Prelude from the past
My dad was once a smoker. I still remember how my sister and I used to accompany him to the grocery store. He would buy the same brand of “green sempoerna menthol” cigarettes and smoke it inside the car, windows down. It was the first unpleasant experience I had with nicotine.
Mom would always urge him to quit smoking as it gave him bad breath and a dry cough, as if something is always stuck in his throat. Once, my sister and I complained how our friends would think that we were the ones smoking as our school uniforms smelled like cigarettes’ smoke every time we went for our early morning classes. It was about a month in after I entered secondary school that dad managed to stop smoking entirely.
I know things can be easier said than done. While there are a lot of information out there regarding the ill effects of smoking, sometimes, all we need is a strong intrinsic and extrinsic motivation to help us cure from these sort of addiction. As stubborn my dad is, he has also managed to overcome it. If he can do it, then I believe anyone can!
sincerely, Rahimah
What makes smoking so addictive?
Notice that I’ve used the word smoking pretty deliberately here as opposed to saying “what makes cigarettes so addictive?” In the end, it’s the action of smoking that’s actually found to be the appealing factor for most chronic smokers.
Most started off from a very young age, perhaps when they are teenagers or adolescents. Factor in the influence of having parents or friends who are smokers would make it more likely that they too will start smoking. At first, it started off as “wanting to try it” or “thought it was cool” to smoke which then snowballed to a full blown addiction of the white cylinder. There are also some famously common reasons why people start smoking, perhaps if you are/were a smoker yourself, you’ve used some of these excuses too.
- “I’m following a trend!” – people around me smoke, so I should too (peer pressure)
- “It relieves me from my stress” – nicotine can be considered a depressant that induced a relaxed feeling
- “I wanna be sociable!” – following the same rationale as peer pressure. Smokers do tend to bond or socialize over smoking related activities
Although these motives aren’t inherently bad per se, it shouldn’t be done under the expense of one’s health!
Effects of smoking - body parts edition
The easiest way for me to illustrate briefly on the effects of smoking would be to associate them to parts of our body. We all know it affects our lungs detrimentally, then do you also know that it affects our:
- Heart – damages our blood vessels, making them thicker and narrower, making it harder for blood to flow. This could lead to hypertension
- Brain – increases the likelihood of getting a stroke by 2-4 times. This could lead to brain damage
- Skin – reduces the amount of oxygen that reaches the skin, speeding up aging and makes the skin appear duller. Could lead to increased risk of a variety of skin infection/diseases
- Mouth – additionally to causing bad breath, it increases the risks of complications such as jaw cancer, reduced sense of taste, smell, flow of saliva as well as stained teeth
- Reproductive organs – infertility is a often a complication amongst smokers as it lowers sperm count and impairs ovulation/egg function.
Maternal smoking also causes grave ill effects to the unborn child according to the CDC. Some of which includes risks of the baby to have low birth weight, sudden infant death and infant illness. All in all, no one is exempted from the effects of smoking, including passive smokers like how my sister and I once were!
5 actionables towards quitting
Quitting can be stressful and it’s a different journey for everyone! What works for one person may not always work for the others. However, what I’ve gathered are the most commonly used techniques of quitting smoking and its effectiveness shown from the testaments of majority of past smokers.
1. Make a list
Either it’s a list of the pros of quitting smoking or the cons of continuing. Either way, certain people would be more motivated by the risk over reward – so ask yourself which would you prefer!
I’ve given plenty from the above section relating to the cons, feel free to jot them down and read it over again whenever you got the urge to have a puff. Save this page on your mobile phone if you can so it’ll be easier to whip it out in the future!
2. Track your progress
Most people have admitted that tracking their progress of being clean to be extremely rewarding. This could be either in the form of milestones (e.g. 7 days without smoking, 1 month without smoking, etc) or a daily tracker using apps like QuitNow, SmokeFree, Quit Tracker or Flamy.
Side note: We’re not endorsing nor being paid to promote these applications. These are some generic apps you can find on the web and it’s up to your discretion to try them out. Have fun!
3. Reaching out
Enduring urges alone can be daunting and prone to failure. It’s the same as holding back your saliva in front of a beautifully presented meal. Supplement your willpower with some external help from friends, families or social circle. Sometimes a little intervention goes a long way.
4. Seek professional help
Good medication or therapy always help! So don’t be shy in asking for help from doctors or support groups (be it online or offline). Changing one’s mindset and behavior may not be enough for some to entirely break free of the addiction.
5. Positive thinking
A famous philosopher once quoted “I think, therefore I am” – you are what you think you are, so to speak. Adopt a positive mindset of “I’m not a smoker”! Share this amongst your family and friends as to get them to start identifying you as a non-smoker.
We’ve talked an awful lot about the ill effects of smoking, we should also look at the other scenario where you are now smoke free. Quitting smoking can bring immediate health benefits at any age, regardless of one’s long history of smoking.
- Within the first 24 hours of quitting, a person’s blood pressure and heart rate begin to improve.
- By 48 hours, all nicotine has left the body, and the former smoker’s taste and smell are on their way to recovering.
- After 1-3 months, an ex-smoker’s lung function may have already improved by as much as 30%. Later, shortness of breath can improve and that smoker’s cough can become less of a daily occurrence.
Message from the writer
An important factor that I’ve learned watching my dad’s journey in quitting smoking is how greatly the influence of action is over merely reading and not applying. Which is why the saying goes “easier said than done”!
The one thing that he taught me is how addiction is not something to be sought after. It’s not something that ever brought him happiness, no matter how cool or fun it was. As long as we remember that it’ll never bring any benefits into our lives, then it’s something that should be left out.