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Anyone quit smoking?
shanyin
Novice YoginSault Ontario Veteran
Has anyone here stop smoking before? I'm up to a pack a day now and curious if you used a plan and if you feel better. I'm up to a pack a day and want to start changing things in my life so I'll start feeling not so depressed sometimes. Like it was re-stated here before, if you always do what you've always done you'll always get what you've always got.
I'm mostly curious about how you felt after a long period of not smoking, as there are many guides that seem reasonable on the internet.
I'm mostly curious about how you felt after a long period of not smoking, as there are many guides that seem reasonable on the internet.
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Comments
Benefits
Increased energy levels. Increased happiness. Increased motivation upon quiting. No anxiety for going "without"
Quitting smoking is the best thing you can do for yourself right now.
I agree with blu3ree. Cold turkey, never look back.
Food tastes better, can smell things better, and am some less anxious and frustrated. Can meditate better.
When I quit a couple years ago I used the nicotine patch. For me, it was a gradual way to wean myself off of the addictive substance, and it reduced the withdrawal component significantly. I was a smoker for about 25 years and after several failed attempts, this one stuck.
I had gotten to the point where my body was no longer particularly resilient, I was feeling pretty bad physically on a regular basis. It was impacting my ability to do things I wanted (hiking, backpacking, and exercise), and I got sick at the drop of a hat. I decided that if I wanted any decent quality of life for myself going forward, this was a change that needed to be made. My father was a smoker for over 50 years and his health is greatly diminished with COPD and emphysema. I didn't want to wind up like that.
It's been two years and I don't regret it a bit. I made a list of all the benefits I could think of in becoming a non-smoker: physical, psychological, emotional, and financial...and stored it on my iPhone for easy reference. I referred to it whenever I was tempted to smoke. I also downloaded an app for my phone which calculated how much I have saved, and how many cigarettes I haven't smoked. At the time of this post, I have saved $5,245 and not smoked 14,000 cigarettes.
I did gain a bit of weight, but as a non-smoker, I began to exercise regularly and lost it. Now I am likely in the best shape of my adult life. I can do a 30-45 minute cardio workout and hardly be winded. It's amazing to think of the progress I have made. Once the weather gets nice, I am going to start running with the goal of running in a 5K before the end of the summer. I want to climb a mountain, and having goals of this sort which use healthy living as a foundation will keep me from ever going back to smoking again.
Best of luck to you. When you are honestly ready to make this change you will be successful!
Here's all I can say: you'll be miserable for a while, but it gets better. The craving does gradually go away. There will come a time when you realize that, while you miss lighting up, it's not that big a deal anymore. It varies, but once you've gritted your teeth and made it through a couple of months, you reach a point where you know that you can do this.
There's no magic formula for getting rid of the craving, only time.
I smoked for 16 years.
Cold turkey worked best, and it took about 8 times.
Educate yourself on all the possible withdraws,
so you dont get caught off guard. I often gave in
bec I was so miserable but didn't know how/all
the connections were related.
The withdraw symptoms change week by week and
you can help prepare yourself. The main ones for me
were constipation and nightmares. Once I put things in
place that could help....It made 'toughing it out' alot
easier. You have to sit with the cravings. They will pass.
I promise. Each time it does...remind yourself...it will arise
again....and pass again. Don't give up on quitting! Your health
and quality of life is worth the struggle.
http://www.quitsmokingsupport.com/withdrawal1-printable.htm
Several years before that I'd quit for 3 full years - then started smoking again! Went right up to nearly a pack a day again in about 6 months! Quitting the second time was just that much harder. But I did it.
I don't get sick as often, I don't have an irregular heart beat as often, everything (me included) smells better, tastes better and feels cleaner. It was worth quitting.
But I will say this- if they ever come up with a proven cancer-free cigarette, I'd probably start smoking again. Because even after all this time, I still miss it now and then in certain social situations...
The best thing to do, in my opinion, is to try to pick up a healthy habit to replace a non-healthy one. Even something simple like make yourself a cup of tea whenever you would normally have a cigarette break. You can deal with your attachment to good habit later, if that is an issue, but the most important thing now is to get healthy. Also, make sure to get plenty of sleep. I noticed when I was smoking that if I stayed up late, that is when I would smoke the most (even if not drinking).
And yes, stopping smoking had a great impact on my health, in general. I used to get sinus infections all the time and I haven't had one of those since I totally quit some years ago.
I used the mantra "tadyatha, gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhi, svaha! “ .
For me it was very effective in quelling the experience of suffering/dissatisfaction as the “Heart of Wisdom of the Perfection” sutra proclaims about it.
Shanyin, Cold Turkey always worked for me --Especially in wintry cold air when you can go outside and fill your lungs with that delicious cold air. It's a nice substitute for the smoke. Actually, better than a mere substitute, in that doing so ionizes (or whatever) your lungs with a salubrious, almost electrical charge (thinking of electricity's other name here: potential difference ). And what a difference that fresh, cool, salubrious air does make. Going for walks in nature without those derned fags is a right straight thing to do to help kick the old habit.
I quit several times. For me, the actual "quitting" was never that hard after the first couple of days. It was the staying quit that was hard. In my case, the last time I quit I just had no recourse but to fill my consciousness up with negative propaganda (how only "stupid people" smoked, how bad it smelled on people, how inconvenient it had become to make time and find places for it). Only short-term propaganda worked well with me; for, after all, long-term health issues were known to me before I ever started in the first place and were in essence remote or tangential to my core being.
Nowadays I could take a cigarette and try to smoke it, but would be unable to finish it. I get an upset stomach now, after having had a tobacco-free lifestyle for over 15 years.
Best of luck! But if you're trying to quit to please somebody else, it probably won't work (I hate to tell you). You need a sincere desire to quit. The situation is sort of like the detective played by Kenneth Branagh in DEAD AGAIN: when Branagh is looking at Robin Williams' pack of cigarettes, Williams' character draws attention to that fact and says something like, "Either you're a smoker or a non smoker. Pick which one you are and go for it." I am afraid that most of us just go too long with the day-to-day, duplicitous, procrastinating flow. I know I did for many years.
Have some compassion on your lungs!
Metta.
Personally the nicotine patches worked well for me. The gum didn’t. I think the reason was it was too similar to smoking, get the urge and pop one in your mouth. Although it’s certainly less damaging to your body than smoking you may find yourself dependant on it for much longer than necessary.
Strive on until you succeed the results are worth it.
Metta
Whatever you do, don't try that Chantix crap. It made my girlfriend LITERALLY crazy.
I needed a month off (to take naps and deal with stress-emotions) including two weeks of chewing nicotune gums. Lot's of short meditation sessions.
Then I got over it.
For me smoking matches my schizophrenia. You get a boost from low dopamine in that nicotine is acetylcholine. Pipes are ideal because you can only smoke one pipe a day per pipe. And you don't inhale.
Nicotine builds tolerance to where a pack doesn't even help you relax. So you might as well stay in the 'shallow water' of pipes and not inhale anything.
Wish you the best.
Curious because anti-psychotics are dopamine blockers.
Smoking doesn't work on dopamine. That is good because ritalin and dopamine drugs will make you have so many delusions, I got daily voices for the price of trying ritalin.
Smoking gives a different kind of reward than dopamine. It gives you acetylcholine.
A lot of us mental people take acetylcholine/cigs to relieve the side effects of drugs. It can be terrible for cancer. That's why I smoke pipes because I get an oasis of relief. But the problem with cigs is that the body gets tolerant of nicotine and you need more and more and more and more and more......
So for your quitting you could get 2 or 3 corncob pipes and a tin of tobacco and you would still get your oral craving though you would not get past the withdrawal because when not inhaling you get very little nicotine.