When smokers quit -- What are the benefits over time?

20 minutes after quitting:
Your heart rate and blood pressure drops.
(Effect of Smoking on Arterial Stiffness and Pulse Pressure Amplification, Mahmud, A, Feely, J. 2003. Hypertension:41:183.)

12 hours after quitting:

The carbon monoxide level in your blood drops to normal.
(US Surgeon General's Report, 1988, p. 202)

2 weeks to 3 months after quitting:

Your circulation improves and your lung function increases.
(US Surgeon General's Report, 1990, pp.193, 194,196, 285, 323)

1 to 9 months after quitting:

Coughing and shortness of breath decrease; cilia (tiny hair-like structures that move mucus out of the lungs) regain normal function in the lungs, increasing the ability to handle mucus, clean the lungs, and reduce the risk of infection.
(US Surgeon General's Report, 1990, pp. 285-287, 304)

1 year after quitting:

The excess risk of coronary heart disease is half that of a smoker's.
(US Surgeon General's Report, 1990, p. vi)

5 years after quitting:

Your stroke risk is reduced to that of a non-smoker 5 to 15 years after quitting.
(US Surgeon General's Report, 1990, p. vi)

10 years after quitting:

The lung cancer death rate is about half that of a continuing smoker's. The risk of cancer of the mouth, throat, esophagus, bladder, cervix, and pancreas decrease, too.
(US Surgeon General's Report, 1990, pp. vi, 131, 148, 152, 155, 164,166)

15 years after quitting:

The risk of coronary heart disease is the same as a non-smoker's.
(US Surgeon General's Report, 1990, p. vi)

Immediate rewards of quitting
Kicking the tobacco habit offers some benefits that you'll notice right away and some that will develop over time. These rewards can improve your day-to-day life a great deal.
your breath smells better
stained teeth get whiter
bad smelling clothes and hair go away
your yellow fingers and fingernails disappear
food tastes better
your sense of smell returns to normal
everyday activities no longer leave you out of breath (such as climbing stairs or light housework)

Cost
The prospect of better health is a major reason for quitting, but there are other reasons, too.
Smoking is expensive. It isn't hard to figure out how much you spend on smoking: multiply how much money you spend on tobacco every day by 365 (days per year). The amount may surprise you. Now multiply that by the number of years you have been using tobacco and that amount will probably shock you.
Multiply the cost per year by 10 (for the next 10 years) and ask yourself what you would rather do with that much money.
And this doesn't include other possible costs, such as higher costs for health and life insurance, and likely health care costs due to tobacco-related problems.

Social acceptance
Smoking is less socially acceptable now than it was in the past.
Almost all workplaces now have some type of smoking rules. Some employers even prefer to hire non-smokers. Studies show smoking employees cost businesses more because they are out sick more. Employees who are ill more often than others can raise an employer's need for expensive short-term replacement workers. They can increase insurance costs both for other employees and for the employer, who often pays part of the workers’ insurance premiums. Smokers in a building also can increase the maintenance costs of keeping odors down, since residue from cigarette smoke clings to carpets, drapes, and other fabrics.
Landlords may choose not to rent to smokers since maintenance costs and insurance rates may rise when smokers live in buildings.
Friends may ask you not to smoke in their homes or cars. Public buildings, concerts, and even sporting events are largely smoke-free. And more and more communities are restricting smoking in all public places, including restaurants and bars. Like it or not, finding a place to smoke can be a hassle.
Smokers may also find their prospects for dating or romantic involvement, including marriage, are largely limited to other smokers, who make up less than 20% of the adult population.

Health of others
Smoking not only harms your health but it hurts the health of those around you. Exposure to secondhand smoke (also called environmental tobacco smoke or passive smoking) includes exhaled smoke as well as smoke from burning cigarettes.
Studies have shown that secondhand smoke causes thousands of deaths each year from lung cancer and heart disease in healthy non-smokers.
If a mother smokes, there is a higher risk of her baby developing asthma in childhood, especially if she smoked while she was pregnant. Smoking is also linked to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and low-birth weight infants. Babies and children raised in a household where there is smoking have more ear infections, colds, bronchitis, and other lung and breathing problems than children from non-smoking families. Secondhand smoke can also cause eye irritation, headaches, nausea, and dizziness.

Setting an example
If you have children, you probably want to set a good example for them. When asked, nearly all smokers say they don't want their children to smoke, but children whose parents smoke are more likely to start smoking themselves. You can become a good role model for them by quitting now.

* http://www.cancer.org/

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why you should quit smoking

Your health
Health concerns usually top the list of reasons people give for quitting smoking. This is a very real concern: About half of all smokers who keep smoking will end up dying from a smoking-related illness.

Cancer
Nearly everyone knows that smoking can cause lung cancer, but few people realize it is also a risk factor for many other kinds of cancer too, including cancer of the mouth, voice box (larynx), throat (pharynx), esophagus, bladder, kidney, pancreas, cervix, stomach, and some leukemias.

Lung diseases
Pneumonia has been included in the list of diseases known to be caused by smoking since 2004. Smoking also increases your risk of getting lung diseases like emphysema and chronic bronchitis. These diseases are grouped together under the term COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). COPD causes chronic illness and disability, and worsens over time -- sometimes becoming fatal. Emphysema and chronic bronchitis can be found in people as young as 40, but are usually found later in life, when the symptoms get much worse. Long-term smokers have the highest risk of developing severe COPD.

Heart attacks, strokes, and blood vessel diseases
Smokers are twice as likely to die from heart attacks as are non-smokers. And smoking is a major risk factor for peripheral vascular disease, a narrowing of the blood vessels that carry blood to the leg and arm muscles. Smoking also affects the walls of the vessels that carry blood to the brain (carotid arteries), which can cause strokes. Men who smoke are more likely to develop erectile dysfunction (impotence) because of blood vessel disease.

Blindness and other problems
Smoking causes an increased risk of macular degeneration, one of the most common causes of blindness in older people. It also causes premature wrinkling of the skin, bad breath, bad-smelling clothes and hair, yellow fingernails.

Special risks to women and babies
Women have some unique risks linked to smoking. Women over 35 who smoke and use birth control pills have a higher risk of heart attack, stroke, and blood clots of the legs. Women who smoke are more likely to miscarry (lose the baby) or have a lower birth-weight baby. And low birth-weight babies are more likely to die, or have learning and physical problems.

Years of life lost due to smoking
Based on data collected in the late 1990s, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated that adult male smokers lost an average of 13.2 years of life and female smokers lost 14.5 years of life because of smoking. And given the diseases that smoking can cause, it can steal your quality of life long before you die. Smoking-related illness can limit your activities by making it harder to breathe, get around, work, or play.

Why quit now?
No matter how old you are or how long you've smoked, quitting can help you live longer and be healthier. People who stop smoking before age 50 cut their risk of dying in the next 15 years in half compared with those who keep smoking. Ex-smokers enjoy a higher quality of life with fewer illnesses from cold and flu viruses, better self-reported health, and reduced rates of bronchitis and pneumonia.

For decades the Surgeon General has reported the health risks linked to smoking.
In 1990, the Surgeon General concluded:
Quitting smoking has major and immediate health benefits for men and women of all ages. These benefits apply to people who already have smoking-related disease and those who don't.
Ex-smokers live longer than people who keep smoking.
Quitting smoking lowers the risk of lung cancer, other cancers, heart attack, stroke, and chronic lung disease.
Women who stop smoking before pregnancy or during the first 3 to 4 months of pregnancy reduce their risk of having a low birth-weight baby to that of women who never smoked.
The health benefits of quitting smoking are far greater than any risks from the small weight gain (usually less than 10 pounds) or any emotional or psychological problems that may follow quitting.

* www.cancer.org

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Quit Smoking it's not easy, but you can do it

Why is it so hard to quit smoking?
Mark Twain said, "Quitting smoking is easy. I've done it a thousand times." Maybe you've tried to quit, too. Why is quitting and staying quit hard for so many people? The answer is nicotine.

Nicotine
Nicotine is a drug found naturally in tobacco. It is highly addictive -- as addictive as heroin or cocaine. Over time, a person becomes physically and emotionally addicted to (dependent on) nicotine. Studies have shown that smokers must deal with both the physical and psychological (mental) dependence to quit and stay quit.

How nicotine gets in, where it goes, and how long it stays
When you inhale smoke, nicotine is carried deep into your lungs. There it is absorbed quickly into the bloodstream and carried throughout your body. Nicotine affects many parts of the body, including your heart and blood vessels, your hormones, your metabolism, and your brain. Nicotine can be found in breast milk and even in mucus from the cervix of a female smoker. During pregnancy, nicotine freely crosses the placenta and has been found in amniotic fluid and the umbilical cord blood of newborn infants.
Several different factors can affect how long it takes the body to remove nicotine and its by-products. In most cases, regular smokers will still have nicotine or its by-products, such as cotinine, in their bodies for about 3 to 4 days after stopping.

How nicotine hooks smokers
Nicotine produces pleasant feelings that make the smoker want to smoke more. It also acts as a kind of depressant by interfering with the flow of information between nerve cells. As the nervous system adapts to nicotine, smokers tend to increase the number of cigarettes they smoke. This, in turn, increases the amount of nicotine in the smoker's blood. After a while, the smoker develops a tolerance to the drug. Tolerance means that it takes more nicotine to get the same effect that the smoker used to get from smaller amounts. This leads to an increase in smoking over time. The smoker reaches a certain nicotine level and then keeps smoking to maintain this level of nicotine. In fact, nicotine inhaled in cigarette smoke reaches the brain faster than drugs that enter the body intravenously (IV).

Nicotine withdrawal symptoms can lead quitters back to smoking
When smokers try to cut back or quit, the lack of nicotine leads to withdrawal symptoms. Withdrawal is both physical and mental. Physically, the body reacts to the absence of nicotine. Mentally, the smoker is faced with giving up a habit, which calls for a major change in behavior. The physical and mental both must be addressed for the quitting process to work.
Those who have smoked regularly for a few weeks or longer, and suddenly stop using tobacco or greatly reduce the amount smoked, will have withdrawal symptoms. Symptoms usually start within a few hours of the last cigarette and peak about 2 to 3 days later when most of the nicotine and its by-products are out of the body. Withdrawal symptoms can last for a few days to up to several weeks.

Withdrawal symptoms can include any of the following:
dizziness (which may only last 1 to 2 days after quitting)
depression
feelings of frustration, impatience, and anger
anxiety
irritability
sleep disturbances, including having trouble falling asleep and staying asleep, and having bad dreams or even nightmares
trouble concentrating
restlessness
headaches
tiredness
increased appetite

These symptoms can lead the smoker to start smoking cigarettes again to boost blood levels of nicotine back to a level where there are no symptoms. (For information on coping with withdrawal, see the section, "How to quit.")
Smoking also makes your body get rid of certain drugs faster than usual. When you quit smoking, it changes the way your body handles some medicines. Ask your doctor if any medicines you take regularly need to be checked or changed after you quit.

* http://www.cancer.org/

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Pregnancy Smoking Facts

Smoking More than half a pack a day may cause infertility or irregular menstrual cycles in women.

Menopause often occurs earlier in women who smoke than in women who do not.

Pregnant women pass any chemicals they take in (from food, tobacco, alcohol and so on) to their unborn children through the placenta.

Women who smoke during pregnancy can slow down the baby's growth by reducing the amount of oxygen and increasing the amount of carbon monoxide that the baby receives during a critical time when its brain and nervous system are developing.

Babies born of mothers who smoke frequently during pregnancy are on the average 7 ounces lighter than other babies.

Smoking while pregnant increases the chances of spontaneous abortions (miscarriages) stillbirths and premature labor.

Women who smoke have higher risks of giving birth to babies with birth defects or abnormalities.

In 2002, 11.4 percent of mothers smoked during pregnancy.

Mothers who smoke can pass nicotine to their children through breast milk.

Infants born to mothers who smoke are more likely to develop colds, bronchitis, and other respiratory diseases such as asthma. The odds of developing asthma are twice as high among children whose mothers smoke more than 10 cigarettes a day.

http://www.smoking-facts.net/

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Teen Smoking Facts

Each day 3,000 children smoke their first cigarette.

At least 3 million adolescents are smokers.

Tobacco use primarily begins in early adolescence, typically by age 16.

Almost all first use occurs before high school graduation.

20 percent of American teens smoke.

Roughly 6 million teens in the US today smoke despite the knowledge that it is addictive and leads to disease.

Of every 100,000 15 year old smokers, tobacco will prematurely kill at least 20,000 before the age of 70.

Of the 3,000 teens who started smoking today, nearly 1,000 will eventually die as a result from smoking.

Adolescent girls who smoke and take oral birth control pills greatly increase their chances of having blood clots and strokes.According to the Surgeon's General, Teenagers who smoke were:

Three times more likely to use alcohol.

Eight times are likely to smoke marijuana.

And 22 times more likely to use Cocaine.

Although only 5 percent of high school smokers said that they would definitely be smoking five years later, close to 75 percent were still smoking 7 to 9 years later.

A person who starts smoking at age 13 will have a more difficult time quitting, has more health-related problems and probably will die earlier than a person who begins to smoke at age 21.

Kids who smoke experience changes in the lungs and reduced lung growth, and they risk not achieving normal lung function as an adult.

Kids who smoke have significant health problems, including cough and phlegm production, decreased physical fitness and unfavorable lipid profile.

If your child's best friends smoke, then your youngster is 13 times more likely to smoke than if his or her friends did not smoke.

More than 90 percent of adult smokers started when they were teens.

Adolescents who have two parents who smoke are more than twice as likely as youth without smoking parents to become smokers.

A 2001 Survey found that 69.4 percent of teenage smokers reported never being asked for proof of age when buying cigarettes in a store. The same survey found that 62.4 percent were allowed to buy cigarettes even when the retailer was aware they were under eighteen.

http://www.smoking-facts.net/

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BEFORE COMPLETELY QUITTING... THE DAY YOU QUIT...

Practice going without cigarettes.

Don't think of NEVER smoking again. Think of quitting in terms of 1 day at a time.

Tell yourself you won't smoke today, and then don't.

Clean your clothes to rid them of the cigarette smell, which can linger a long time.

Throw away all your cigarettes and matches. Hide your lighters and ashtrays.

Visit the dentist and have your teeth cleaned to get rid of tobacco stains. Notice how nice they look, and resolve to keep them that way.

Make a list of things you'd like to buy for yourself or someone else. Estimate the cost in terms of packs of cigarettes, and put the money aside to buy these presents.

Keep very busy on the big day. Go to the movies, exercise, take long walks, go bike riding, Just keep busy.

Remind your family and friends that this is your quit date, and ask them to help you over the rough spots of the first couple of days and weeks.

Buy yourself a gift or do something special to celebrate.

* http://www.quit4good.com/

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DIFFERENT WAYS TO QUIT SMOKING

Switch brands. Switch to a brand that is not as enjoyable as your regular brand.

Change to a brand that's low in tar and nicotine a couple of weeks before your target date. This will help change your smoking behavior. However, DO NOT smoke more cigarettes, inhale them more often or more deeply, or place your fingertips over the holes in the filters. All of these will increase your nicotine intake, and the idea is to get your body used to functioning without nicotine. (If you smoke regular, go from regular to lights, then from lights to ultra lights.)

Cut down the number of cigarettes you smoke.

Smoke only half of each cigarette.

Each day, postpone lighting your first cigarette 1 hour.

Decide you'll smoke only during odd or even hours of the day.

Decide beforehand how many cigarettes you'll smoke during the day. For each additional cigarette, give a dollar to your favorite charity.

Change your eating habits to help you cut down. For example, drink milk, which many people consider incompatible with smoking. End meals or snacks with something that won't lead to a cigarette.

Reach for a glass of juice or some fruit instead of a cigarette for a "pick-me-up." ( The healthier you feel , the stronger you are.)

Remember: Cutting down can help you quit, but it's not a substitute for quitting. If you're down to about seven cigarettes a day, it's time to set your target date and get ready to stick to it.

Don't Smoke "Automatically" !

Smoke only those cigarettes you really want. Catch yourself before you light up a cigarette out of pure habit!

Don't empty your ashtrays. This will remind you of how many cigarettes you've smoked each day, and the sight and smell of stale butts will be very unpleasant.

Make yourself aware of each cigarette by using the opposite hand or putting cigarettes in an unfamiliar location or a different pocket to break the automatic reach.

If you light up many times during the day without even thinking about it, try to look in a mirror each time you put a match to your cigarette - you may decide you don't need it.

Make smoking inconvenient

Stop buying cigarettes by the carton. Wait until one pack is empty before you buy another.

Stop carrying cigarettes with you at home and at work. Make them difficult to get to.

If you usually smoke indoors , go outside!

Make smoking unpleasant

Smoke only under circumstances that aren't especially pleasurable for you. If you like to smoke with others, smoke alone. Turn your chair toward an empty corner and focus only on the cigarette you are smoking and its many negative effects. Collect all you cigarette butts in one large glass container as a visual reminder of the filth smoking represents.

* http://www.quit4good.com/

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