There are many benefits to quitting smoking. These benefits are the reason why you should quit smoking. They wont in themselves help you quit smoking but they will provide you with motivation to go on and learn how to quit smoking successfully.
Quit smoking benefit #2: Cigarette smoke and the cocktail of 3,500 chemicals found in it, have damaged nerves throughout your body. Within 2 days your body will start to re-grow these damaged nerves. Your sense of taste and smell will sharpen. You will not need to salt your food as heavily as you used to.
Quit smoking benefit #3: Smokers are more likely to suffer from high blood pressure. When you quit smoking, your blood pressure will come down without any other intervention just from quitting smoking. High blood pressure is known as the ‘silent killer’ that often goes unnoticed in people of middle age. High blood pressure makes your heart work harder and can result in an enlarged heart and heart disease. It is advisable to ask you doctor for a blood pressure check the next time you see them.
Quit smoking benefit #4: 90% of all lung cancer sufferers are smokers. The vast majority of smokers quit smoking the minute they are diagnosed with lung cancer, proving that quitting is possible. 10 years after quitting smoking, your risk of lung cancer will have halved.
Quit smoking benefit #5: Naturally, inhaling hot toxic gasses into your lungs 20 times a day causes considerable damage. Most significantly, smoking is a major contributor in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease or COPD. COPD includes such illnesses as bronchitis (the inflammation of the lung bronchioles (tubes)) and emphysema. Emphysema is when your lung tissues lose their elasticity and you cannot breath normally. Death from emphysema comes in the form of a slow and utterly debilitating suffocation over the course of a few years. It is irreversible and incurable.
Quit smoking benefit #6: Between 5 and 15 years after quitting smoking, your risk of a stroke will have returned to that of a non-smoker (depending upon other influencing factors such as diet).
Quit smoking benefit #7: On average, smokers die between 8 and 10 years earlier than non-smokers. Quitting smoking even in middle age can reduce the risks of ill health significantly and there are always benefits in quitting smoking, no matter what your age.
Quit smoking benefit #8: After years of smoking, you will have suffered from a chronic cough. Between 3 and 12 months after quitting smoking, this cough should have disappeared.
Quit smoking benefit #9: Within 3 months of quitting smoking, your circulation should have improved significantly. If you used to suffer from ‘pins and needles’, they should be a thing of the past now. Your risk of heart attack will have reduced significantly.
Quit smoking benefit #10: Not only can you smell better you do smell better too! Your general odour will be much more pleasant to those around you.
There is a Japanese proverb that says “fall down seven times, get up eight”. Quitting smoking is just like that too. You have to keep trying to quit. My advice as ever is never quit trying to quit.