Taking The Plunge: Deciding To Quit Smoking Now
To quit smoking now, you have to have willpower and you have to have the ability to walk away from something that you strongly want to do. Not many people have the ability to do this and require outside help to achieve their quit smoking goals.
It is important that you are realistic about your goal to quit smoking and understand that you will probably not be able to quit cold turkey. If you can, great, that is very exciting news and you should take advantage of that ability so that you can start your path to a healthy life, if not, then there are several options that you can choose from.
Naturally, you will want to discuss your needs with your doctor. If you haven't had a physical recently, now is the time to get one. Out side of cancer and emphysema, smoking can also cause your heart to become enlarged (because smoking increases your heart rate), cause high blood pressure, and complicate conditions such as diabetes.
You want to address all of your health issues at one time so that when you have quit smoking you feel as great as possible. To quit smoking now, you are going to actually have to be patient and get prepared to follow your doctor's guidance.
There are many over the counter products that your doctor may recommend to help you to quit smoking now. However, if you have heart disease or diabetes, you may have to take a different course of action than someone who doesn't have these issue. You see, most medications, including over the counter options such as nicotine patches and gum, can interfere with any medications that you are taking to keep your conditions under control.
Your doctor may choose to put you on different medication that will not interact with over the counter medications or he or she might choose to put you on a prescription stop smoking medication or they might even recommend that you try a support group or hypnotism instead.
Choosing the right method for your situation might take some time. While many people have real success with over the counter medications, other find that their cravings never go away and that they cannot safely use these products and eliminate their cravings too (in other words they would have to go off label, which is not recommended for health reasons).
While it can be discouraging to find that this simple method is not effective for you, it is not the end of the world. There are other things for you to try. A very successful method is hypnosis. Hypnosis is truly a quit smoking now method. How it works for you might be different than how it works for someone else, however.
For example, if you have a serious addiction, a hypnotherapist might place the suggestion that you find smoking disgusting rather than placing the suggestion that you don't want to smoke. This might be a more effective method for you than for someone else.
Regardless, no matter how you choose to quit smoking now, the important thing is that you have made the decision to stop smoking. This could, quite possibly, the most important health decision that you ever make.
