It is generally acknowledged that smoking is merely a bad habit, but in fact, tobacco addiction is a disease that even has a determination: F17.The fifth Everyone in the world is a smoker.
Dependence implies not only the constant nicotine recharge, but also rituals: go on a smoke break, take a cigarette along with a glass of wine, patronize yourself in pants in search of a lighter.All of these are the usual nervous paths that the body is not just to interrupt when a person left smoking.Therefore, it is important to get rid of physical and psychological dependence.
The material was checked by evidence-based narcotherapist, cognitive therapist.
Why should you quit smoking immediately
According to statistics, in 2017, more than 8 million people worldwide died of diseases associated with tobacco smoke, of which 1.2 million from passive tobacco consumption.
By comparison: during the Covid-19 epidemic, 2.1 million people died due to the disease.At the same time, for each death from smoking, it constitutes 30 patients suffering from diseases associated with this habit.Harmful substances provoke the development of more than 15 types of cancer, cardiovascular disease, chronic obstructive lung disease.
Tobacco smoke, which consists of 4000 chemical compounds, weakens the immune system and thus adversely affects all organs of the body.It can provoke infertility and powerlessness, and also adversely affects the quality of the sperm, which can later lead to congenital embryo defects.Smoking also weakens bones and teeth, which is why they become more fragile, provoke the development of rheumatoid arthritis, type 2 diabetes, gastrointestinal diseases, including an ulcer.
Once a person left smoking, the body begins to heal immediately.After a day, blood pressure normalizes and blood circulation improves, after two days a person distinguishes tastes and smells better, and after a month the lung walls regenerate.
Modern ways to quit smoking
There are several methods of refusing tobacco that helps to keep in the first more difficult days.They will only be effective if a person has a motivation to cope with addiction.
Nicotine therapy -Substitititting
Plaster, inhalators and nicotine -containing gum surrender to your body in a much more frugal way than cigarettes.
Pros: Pros:They help to get rid of addiction, gradually reducing the dose and without exposing the body to the shock.
Offenses:They do not make up the "smoker ritual" when a person is accustomed to taking a cigarette behind coffee or during a break at work.
Allen Carra's books
The method is not a prohibition of certain actions, but in the development of motivation.Allen Carr, who once smoked some packages a day, and then became one of the leading British and world experts to refuse smoking and other addictions, constantly explains not only those disadvantages related to health, but also others associated with psychology.In particular, it shows the replacement of the concepts of "I like to smoke / I depend on smoking", drawing the reader's attention to the fact that addiction is weakness.
Pros: Pros:Allen Carr gradually prepares the reader for change.So, for example, he says you can smoke while reading his book, but you have to stop immediately after the last page turns upside down.
Offenses:A person can extend reading for a long time, throw the book at one point, or simply not follow the author's instructions.
THINK
It can be auxiliary practice in stress conditions in case of refusal of smoking.It is proven that after a few hours the class, people calm down, they have themselves -control and their mood rises.
Pros: Pros:It helps not to think about tobacco.Reduces the desire to smoke a cigarette.
Offenses:Requires regularity.
Hypnosis
The most important thing in preparation is a wish.People who bring their loved ones usually get the opposite effect.A person does not give himself a doctor's premises, but, on the contrary, after the procedure he blazes that nothing receives it.
Pros: Pros:If the hypnosis passes successfully, you can get rid of the habit very quickly.
Offenses:So far, there is no scientific data that hypnotherapy is the best way and 100% effective to quit smoking.
Cognitive-transient psychotherapy
Psychotherapy is built in work with dysfunctional thoughts and irrational beliefs of the patient.For example, this: "to relieve stress, I definitely have to smoke", "speaking in a smoking team and at the same time not smoking yourself", "very difficult to quit smoking, and I can't do it."
The method gives excellent results in combination with nicotine -replacement therapy, some experts also use hypnosis.
Pros: Pros:A person has support and a "conductor" that will lead him from attractive states.
Offenses:The price, however, will pay by saving cigarettes.
Electronic cigarettes will not help
Often in an effort to reduce nicotine addiction, people go through electronic cigarettes.Sadly, as recent studies say, this is far from the harmless device.Such devices support the ritual of behavior and contain nicotine.
Who does not know electronic cigarettes as a tool of nicotine therapy.
Scientific and fast medicine also questioned acupuncture.This method lies in the fact that needles are inserted under the skin that relieve the symptoms caused by removal syndrome.For those that such a process may seem unpleasant, there are simulation needles that do not enter the tissue.According to clinical research, such therapy does not give a proper result.
It still does not help restore tobacco
Smoking mixtures often contain tobacco and other harmful substances.Homeopathic aid also raises questions.So far, there are no reliable studies on the topic if naturalopathy helps.
What should you know before you quit smoking yourself
According to the European newspaper of social psychology, the formation of new habits lasts from 18 to 254 days.It all depends on the age and ability of neurons to create new ways.In fact, they like to run along the already trampled paths, it is because it is so difficult for us to say goodbye to the usual way of behavior.
However, it is possible to deceive your brain with nicotine dependence.
How to quit smoking yourself
- Set yourself a date when forgiving with tobacco.Two weeks before the hour, ICS can begin preparation.For example, abandon ritual cigarettes in the morning and for coffee.It makes sense to follow what moments you smoke, because you really want it, and when it's just a habit - on a walk, driving, under your favorite song, after you have eaten.All of these models must be broken one after the other.
- Tell everyone.In a strong decision, it is advisable to notify all friends and acquaintances.It is possible through social networks.If many people know what you have abandoned, it will be harder for you to accept those who can't do it.
- Set a goal.To begin with, you can tell yourself that you don't smoke for a week.The hardest thing will be the third day without nicotine, when it is minimized its amount in the blood.It is during this period that a person begins to experience cancellation syndrome, which is associated with irritability, headaches and increased appetite.For this day you can prepare in advance and go out what to distract.Relaxing practices can help. Once you have passed the first "breaking", you need to set yourself a second goal.For example, keep it ten days.And thus gradually moves toward purpose.
- Get your hands.This will help interrupt the ritual of the habit.It is advisable to have some kind of item, for example, rotary or pencil.The perfect solution is a puzzle per 1000 pieces or enigma.
- Be prepared to replace addictions.The easiest option is to eat more.That is why, abandoning cigarettes, some gain weight.Over time, the power process is normalized and the additional pounds will be removed.During this period, it is best to have a bottle of available water or low calorie foods, such as chopped vegetables and fruits.As a replacement of the habit, you need to get more actively involved in your body, for example, practice yoga or jogging.
- Do not rebuke yourself with a breakdown.You fight not only with a habit, but with addiction.This is a disease that is not so easy to win yourself.So if you have smoked cigarettes, it is important to praise yourself to last so long and set yourself the other purpose.
Applications to quit smoking
For those who find it difficult to cope with themselves, there are applications that help to survive in this period.Many of them are built on motivation.You need to show how many cigarettes disappear from your package a day, the date you leave, and then - look at the application whenever you want to withdraw.Here the amount of time and money you have not spent.For example, if you drink a pack a day, and costs on the surface of $ 1.3, then the annual savings will be approximately $ 530.
But most importantly, the app will show what is happening to your body.So, six hours later, the process of cleansing the lungs will begin, and after ten body it will get rid of half the nicotine and carbon oxide in the blood.
A program that has been developed based on cognitive therapy methods will gradually help those who want to abandon cigarettes.The main task is to help take control of your actions.Instead of forcing you to quit smoking immediately, the app offers to set goals, for example, smoking three cigarettes a day.Once you have completed the task, you will find out how much money saved, how many months of their lives have returned.
There is a program for 222 days.In the game, which took place along with the Center for the Prevention of Cancer Diseases, a person opens new levels daily, receiving motivational messages.
Comments of specialists
"Regarding nicotine addiction, we can say for sure that you can often quit smoking. In my practice, there have been times when a cognitive therapy session was sufficient for the patient, during which the patient's idea" I cannot quit smoking.This is an irrational belief that can be fully opposed by the facts, the motivation tips also help well in which they are interrogated.The goal he sets himself.
In the event of a disturbed component join the traction syndrome, both treatment of medication (nicotine replacement therapy, anxiolytics) and protocols with normal duration of cognitive therapy or motivational counseling are necessary.
A good help here will be dialectical and behavioral therapy, which in its arsenal has many self-help capabilities both with anxiety and mood swings.
If the therapy is performed properly, then the risk of "leaking" one addiction to another is minimal.Increasing appetite in the first moments after tobacco rejection should be treated calmly, this is a normal body reaction.“
"In our culture, smoking is often treated as a habit with a bad reputation. People who cannot abandon smoking consider them weak, incapable, unable to force themselves to change even under threat of damage to health.
From a psychologist's perspective, everything is more complicated.Often, the smoking process is only the visible tip of the iceberg, in the underwater part of which the dependence mechanism itself is concentrated - both psychological and chemical.And those who decided to connect, most likely, have to deal with one and the other ingredient: they are interconnected.
Deeper roots of habits - to get a cigarette during stress - can form 1.5 years ago.During this period, a child, in order to reduce the alarm and rest, for example, in the absence of a mother, begins to absorb a buzz or finger.
Smoking can serve a variety of needs.Moreover, far from always from a person is able to recognize them, as they were not only frustrated but also sought in unconsciousness.
In the case where a person left smoking with a strong -desire decision, the symptoms can be moved to the direction where you can discharge a vague, unconscious tension and find symbolic support in another way.Often this support becomes food, the most affordable and individually appropriate form of replacing one dependence on the other.Subconscious people perceive it as a symbol of belonging and love.Often, instead of emotional proximity, others offer food as the only form of care.By adopting the behavior of the elders, adult children already maintain loyalty to self -support.However, in this way, a person again finds himself at the top of the iceberg of his needs.
The practices of consciousness, which are meant to understand and their sense of themselves, their needs and motives, their body, will help to understand it.For example, psychotherapy, yoga, meditation.Enjoying his true needs, a person is quite capable of forgetting when he lasted a cigarette in his mouth.“