We all know that smoking cigarettes shortens your lifespan. In fact, one in five deaths in the US is still caused by smoking. From emphysema to COPD to lung cancer, smoking can cause severe and fatal health conditions. However, after smoking for 20 or 30 years, it can feel like there is no way to quit. Why bother?
You have had this habit for so long, it probably wouldn’t make a difference to your health. The damage to your lungs has already occurred.
These are thoughts everyone who has been smoking for a long time has. You may feel helpless, and like it doesn’t matter. But you are not alone, no matter how many times you have tried to quit smoking or how old you are now. The average smoker makes between 6 and 30 attempts before they are successful at quitting smoking. If they can do it, so can you!
It is never too late to improve your lungs, and it is never too late to try. There are new products being released every day to help you on your journey, and every day presents an opportunity to take another step. Today, you can find comprehensive smoking cessation programs, nicotine replacement therapies, and even products like Black Buffalo smokeless tobacco alternative, allowing you to keep all of the things you love about the ritual of smoking (and the nicotine), while getting rid of the things you don’t love.
Benefits of Quitting Smoking Later in Life
Every day you refrain from smoking is another day of improved health and lifestyle. Your clothes and hair no longer smell of smoke and you no longer have burn holes in your clothes.
- Within the first hour of quitting smoking, your blood pressure and heart rate go down.
- Within the first 3 days, your sense of taste and smell improve.
- Within a month, your lungs improve.
- Within a year, your risk of coronary heart disease decreases by half as when you smoked.
- Within five years, your risk of stroke even reduces.
- After 15 years smoke-free, your risk factors are about the same as a nonsmoker.
- It is never too late to stop.
Relapse Prevention
A quick google search will reveal pages and pages of ways to quit tobacco and smoking. Since almost all smokers try to quit from time to time, staying tobacco-free is what is critical. Relapse is often par for the course when quitting smoking. It is important to remember that this is a mental process as much as a physical one. Certain traits, substitutions, and motivations can help reduce the frequency of a relapse.
Make sure you have a plan to deal with cravings. Keep handy the number for a helpline you can call or text, or arrange to contact a friend for support. And remember, though the first few days and weeks may be full of waves, the average craving lasts for 15-20 minutes, and then it is over.
Self-Sabotage, Slips, and Triggers
Self Sabotage
Self-sabotage is something we all do. Whether a new diet or exercise regimen, we work the program for a while, then our motivation decreases. Once you have that piece of cake at a party, it is all downhill with your new diet. Finding a way to combat that downward spiral of mental depression after a few puffs is important!
Slips
Remember that a few puffs or a couple of cigarettes is not a relapse, but a slip. Slips may occur, but it would be a mistake to see them as a full relapse and just give in to the cravings. The negative self-talk can cause you to fully relapse, and then you need to start all over again.
With a slip, you can mentally refocus and evaluate the triggers that brought you to that slip. Often triggers center on people, places, things, times, and habits. When you slipped, were you out with certain friends?
When you took a few puffs, was it after a stressful meeting at work? Did you have an argument with your significant other? Or maybe you were out for a drink at your favorite pub. Whatever the emotional reaction you had to that time, place, or person—identify it so you can find ways to either avoid the trigger or prepare to cope with it better.
Triggers
Therapy can be helpful to cope with problematic triggers and discover new skills that will help you strategize the next time they occur. Cognitive intervention is something you can work on with yourself. What are things that help you reduce stress? Running, meditation, baking, hiking, and reading a book are just a few ideas for ways to deal with your cravings, because they temporarily take you out of a stressful state of mind.
For periods of time, abstinence from alcohol and certain friends might also be helpful in avoiding your triggers. Everyone has triggers. Doing the important work of identifying them and creating coping mechanisms before you slip, means you may not relapse at all.
Planning for Your Future
As you plan your quit date, remember you are never too old to reap the benefits from a tobacco-free life! Your success is even more inevitable when you plan for ways to deal with cravings, triggers, and slips from the beginning. Your ability to be honest with yourself and your triggers will put you miles ahead in your smoke-free life.