Prepare Yourself To Stop Smoking

It is all to well known how addictive smoking is and how difficult it can be to break that addiction. Apart from the physical and bodily addiction there is also the psychological one. If you have friends who smoke or if you frequent places where smoking is permitted then this will make it much more difficult to combat the psychological addiction. For this reason, one of the first steps you should take to stop smoking should be to prepare yourself to quit smoking adequately in advance.

The psychological addiction has to do with you daily habits. Smoking will have become so integrated into your daily routine that you will feel like a large part of your life has been taken away when you stop smoking. When you smoke as a part of your daily routine it is something that you just do… you are probably not even aware that you do it most of the time.

Before you begin quitting smoking you might want to try and change your smoking habits a little. Try smoking at times of day where you would normally not smoke, change cigarette brand, try smoking using the other hand. These little tricks will serve to make you aware of your smoking and helping to separate the smoking from being an integral part of your daily life.

You could try the following exercise before giving up. Try to only smoke when you have time to smoke … i.e., don’t smoke and do something else at the same time. If you smoke then do that and nothing else, don-t walk, drive, watch the TV, computer...  nothing… just smoke and be aware of what you are doing. This will serve to make you think about smoking and consider all of the ramifications that it holds and secondly it will make you realize just exactly how much time you spend smoking every day. This might help you become aware of the severity of your addiction and motivate you just a little bit more to quit smoking.

A lot of people try to give up by simply stopping, i.e. ‘cold turkey’. This will work for some people but for others this will be so unbearable that they will not be successful and the all important self esteem will be damaged for future efforts to stop.. It is therefore very important to draw up a plan of action as to how you will stop and what aids or techniques you are going to use. Giving up smoking should start well before you stub out your very last cigarette, you should spend time preparing yourself, and getting used to the idea of being a non-smoker for the rest of your life. You should prepare yourself also by making changes in your smoking habits that will make it easier to separate smoking from your daily activities.

Quitting smoking when you are prepared makes it easier to stop smoking and quit smoking for good.

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