New Years Resolution

Yup its that time again !!!.....so whats it going to be this year then? Exercise more? Spend more time with the family? Lose weight?......or maybe you are going to try to quit smoking......Again !!

Soon comes round doesn't it?, the end of another year, and with it the New Years Resolution. That  promise you tend to make in the final moments of the year, rather stupidly in haste, rather than a well thought out plan. Some 95% of resolutions will be scuppered, and many within the first week or so, mainly down to bad planning, not having the right "things" in place to help you achieve what you have set out to do.  Millions of people across the world will, in about 8 days or so, pledge to give up smoking, and millions, minus a few, will fail for the following reasons:

• Someone else has said they plan to quit on new years eve, so you think to yourself, "that's a good idea, I'll do it with him/her".
.............Sounds familiar???, yeah i bet it does !! The amount of times i have done this in the past 20 or so years. Sounds a good idea at the time (normally about 11pm on the 31st of December in "The Kings Head" public house )Destined to failure as no planning in place.
• No research into what to expect when you wake up on January 1st.
.............You wake up, go to stick a smoke in your mouth, suddenly last nights pledge comes flooding back to the forefront of your mind. Panic will set in, if it doesn't at this point, rest assured it will within the hour. Your body will now be feeling the effects of nicotine withdrawal symptoms, and you will not now how to fight them because you have done no research.
• Haven't informed friends, family, neighbours etc of your plans.
........People NEED to know that you have given up smoking. If you have other people in the house who smoke, you don't want to walk down the stairs on the 1st of Jan to see your wife/husband/son/ daughter smoking at the kitchen table, or similarly to step into the garden only for the neighbour to stick his head over the fence for a chat puffing on a cigarette. Inform people of your plans, PRIOR to giving up.
• Have no back up plan in action.
..........You need a back up plan for when you start to go off the rails, and you will, go off the rails that is, and probably more than once. Silly little things need to be in place. One of the things i did at the start (and still do) is have chewing gum or a packet of hard boiled sweets, placed in places that i would normally have a smoke. These are the places where you will start to crack, the places where it is normal for you to smoke. You get in my car and you will always find a bag of sweets in the glove box or door card (I always smoked whilst driving), my dining table has a drawer in it, in there is gum and sweets, i finish my meal, crave for a cigarette, open drawer pop a sweet and the craving passes.. Just one of the back up plans i have....sweets at hand when you want a smoke .

Probably the biggest reason why so many, "I'm going to quit smoking" resolutions fail on the 31st of December is because the resolution is pledged whilst under the influence of alcohol. I bet a good percentage of "our new non smokers", wake up and light a cigarette, put the kettle on, reach for the paracetamol, light another cigarette then suddenly realises that he has given up !!......."Oh well I've broken my resolution now, may as well carry on now as normal"......yeah sounds familiar also??



Don't get me wrong, i aren't saying don't make your resolution to be a "non smoker", what i am saying is PLAN,PLAN,PLAN and PLAN some more, it isn't a decision that can be made an hour before midnight, on new years eve, whilst three parts to the wind on beer and wine. Let your friends and family know your plans, do a bit of research, find out what to expect when you deprive your body of nicotine, get yourself down the medical centre and have a chat with your Doctor. PLAN PLAN PLAN !!

Would love to hear of anybody who is planning to give up this year as a new years resolution, would be great to be able to follow the progress on here.

Regards

Vattie

Nicotine: The Effects and Dependency

Ask anyone on the street to name one thing in a cigarette, and i reckon you will get a very large proportion say Nicotine. Nicotine is the "well known" ingredient, but how much do you actually know about it?....there are a host of other nasties in there which i will cover another time, like arsenic and tar, just to name 2 of the 599 ingredients.....yup you read it right, 599 !!!

Right, so back to the good old Nicotine. This ingredient is a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde character, not only is it a stimulant, a drug that makes you feel more alert like caffeine or ampthetamines, it is also a very powerful toxin, which is capable of causing our bodies harm, similar to that of car fumes. Nicotine is also the additive that causes the physical addiction to the tobacco.

When you inhale on your cigarette, the nicotine travels down your windpipe where it is then absorbed by your lungs, from here it travels within the bloodstream to your brain, a journey that takes a mere 7 seconds or so. Once there it kinda changes the way in which the brain and body functions, as it has the abilty to both invigorate and relax you, a bit like alcohol does, the first few drinks you are buzzing, but after awhile the alcohol has the reverse effect and it makes you calm, relaxed, sedate. It is this Jeckll and Hyde part of Nicotine, the "invigorate part" and the "relaxing  part", which causes some of the addiction. When you are invigorated you smoke to calm yourself down, yet when you are relaxed and calm, just woken up maybe, you have a smoke to get yourself going, to get yourself invigorated.

Nicotine is an addictive substance, which means your body gets used to nicotine and comes to need a certain amount to function normally each day. Any less than your "normal" intake, willl give you withdrawal symptons, making you on edge, nervey and moody etc.

It is not unusual to hear stories of people who have quit sucessfully, maybe for a number of years, only to have a moment of madness at some point and light one up to find that within a matter of days/weeks they are back on there original quota of say 20 or 30 a day. This is how great the addictive power of Nicotine is, and is probably why there are very very few people who can master the art of being a "social smoker".

Reagrds
Vattie

My 8 Week Milestone

Yesterday (dec 13th) was my 8 week milestone from quitting the cigarettes, Yeah i know, 8 weeks aint all that long, but when you have smoked for all your adult life, and for as long as you can remember, let me tell you, 8 weeks seems like years.

Averaging my daily cigarette intake when i was a smoker at 25 a day, i have worked out some figures that are quite alarming. In the 8weeks i have not smoked i have saved myself about £160, and would have saved around £360 had i smoked tailor mades and not rolling tobacco. I have saved my lungs from the intake of 1400 cigarettes in the 8 weeks i have been a non smoker.....that is quite amazing when you say it like that......saying 25 a day doesnt sound that much, but that equates to 1400 per 8 weeks....that sound horrific, yet its the same.

Whilst i have my calculator to hand i have just spent a couple minutes working out some other stats: smoking 25 a day for 26 years means i have personally smoked somewhere in the region of 237,000 cigarettes !!! and have spent somewhere around the £20,000 mark....scary thoughts !!

Anyhow like i said, 8 weeks yesterday.....is it getting easier?.......simple answer is no. I would actaully dare to say its getting more difficult, whether this is actually true i dont know, it may just seem harder given the time of year, stress levels are naturally higher, lots to think about, am rushing about and would normally be smoking my head off, so i may just be feeling it a bit more. Am now wondering,  in hindsight, if cold turkey is the way to go.....yes it has worked, and i, hand on heart, have not had a single draw of any cigarettes in 8 weeks, but its times like now when i am struggling slightly that i dont have anything that i can go to to help, like a patch or gum, as i have been told that using something now would be a backward step, as i have now been nicotine free for 2 months, using a nicotine product could prove disasterous. So will just carry on as i am, grit my teeth and get the good old willpower working nice and strong for me.

Vattie

The Quitting Timeline

I am going to show you a quitting timeline that will show what happens to your body the moment you give up. I feel this is an important thing to read as it shows how things start "to happen" litterally as soon as you stubb out that last smoke.

So....you have just put out your last cigarette, this is what is happeneing inside your body:

20mins:

Your heart rate will return to normal, as will your blood pressure, straight away the chances of a heart attack are greatly reduced. Body temperature of hands and feet return to normal.

8 Hours:

The Oxygen levels in your blood will increase to the normal level, which will in turn start improving the quality of your hair and skin, which will have suffered whilst inhaling all the different toxins found in cigarettes. The nicotine and carbon monoxide levels will reduce in the blood by half....and yes, that is the same carbon monoxide found in the fumes sent out of the back of cars, in high doses it will kill instantly, the low levels found in cigartettes will be enough to give shortness of breath and increased heart rate.

24 Hours:

At this stage all of the carbon monoxide will be now gone, and you will find that your lungs will now start clearing out all the mucus that has built up. It is possible you may find signs of a dry cough as new tissue starts to grow.

48 Hours:

Things just get better and better, the last of the nicotine will now have gone from your body, and your sense of taste and smell will now be improving (you just dont realise how badly affected your senses are until you give up smoking). Nerve endings are now also beginning to regrow.

72 Hours:

The bronchial tubes in your lungs begin to relax which will give you ease of breathing, you will now begin to breathe like you haven't breathed in a long time. Your concentration may be starting to waver as the withdrawal symptoms from the nicotine kick in, but your energy levels will start to increase, giving you a boost.

2-12 Weeks:

During this period your whole circulation will improve no end, your ability to walk any sort of distance will be so much easier, and to cap it all off your lung function will have increased by a massive 30%.
But this is also a very hard period in the fact that, during this part of the withdrwal process you will find you are getting more and more restless, irritable and depressed. These side effects are normally felt during the first 4 weeks of quitting......the urge for a cigarette is now at its greatest, get through this period and you are in good stead to be a non smoker.
Dont give up here.....you have done so well.

3-9 Months:

Coughing, sinus congestion, fatigue, and shortness of breath decrease.
Cilia regrow in lungs, increasing their ability to handle mucus, clean the lungs, and reduce infection.
The body's overall energy increases.

1 Year:

The risk of you now having a heart attack is roughly half of that of a smoker.

5Years:

Stroke risk is reduced to that of a non-smoker, and risk of cancer of the mouth, throat, and esophagus is half that of a smoker's.

10years:

The death rate of lung cancer is now at the same level as a non smoker.
The pre-cancerous cells in your body caused by smoking are replaced by new, healthy cells. Risk of cancer of the mouth, throat, esophagus, bladder, kidney, cervix, and pancreas decreases even more.

15 Years:

Your risk of having a heart attack returns to the same level as someone who has never smoked. Your skin should also have completely recovered from the damage associated with smoking.

As you can see there are just so many benefits to giving up smoking, above are just health reasons......there are so many others which i will talk later.

Vattie

The Start of My Personal Story (Part One)

This blog is getting a bit too much of an  "information" site, which in itself isn't a bad thing, as any info to aid someone to stop smoking is a good thing, and to have it all in one place is an added benefit.........but the idea behind this blog of mine was to talk about "My Story", how i started, how i finished etc....you get the picture. So here goes.....the whys/hows and..... reallys??? :)

My Preteen Years

I was born in December 1969 and had a very normal family life, well, as far as normal goes that is. I lived with my biological parents and my sister who is just one year older than me. My Dad was a smoker, albeit, what i would call a seasonal smoker......he would smoke for a year then stop for a year, start again and smoke for 6 months then suddenly stop again for 2 years and so on and so forth. He done this for most of my childhood, and fianlly gave up for good around 1990. Its worth adding that when ever he decided to stop, it was done on instinct and was done very easily. He would suddenly get up throw his cigarettes in the bin and say "thats it i'm stopping for awhile".....no ifs or buts or should i's or shan't i's.....and that would be that for another few months or so.

 From as early as i can remember i HATED smoking, absolutely detested it. If dad smoked i would go out of the room (in them days it was normal for people to smoke in the house ), if mum was talking to friends and smoking would be mentioned she would always look down to me and say...." Tell Mrs *** what u think of smoking", and i would always go into great lenghts as to why i hated it so much. Why i hated it so much i dont know, remember this was the early/mid 70's, smoking was very popular back then.....but i for sure was 100% anti smoking.

My Grandad was also a smoker, my dads dad that is, and he lived about 15 miles away from us. Every Sunday we would drive the 15 miles and do the "visiting" thing. Unlike my dad, who smoked tailor made cigartettes my grandad was a tobacco smoker, and had been all his life (he was probably in his early 60's at this time). Now , when i said earlier that i hated smoking that wasn't strictly true, because for some reason this hand rolling tobacco that my grandad had was different, i cant explain it .......you have to remember i was about 5,6, 7 ish, but there just seemed something different about this "sort" of smoking, but i remember watching him get his Old Holborn tin out and me and my sister would crowd around him and watch him roll his cigarette, and then we would argue over who was going to use the matches and light it for him....(yeah i know........i wouldn't dream of letting my 6 year old do that either, but things really were different then). The smell.....i just loved the smell !!......i would pick his tin up and just sit there and sniff, i just loved the smell, even the smoke that the roll up produced and the smoke that my grandad exhaled i liked the smell of........so much different to the tailor mades my dad was smoking !! Like i say, why this was the i dont know.

 I eventually went on to have my first "smoke" at the tender age of 11.......i blame that lovely smell of my grandads old holborn personally :).........i was young, very young, and some 29 years later, i can still remember every fine detail about it.

 I will carry on from this point in due course ;)

Click here for the second installment "My Personal Story ...11-13 Years (Part Two)"


Vattie

The History Of Smoking (Part 2. 1500-1899)

In the early 1530's, enterprising Europeans began to cultivate the tobacco plants in the caribean, bringing them back into Europe, although it wasnt untill around 1560 or so that it was first brought into England. Apparently around the turn of the century into 1600, Sir Walter Raleigh convinced Queen Elizabeth I to try smoking, and the story goes that she was so sick, that she thought she had been poisoned !! A couple of years later, around 1604, King James I introduced a heavy tax on tobacco products, also banning all tobacco products from Londons alehouses, after brandishing it "an invention of Satan".

Sometime between 1830 and 1860 saw the invention of the friction match,  firstly known as "congreves", then "lucifers" and finally matches to which they are known today. Also around this time (early 1830's) the cigarette was born in hand rolling form, it is widely believed it was an egyptian artilleryman during the siege of acre, that invented the first hand rolled cigarette. It didnt take long after that initial founder rolling the first cigarette untill cigarette factories were popping up all over the world. It only took some 20 years from that first roll up being rolled to factories churning out almost 20million cigarettes yearly.
1880 saw Richard Benson and Willian Hedges opened a tobaconist shop in London. I bet they didnt know then that their two surnames would become household names.....world wide, and even now some 130 years later.

Will carry the "History of Smoking" on from the 1900's at another time


Vattie

The History Of Smoking (Part 1. 5000bc-1493)

Sticking something in your mouth and setting fire to it, then inhaling the smoke and blowing it out again through you nose and mouth !!.......can you just imagine for one moment , had the cigarette never been seen before, the looks you would get from people if you done that. One would probably get sectioned !!. Here is a look at the history of tobacco and cigarettes, telling us where it originated from and when it became popular.

Tobacco has been growing on this earth for around 8000 years, that dates it back to the year 6000bc, and it was first thought to have been found in and around Central America.
Around some 5000 years later (1000bc) the Mayan Civilization were the first to use the tobacco plant for the uses that is well known to us .....for smoking and chewing. Apart from smoking and chewing the leaves, it is also known that they used to mix the tobacco leaves with other plants and hearbs and use this new concoction to treat the sick.


Over time the Mayan Civilization dispersed into the Northern and Southern Americas, taking the tobacco plant with them, soon it was all over America.


 A fellow explorer of Christopher Columbus (left) has the title of being the first ever European smoker of tobacco, he was known as Rodrigo de Jerez. When Jerez returned to Spain, with his tobacco, he was imprisoned for "lighting up" in public, ironically whilst he was serving his sentence, many spaniards were becoming regular smokers, and hence, the popularity of the cigarette was expanding. This was circa 1492/3, just over 500 years ago.

Will carry on from 1493 in "The History Of Smoking"  very soon.



Vattie

Giving Up With Hypnosis.

Hypnosis, is quite simply the most powerful device for personal development and positive change. Why? Because it utilises the most powerful part of your creative potential - your imagination.
Long gone are the days when hypnosis was seen as a guy waving a pocket watch from side to side in front of you and controlling your mind.
You Don't need to see a hypnotherapist in order to enjoy the benefits of hypnosis. There are tapes, CDs, DVDs and even online mp3 downloads available. (see below for some sites that have these available).
A hypnotic state is most often compared to daydreaming, or the feeling of "losing yourself" in a book or movie. You are actually fully conscious, but you tune out most of the stuff around you. You focus deeply on the subject at hand, excluding almost every other thought.
Self Hypnosis is a wonderfully relaxed state that enables you to access the deep and powerful subconscious mind. It is a very pleasant experience and one that you will enjoy. You can listen to a pre-recorded hypnosis session in the comfort and safety of your own home, morning, noon or night.

Below are 3 sites that deal with hypnosis, and shoud between them be able to cope with all your hypnotic needs. As you will see on some of the sites hypnosis can be used for almost anything , not just smoking.

Better Living With Hypnosis .com is a great site that will cater for ALL your needs. There is an excellent FAQ section (Frequently Asked Questions), should you need to find anything out before purchasing.

Richard Mckenzie Direct .com To start the journey on this site just download and listen with headphones via your computer or MP3 player. Alternatively you can just burn the program easily to a disc and listen to it on a CD player. They also have a Full 8 week - 100% Money Back Guarantee.

Fresh Start Method.com Another site with all the info you could ever need via the FAQ section.....and again an 8 week guarentee.

Vattie

Things To Try

There are many ways one could try to kick the habit, as this blog goes on i shall be looking at other ways which one could use to give up. I went cold turkey (more on how/why this suited me the best later in the blog). Whether this is for you will depend entirely on how motivated you are to stop. Nicotine is a highly addictive drug, and most smokers will carry on smoking through addiction rather than choice. It has been said that  if 100 people stopped smoking with willpower alone, then only 3 of them would be cigarette free one year on. So stats go to prove that very few people will suceed on willpower alone, but that isnt to say it isnt worth trying this option, you may just be one of the lucky 3 out of 100. So if, after trying, willpower didnt cut it for you then we will need to look at what other options are available to you, which are proven ways of helping you become the  non smoker that you yearn to be. There are many things, patches, lozenges, tablets, chewing gum plus many many more available to assist you. Over the duration of writing about  my story of giving up i will also be looking at some of the other options that may be able to help you......One of which is Hypnosis which is the first one i will be looking at.

Vattie

So Why I decided To Give Up

In short, i felt that i had to......my body was telling me it was time, i was getting out of breath by just leaning over and doing my shoelaces up, anything energetic was out of the question. I was coughing and spluttering like a man of 80 But apart from the symptoms my body was showing i still had my wife and 2 daughters constantly reminding me what i was doing to my "insides".

After doing a little bit of research i was finding bits of useful information on what benefits would there be if i gave up smoking before i hit the big 40, obviously there are benefits to giving up at any time, but the benefits get less and less the longer you leave it. The 2 key points that gave me the incentive to stop now rather than later were:

1. If you quit by the time you are 40, you could live nine years longer than if you carried on smoking
2. If you give up smoking before the age of 35-40 your life expectancy is very similar to those who have never smoked.

So that was that, i have the big 40 coming up and i wanted the old saying "Life begins at 40" to be true, and it not to be the beginning of the end.

Vattie

My Blog.....The 1st Post

Welcome to Smokefree-Lungs

My name is Vattie, and  i am very very new to this Blogging lark, so please bear with me. This blog is, without doubt, going to look very dowdy and amateurish for awhile until i find all the buttons on how to present it with some style and charisma, which i am hoping to do within a short space of time.

The reason for writing this blog is because i am proud of myself...very proud indeed, and i want to tell everyone, well everyone that wants to listen. I gave up smoking 5 weeks ago, having smoked for 26 years, from the age of 13 to my present 39 by going Cold Turkey. This blog isnt going to tell you how to do it, nor is it going to tell you that it is easy......because it isnt. What i want to do is tell you my experiences of going from 30 a day for 2/3 of my life to nothing overnight....my feelings, my moods, how my eating habits have changed right through to things like sleep patterns ,new cravings  and how it has affected my family.

Hopefully this blog will grow into a hive of resources and backup for anyone wishing to give up smoking.....it can be done and i hope i can be of help to anyone else contemplating doing it .

best wishes

Vattie