Quitting smoking is one of the best decisions you can make for your health. Kicking the habit brings countless benefits, not just for you but for those around you. Imagine breathing easier, feeling fresher, and having more energy for daily life.
Use personal ashtrays that extinguish cigarettes until you find a bin (preventing litter and forest fires – leaving a cigarette on dry grass is like putting a match to paper). Charcoal purifying bags can remove odours from homes and cars.
Just like cigarettes, vets recommend to keep vaping equipment (e-cigarettes and refill containers) away from pets. Nicotine ingestion is a medical emergency.
Understanding Smoking Addiction
Cigarettes are a mix of physiological and psychological addiction. Nicotine can latch onto brain receptors, and lead to the release of feel-good chemical dopamine. But the effects are short-lived, which is why people then smoke another cigarette to maintain the feeling.
Stress and boredom can often trigger the urge for a cigarette. It then becomes a crutch to cope with emotions or fill a void. Recognising these triggers is crucial, in breaking the cycle.
Practical Tips to Quit Smoking
Set a quit date. Pick a day and mark it on your calendar. Cut down as the day approaches, and ask for support from family, friends or even therapists.
Learn to manage stress through other ways like walking, exercise, yoga or meditation. These tools can help to anchor you, without a cigarette.
Why is Allen Carr’s Method Not on NHS?
Allen Carr’s Easyway is the most successful way to stop smoking, if you wish to follow a program. Founded by an ex chain-smoker who used to smoke 60 cigarettes a day, this is a method based on changing habits (so you return to the time when you didn’t need cigarettes to deal with stressful situations, even if that was back in childhood).
Many people have big problems, but don’t turn to cigarettes, so smoking is more of a habit than a necessity .
Allen has since died, but his organisation want the method available on the NHS (which instead recommend nicotine patches – tested on animals and like ‘giving a sip of whisky to an alcoholic’).
Nicotine is highly addictive, which is why nicotine replacements have poor success rates (not much more than willpower).
Ayurvedic doctor Deepak Chopra once wrote that a big issue is that society makes people think that it’s difficult to give up smoking. It’s not really. You just create new habits, you don’t need ‘outside help’ most of the time (unlike say, someone addicted to heroin). You can attend in-person clinics, learn online or buy one of his books.
AllenCarr also offers a method for people addicted to vaping. Either program can be used for people addicted to pipes, cigarettes, tobacco or nicotine gum (most contains pet-toxic xylitol, so never leave it lying around, or drop it as litter).
People who have used this program to quit smoking include Lee Mack and Matt Lucas (who used to smoke 20 cigarettes a day and has never touched them since).
One of the world’s best (Spanish) psychologists praised Allen as being more skilled at analysing humans than him. The method is even recommended by World Health Organisation. So why won’t the NHS fund it?
Lifestyle Changes to Support Smoking Cessation
Learn to cook healthy meals, and take a supplement to ensure you have vitamins and minerals to help your nerves and rebalance your nutrition. Exercise also releases endorphins, which lift your mood without nicotine. Physical activity also helps manage weight, a concern for many who quit smoking.
If you associate smoking with certain places or activities, try changing your routine. Stay away from smoke-filled environments and find activities that don’t tempt you. Go for a swim or take a yoga class for instance, over visiting the pub (with smokers outside) every night.
Leo’s Simple Steps to Quit Smoking
One of the world’s most successful simple living bloggers Leo Babauta used to smoke, and says the ‘cure’ is simply replacing old habits with new ones.
He’s now a vegan runner! He writes that the physical act of quitting is the easy part – it’s not to fall back when you have your next problem that’s more difficult.
You may quit smoking tomorrow, then if something upsets you or happens, you’re back to where you were. The key is to find out why (hence why Allen Carr’s method works better than nicotine patches). Read Leo’s 10 tips for quitting smoking.
The average price of a packet of 20 cigarettes is now around £16. For someone who smokes 20 cigarettes a day, that’s over £100 a week. That’s £5000 a year – make a list of the things you could do with that money – a deposit (and furnishings) for a nice new home? What other ideas can you think of?
Maintaining a Smoke-free Life
Surrounding yourself with supportive, non-smoking friends can reinforce your resolve. Share your journey and achievements. Their encouragement can keep you on track during tough times.
Filling your time with new hobbies can fill the void left by smoking. Whether it’s painting, hiking, or learning an instrument, the goal is to keep your hands busy and your mind engaged. Explore activities that bring you joy and satisfaction.
Who Grows Tobacco for Cigarettes?
The tobacco industry’s profits run to around £600 billion a year, and most brands test on animals (something that does not even bear thinking about).
Although most smokers live in developing countries, smoking is way less popular than it was in England, with only around 20% of adults smoking (compared to 30% twenty years ago).
Many countries now have stringent measures in place. In Costa Rica, you can only really smoke in your own home, and The Netherlands has brought in strict measures to stop advertising of tobacco (smokers in offices have to visit designated places, rather than just ‘go outside’ to smoke).
Despite huge food insecurity worldwide, many companies pay farmers to grow tobacco instead. Grown as a cash crop in over 120 countries, the top growers are in China, India and Brazil.
25% of farmers absorb tobacco through the leaves into their skin and get nicotine poisoning (the typical farmer ‘smokes’ the equivalent of 50 cigarettes a day). Tobacco growing also creates around 5% of worldwide deforestation.
Unlike us, the farmer has no choice. So campaigners want to support such farmers to grow food on the same land, for the same or more income (the same idea is happening in the drug industry, encouraging farmers to switch from growing opium for heroin, to roses for the flower industry).
World Health Organisation wants farmers in debt to receive micro-financing to transition over. This is happening in Kenya, where hundreds of farmers have switched to planting beans as alternative crops.
If you can’t quit smoking right now (or wish to cut down), Smokey Treats use filters made from unbleached wood pulp, unbleached paper and with compostable outer wrap. Presently sold in Germany and South Africa, but soon elsewhere. Greenbutts make biodegradable cigarette filters.
How to Reduce Cigarette Litter
Cigarette butts fall down storm drains sand leach arsenic into the sea, and birds feed them to chicks thinking they are food.
- For personal use, a TakeTray immediately extinguishes cigarettes, to keep safe until you reach a bin. This also stops forest fires.
- For public places, Ballot Bin encourages smokers to ‘vote’ answers to a fun question by putting their butts in the preferred slot. The bins are then emptied, and questions updated. A bit silly, but apparently reduces cigarette litter by 73%.
- No Butts offers smoking shelters designed for butts, not to fly away in the wind. These offer all-year weather protection, discouraging smoking at building entrances (which can minimise risk of fire, from discarded butts).
