Reduce Month by Month: 20 Tips to Quit Smoking

Changing habits can be incredibly challenging. Here are 20 golden tips for quitting smoking. Choose one and good luck!

1. The first tip is to create a sign listing all the dangers of smoking and hang it in places where you used to smoke at home. Every time you feel the urge to light a cigarette, look at the sign. To remind you, some of the major dangers include: lung cancer, bladder cancer, mouth and tongue cancer, leukemia, impotence, bone damage, memory loss, heart attack, stroke, damage to the sense of smell and taste, or harm to the fetus.

2. Another tip is to make a list of the challenges you'll face when trying to quit smoking. Next to each challenge, write a way to overcome it. For example: A possible challenge is "Nicotine is addictive," and the solution might be "Try using nicotine gum." Another option could be: "Smoking helps me cope with stress," and the possible solution – "Relieve stress at the gym."

3. What do you do while smoking? Drink coffee? Lie in bed? Talk on the phone? Try to find substitutes for cigarettes during these activities.

4. Beware of the "one cigarette" trap, which can lead back to nicotine addiction. After quitting completely, even one cigarette is very dangerous. This is because once nicotine molecules reach the brain again, there's no going back, and falling into the nicotine trap is just a matter of time. No reason in the world is worth that cigarette. Never think in terms of one cigarette. Always think about the long, dirty chain it represents.

Activate your judgment: Do you want to start smoking again without the ability to ever stop? The answer is, of course, no. And if for a moment you ask yourself "Why?" Remember that you didn't like being a smoker, which is why you decided to quit in the first place. This way, you can turn moments of frustration into moments of happiness, where you congratulate yourself on being a person with free will, self-confidence, and control over your life, its quality, and your health.

5. Set a date: Draw up a signed contract, with your friends as witnesses, in which you commit to quitting smoking on a certain date.

6. When the target date for quitting smoking arrives, throw away everything that reminds you of cigarettes. Ashtrays, matches, lighters, post-smoking gum.

7. Leave the packs behind: Start buying a single pack of cigarettes at a time. At some point, you'll feel that not having a stash at home isn't the end of the world.

8. Tea instead of a cigarette: Brew yourself herbal tea every time you feel the urge to smoke. The process of making tea and sipping it slowly will give you a sensation similar to smoking, or at least offer some compensation.

9. Seeds instead of a cigarette: For every cigarette, crack four sunflower seeds. The cracking and eating will give you a sensation akin to what you experience while smoking.

10. Take a toothpick: Whenever you feel like smoking, take a toothpick and chew on it.

11. Find a healthy snack you can chew when you feel the need to smoke, or simply chew gum. This way, you will replace the oral habit with a much less harmful alternative.

12. Change your routine: To reduce nicotine cravings, try changing your daily habits. Sit in a different chair for breakfast. If you used to sit in a café and smoke at the end of the workday, go home first or to the gym. If you used to smoke with your morning coffee, switch it to tea. In short - stop doing things that remind you of cigarettes.

13. Create a "no smoking" zone around you. Don't allow people in your home, at work, or in your car to smoke around you. When you're in a restaurant, sit in the non-smoking area. Staying away from smoke is not only healthier, but it will also save you from the temptation to start smoking again.

14. Don't keep it inside: If something's bothering you, let it out instead of bottling up your anger. It will reduce your need to seek comfort in a cigarette.

15. Put the money aside: Save all the money you're not spending on cigarette packs in a glass jar. Seeing the money accumulate will motivate you to keep going and not give in to a cigarette. At the end of the first month, use the money to buy yourself something you love as a reward.

16. Switch to decaf: Drinking caffeine causes nervousness, which might interfere with your quit-smoking process. Opt for decaffeinated drinks, for your benefit.

17. Acupuncture: Complementary medicine experts claim that acupuncture helps in the quitting process and reduces nicotine cravings. During the first two weeks of quitting, schedule several appointments with an acupuncture specialist.

18. Made a mistake? Start again: Remember that one slip-up isn't a failure, and start the quitting process anew.

19. For gradual and almost unnoticed quitting, reduce by one cigarette each month from your previous month's habit. In the end, you'll reach zero, with almost no noticeable change, by giving up just one cigarette a month.

20. And of course: prayer. Ask for help from the Creator of the world, the sole master of our feelings and desires.

Good luck.