Quitting Smoking

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Author:
Aaron Walker

Every smoker has one single thing in common - they want to quit smoking. Even those diehard fans of the "habit" want to quit. Ironically the most common thought on any smokers mind once they start smoking is how to stop smoking. There are those who say they enjoy smoking. To those people I say "each to their own" but for the rest of the smokersout there this article will aim to put you that one step closer to being a healthier and happier former smoker forever.

There are some important considerations to present here before we start. Firstly smoking is a choice. This choice then becomes habit and like all habits that can be a difficult thing to break. The more often we do something the stronger that habit becomes. It could be chewing gum, spitting, playing with our hands and especially smoking. Our brains become accustomed to smoking, it develops associations between smoking and relaxation or smoking and pleasure. The point is that the more you choose to smoke the harder it can be to break the habit of smoking.

The next consideration to take into account is that smoking is by and large a psychological addiction. Now I know there's people reading this who are going to strongly disagree and stamp their feet and say that nicotine and heroin/morphine are equally addictive. That, I'm afraid, is the worst kind of pop pyschology and misdiagnosis that exists in the realm of treating smoking. How then can some smokers simply quit the habit and get on with their lives in a matter of days? The psychological addiction definitely leads to a physical dependence and the withdrawal symptoms can be extremely severe based on that - that's the power of the mind at work. You can quit smoking overnight if you choose to do so. Remember you chose to start smoking and you'll equally need to choose to quit.

That brings us nicely to developing a quitters mindset. That may sound very complicated and give you the impression that it could take days and weeks to develop the mindset that you need to quit smoking. The really good news is that developing a quitters mindset takes as long as it did to read this sentence. The method is simple - You need to want to quit smoking for yourself and nobody else. If you cannot establish that thought pattern in your mind then no pill, hypnosis, book or doctor can help you permanently quit smoking. You must, must, must want to quit smoking for yourself. If you truly do then stopping smoking is something you can achieve with practically no withdrawal symptoms and zero cravings.

So if you really want to quit smoking then you'll need to make a choice and make it today. Choose to live a healthier life. Choose to stop spending money on a habit that's killing you. Whatever you do make a decision to quit smoking and get yourself in the right mindset today. It's the single most effective way to becoming a happier, healthier and wealthier former smoker.

Discover more about how you can quit smoking today: http://www.quittersguide.com

A Quick Note From The Publisher... If you like the article above, you may be interested in the following article which is also related to Smoking... Smoking Cessation in Adolescent Smokers Much has been studied to further understand smoking initiation in adolescents and smoking cessation in adults, including the social cognitive theory of self-efficacy and outcome expectations. Nevertheless, their role as predictors of quitting smoking requires further study. It is important to develop measures of self efficacy to resist smoking in various situations identified by adolescents as high risk for initiating smoking and outcome expectations across psychosocial, emotional and physical aspects for quitting smoking for good. An age-appropriate criterion for quitting smoking completely in order to determine the perceived consequence of smoking cessation even among adolescents who smoked less than daily is important. A higher self-efficacy to refuse to give in to smoking would be associated with fewer cigarettes at follow up, as well as higher expectations of positive outcomes for stopping smoking. There are three main motivational concepts predicting the intention to planned behavioral change, such as smoking cessation: self-efficacy, social influence and attitude. Attitude consists of perceived advantages and disadvantages of a behavior, which can be determined by assessing the beliefs involving this behavior and the evaluation of these beliefs. Self-efficacy can be measured by examining perceived capability to perform and maintain a specific behavior. Determining beliefs that involve the influence of social environment on a behavior can assess social influence. A recent study in the United States by Solomon et al., (2005) showed that there was a significant relationship between the outcomes expectations and self-efficacy and the desire to quit smoking. Rating scales were drafted and data collected was factor analyzed using the scales. Scores were...