Yes it can. Quitting Smoking can be bad for your health. If you do it wrong.

So many people who give up smoking decide to do it on the spur of the moment. They wake up one morning, feeling dreadful with an awful taste in the mouth.

“That’s it!” you shout. “Never again. Never ever again” you say as you gently crush the pack of cigarettes in your hand. You casually toss the crumpled pack in to the wastepaper bin in your bedroom and stomp off to the bathroom to see if you can scrape some of the crap off your tongue.

The resolution to quit smoking lasts all day, until you get home. You’ve had a stressful day at work, and after you’ve poured yourself a nice drink and finally being to relax.

But something’s missing. A ciggie would be nice right about now….

“Ah” you think excitedly to yourself, “I’ve got that crushed pack in the bin in the bedroom!”. Before you know it you’re rooting through your bin like a vagrant to get the crumpled cancer sticks back from the dead. Of course, you didn’t crush the pack into oblivion, you just gently crushed it. Just in case.

Does any of this sound familiar?

It does? Well, that makes two of us. I can write the above story about an ill-fated attempt to quit because that was me. For a long time, this was the typical half-assed attempt to quit smoking I would inflict upon myself every so often. And it goes without saying that it failed. Every time.

So. What was fundamentally wrong with my approach? No preparation. That’s all. There was no proper preparation to get off tobacco in mind, just a knee-jerk reaction following a bad night out.

To give up smoking successfully, boring as it may sound, you must get a decent game plan together. You can’t expect to fight something that is so ingrained into your life without knowing how you are going to do it.

Too many people give up smoking like a binge eater gives up cakes. They do okay for half a day, maybe a whole day, but as soon as the day gets to them, off they trot to the candy store. And so it is with nicotine. Worse if anything, since there is both a psychological and a chemical addiction at work.

I must have attempted to quit smoking over 40 times – before I figured out how to do it. It’s not rocket science, but it’s not as easy to find out as you would hope. It’s as if the tobacco companies already know the secrets of how to quit smoking and are ensuring the secrets never get out.

Well, here’s the first bit of advice I’d offer you. Ask yourself why you are quitting smoking. Go get a piece of paper and a pen.

Got your paper and pen? Good.

Now write down at least 10 every reason why you want to quit smoking. Don’t think too hard or edit the list. Just let it all flow. Every reason you can think of. This might take you a while but make sure you get at least ten reasons written down.

Now. Go through your list and one by one examine each reason. If the reason you have written is not directly about you, then cross it out. Yep. You heard me right. Cross it out.
IF you do this properly you will find your list of reasons has just got a whole lot smaller. Good.

You may well think it’s good to give up for your kids, your wife, your friends. Don’t get me wrong – they will benefit when you give up. But you decided to start smoking and now you are deciding to quit. You. For Your Reasons Alone. Anybody else’s reasons are not good enough to see you through.

Once you target with laser-like focus on the real reason you want to quit, that will help you when the going gets tough. It also means that you’ll quit in a well considered way, rather than the traditional unplanned cold turkey method that never works.

That’s one piece of advise that should serve you well – feel free to visit my website and get all the real secrets to quitting easily and successfully.

Pete France
1st December 2008

Pete owns Instant Non Smoker helping people learn about quitting smoking

Source: http://www.InstantNonSmoker.com

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