to give up smoking also deserve a reward because they have been more than good. Now that you aren’t spending thousands of dollars on packs of cigarettes annually, you can use this money to buy yourself a gift for being a good boy/girl.

The reward itself will act as an additional motivator. It will keep you going through rough patches that will occur months and even years after you have smoked your last cigarette. In addition, never let it slip your mind that you receive is a clean bill of health. No more nasty coughs when you get up in the morning!

Get used to quitting more than once

Few people manage to quit smoking the first time they try. Like we’ve said in the introduction, quitting smoking is extremely hard so there is no reason to blame yourself when you start failing time after time. The only option you have is to be patient and keep trying without paying much attention to previous failed attempts but nevertheless learning from them.

You will soon notice how each new attempt involves more tobacco-free days. This is because you will learn to recognize the most common trigger and effectively counter them. Perhaps a cup of coffee entails a cigarette so you’ll stop drinking coffee altogether.

These 7 self-help tips form the core of any smoker’s effort to leave tobacco behind. Study them well and prepare for an uphill battle of life without cigarette smoke. Your health will be thank you in the end.