It is generally accepted that smoking is just a bad habit, but in fact, tobacco dependence is a disease that has a designation: F17.Every fifth of the world is a smoker.
Dependence implies not only the constant refueling of the nicotine, but also the rituals: go to a smoke break, take a cigarette along with a glass of wine, pouring into the pants in search of a lighter.All of these are the usual neural paths that the body should not interrupt when a person has stopped smoking.Therefore, it is important to get rid of physical and psychological dependence.
The material was verified by the evidence-based narcologist, psychotherapist, cognitive behavioral therapist.
Why do you need to stop 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 passive tobacco consumption.
For comparison: During the COVID-19 epidemic, 2.1 million people died from the disease.At the same time, for each smoking death, it is responsible for 30 patients suffering from diseases associated with this habit.Harmful substances cause the development of more than 15 cancers, cardiovascular disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Tobacco smoke, which consists of 4000 chemical compounds, weakens the immune system and therefore negatively affects all organs of the body.It can cause infertility and impotence and also negatively affects the quality of sperm, which may later lead to nursery defects of the embryo.Smoking also weakens bones and teeth, which is why they become more fragile, causes the development of rheumatoid arthritis, type 2 diabetes, gastrointestinal diseases, including an ulcer.
As soon as a person stopped smoking, the body begins to recover instantly.After one day, blood pressure normalizes and blood circulation improves, after two days a person distinguishes the flavors and smells better and, after a month, the walls of the lungs are regenerated.
Modern ways to stop smoking
There are several methods of rejection of smoking that help support themselves in the early most difficult days.They will be effective only if a person has a motivation to deal with dependence.
Nicotine Therapy -Substitution
Plaster, inhalers, and chewing gum that contain nicotine give it to your body in a much more sparing way than cigarettes.
Pros:They help to gently get rid of addiction, gradually reducing the dose and without exposing the body to shock.
Cons:They do not compensate for the "smoker ritual" when a person is used to taking a cigarette after coffee or during a break at work.
Allen Carra Books
The method is not a prohibition of certain actions, but in the development of motivation.Allen Carr, who once smoked several packages a day and then became one of the leading British and world experts to refuse smoke and other dependencies, consistently explains not only health -related disadvantages, but also others that are associated with psychology.In particular, it indicates the replacement of the concepts of "I like to smoke / depend on smoke", drawing the reader's attention to the fact that addiction is weakness.
Pros:Allen Carr gradually prepares the reader for changes.So, for example, he says you can smoke as you read his book, but you need to stop immediately after the last page is turned upside down.
Cons:A person can stretch the reading for a long time, play the book at some point or simply not follow the author's instructions.
Meditation
It can be an auxiliary practice in stress conditions in case of smoking rejection.It is proven that after several hours of classes, people calm down, they have self -control and their mood increases.
Pros:Helps not think of tobacco.Reduces the desire to smoke a cigarette.
Cons:Requires regularity.
Hypnosis
The most important thing in preparation is a desire.People who bring their loved ones usually receive the opposite effect.A person does not lend himself to the doctor's configurations, but, on the contrary, after the procedure shows that nothing takes him.
Pros:If hypnosis is successfully approved, you can get rid of the habit very quickly.
Cons:So far, there is no scientific data that hypnotherapy is the best and 100% effective to stop smoking.
Cognitive behavioral psychotherapy
Psychotherapy is built in action with dysfunctional thoughts and irrational beliefs of the patient.For example, this: "To relieve stress, I definitely I must smoke," "talking to a smoking team and at the same time not to smoke," "it's very difficult to stop smoking, and I can't do it."
The method provides excellent results in combination with substitute nicotine therapy, some experts also use hypnosis.
Pros:One person has support and a "driver" that will lead him out of the retreating states.
Cons:Price. However, it will be rewarded saving cigarettes.
Electronic cigarettes will not help
Often, in an attempt to reduce nicotine dependence, people change to electronic cigarettes.Unfortunately, as recent studies show, this is far from the harmless device.Such devices support behavior ritual and contain nicotine.
Which does not recognize electronic cigarettes as a means of therapy that replaces nicotine.
Fast scientific medicine also questioned acupuncture.This method lies in the fact that needles are introduced under the skin that facilitate the symptoms caused by abolition syndrome.For those to whom this process may seem unpleasant, there are simulation needles that do not enter the tissues.According to clinical research, this therapy does not provide an appropriate result.
This still doesn't help to stop smoking
Smoking mixtures usually contain tobacco and other harmful substances.Homeopathic assistance also raises questions.So far, there are no reliable studies on the subject, if naturopathy helps.
What do you need to know before you stop smoking
According to the European Journal of Social Psychology, the formation of new habits takes 18 to 254 days.It all depends on the age and capacity of neurons to create new ways.In fact, they like to go through the paths already stepped, which is why 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 stop smoking yourself
- Design a meeting when forgiving with tobacco.Two weeks ahead of time, ICS can start preparing.For example, abandon ritual cigarettes in the morning and for coffee.It makes sense to follow which moments you smoke, because you really want it, and when it's just a habit - on a walk, driving, under your favorite music, after eating.All these patterns need to be broken after another.
- Tell everyone.In a solid 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 admit to them that you could not do it.
- Define a goal.For starters, you can tell yourself that you don't smoke for a week.The hardest thing will be the third day without nicotine, when its amount in the blood is minimized.It is during this time that a person begins to experience cancellation syndrome, which is accompanied by irritability, headache and increased appetite.For this day you can prepare yourself in advance and create whatever is distracted.Relaxing practices can help. After passing the first "breaking", you need to define a second goal.For example, wait ten days.And then gradually moves toward the goal.
- Take your hands.This will help to interrupt the ritual of the habit.It is advisable to have some kind of item, for example, spinner or pencil.The perfect solution is a break -in break for 1000 pieces or break -in.
- Be prepared to replace addictions.The easiest option is to eat more.That's why, abandoning cigarettes, some gain weight.Over time, the energy process is normalized and the extra pounds will come out.During this period, it is better to have a bottle of water by hand or low snacks such as chopped vegetables and fruits.As a replacement of the habit, you should be more actively involved in your body, for example, practicing yoga or running.
- Do not scold yourself with a collapse.You fight not only with a habit, but with addiction.This is a disease that is not so easy to win on its own.Therefore, if you smoked a cigarette, it is important to compliment yourself as long as it lasts so much time and define the next goal.
SMOKING APPLICATIONS
For those who find it difficult to deal on their own, there are applications that help survive this period.Many of them are built on motivation.You need to indicate how many cigarettes disappear from your backpack a day, the date you are going out and then - look for the app every time you want to drag.Here the amount of time and money you didn't spend.For example, if you smoke one package a day and costs a $ 1.3, the annual economy will be approximately $ 530.
But most importantly, the application will say what is happening to your body.Thus, six hours later, the process of lung cleansing will begin and, after ten, the body will get rid of half of the nicotine and carbon oxide in the blood.
A program developed based on cognitive behavioral therapy methods will gradually help those who wish to abandon cigarettes.The main task is to help control your actions.Instead of forcing it to quit immediately, the application offers to set goals, for example, smoking three cigarettes a day.After completing the task, you will find out how much money has saved, how many months of your life have returned.
There is a program for 222 days.In the game, which was developed along with the center for cancer disease prevention, one person opens new levels every day, receiving motivational messages.
Expert Comments
"With regard to nicotine addiction, we can safely say that you can often stop smoking. In my practice, there were cases where a cognitive behavioral therapy session was sufficient for the patient, during which the patient's idea" could not stop smoking "was questioned. This is an irrational belief that can be completely refuted by facts, the stories.
If an anxious component is united with withdrawal syndrome, drug treatment (nicotine, anxiolytics replacement therapy) and normal duration of cognitive behavioral therapy or motivational consulting is required.
Good help here will be dialectical and behavioral therapy, which in its arsenal has many self-help skills, both with anxiety and mood swings.
If the therapy is performed correctly, the risk of "flowing" from one dependence to another will be minimal.The increase in appetite in the first moments after tobacco refusal 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 tobacco consider them weak, unable to force themselves to change even under the threat of health damage.
From the point of view of a psychologist, everything is more complicated.Often the process of smoking is only the visible top of the iceberg, in the underwater part of which the vice mechanism itself is concentrated - psychological and chemical.And those who have decided to tie themselves, probably need to deal with one and the other component: they are interconnected.
The deepest roots of habits - to make a cigarette during stress - can be formed before 1.5 years.During this period, a baby, in order to reduce the alarm and relax, for example, in the absence of a mother, begins to suck a doll or finger.
Smoking can meet a variety of needs.Also, far from always a person, it is able to recognize it, because it was not only frustrated, but is also supplanted to the unconscious.
In the event that a person has stopped smoking with a willpower decision, the symptom can change in the direction where you can discharge a vague and unconscious tension and find symbolic support otherwise.Often this support becomes food, the most accessible and individually adequate way to replace one addiction with another.People subconsciously realize this as a symbol of belonging and love.Frequently, instead of emotional proximity, others offer food as the only way of manifesting care.Having adopted the behavior of the elders, grown children maintain loyalty to such a self -absence.However, in this way, a person is again at the top of the iceberg of his needs.
The practices of consciousness, which aim to understand and feel to yourself, your needs and motives, your body, will help you discover it.For example, psychotherapy, yoga, meditation.Having satisfied his true needs, a person is able to forget when a cigarette lasted in his mouth.”