The Best Way To Stop Smoking

For anyone who has been a smoker for a long time, smoking is one of the toughest addictions to break.  Even those there are many lists of 10 reasons to stop smoking, people just find it incredibly hard to stop. There is a giant industry of pharmaceutical companies and self help gurus who promote what seem to be a million different ways to kick the habit, yet most of these seem to have very low success rates.  A cursory review of the solutions available on the internet with drugs like Chantix to multiple week supplies of nicotine patches.  The problem with these solutions is that they actually increase one’s cravings for nicotine.  Unless, one understands how nicotine addiction works, it is highly improbable that a person can quit smoking.

Any good action plan to stop smoking requires an understanding of how nicotine works and its effects on the human body.  Nicotine is a stimulant and it takes 5 to 6 days for its effects to work through one’s system.  When one smokes a cigarette, one can expect the stimulative effects to stay with them for about a week.  They key to how nicotine works is the effect of a cigarette on this stimulated state.  When one has nicotine in their blood stream, additional nicotine “resets” the stimulant system and restarts the 5 or 6 days.  This “reset” is the perception of relaxation among smokers.

There are no 10 steps to stop smoking, or any long term process whatsoever to tackle this addiction.  All that is required, is for the smoker to simply wait for the stimulant to work through their system.  After 5 or 6 days from smoking their last cigarette, the smoker is no longer physically addicted to nicotine and needs to find alternative means for stress relief.  The “stress” stimulant feeling is effectively removed after that time.

It is odd that there continue to be so many different expensive solutions when quitting is really that simple.  Billions of dollars are made every year convincing people that it requires their will power and drugs to support that will power for them to quit when in actuality what is needed is just basic information.