Table of Contents
Waiting for the right time to try and get healthy can be an easy trap to fall into. After it seems strange to stop smoking on a Tuesday, better to wait until next Monday to quit. This can also apply to whole months as well, As trying to quit at the beginning of the month seems sensible, and you miss it, well you might as well wait a whole month to try again.
If this sounds like you when you try to give up cigarettes, then don’t worry there are thousands of people who smoke (1) who have been in the same boat as you! However as obvious as it may seem, there is never a wrong time to stop smoking, and the sooner you start the sooner you can be free of tobacco products for good.
Today then we are looking at the reasons to quit smoking, and the best ways to finally get away from cigarettes.
WHAT ARE THE BEST REASONS TO QUIT SMOKING?
Before we start though we should go through why it’s so important to quit smoking as soon as you can. You probably already know these, but it is always a good idea to remind ourselves how terrible cigarettes are for us.
HOW BAD IS SMOKING FOR OUR HEALTH?
To burn tobacco and put it in our lungs is one of the worst things we can do to our body. In fact cigarettes are the number 1 preventable reason for deaths in the world (2). Cigarettes are so deadly that each cigarette you smoke takes 11 minutes off your life. And what makes it worse is that cigarettes can cause a smoker's death in a whole host of ways.
Perhaps the most obvious example of death by cigarettes is lung cancer. This is because almost 90% of all lung disease cases can be linked to cigarettes (3). However it’s not just Lung cancer that cigarettes cause, tobacco has been linked to 15 other cancers as well.
This is because in each regular cigarette you smoke there are 70+ carcinogenic (cancer causing) chemicals that actively promote cancer in your body. When you breathe in the cigarette smoke those chemicals are spread throughout a smoker’s body, causing damage wherever they go. But it’s not just the carcinogens that hurt you, the other 4000+ chemicals damage you too. These chemicals, like tar and arsenic, corrupt your cells and cause long term illness.
These chemicals also cause a lesser known, but arguably more dangerous illness, heart disease. One of the most common ways that cigarettes can kill you is by a heart disease, with 48% of all smoking deaths caused by heart failure. Over the years all the chemicals in cigarettes work to wear down and clog your arteries, which can lead to catastrophic heart failures.
Another major life threatening illness that cigarette users get that isn’t talked about enough is strokes. As a smoker you are 6 times more likely to have a stroke then a non-smoker, and even worse is that when you do have a stroke you are 50% more likely to die from it than a non-smoker too.
Even if we don’t talk about all the ways that cigarettes can kill, tobacco can cause permanent harm to cigarette smokers. To name just a few:
DO CIGARETTES HURT THOSE AROUND YOU?
Passive smoking (4) is when you take in someone else’s cigarette smoke, and after long enough can get all the same illnesses and run all the same health risks as we talked about above.
More commonly known as second-hand smoke, the name has slowly been replaced by passive smoking as it isn’t just the actual smoke from a cigarette that harms people.
All the carcinogens and chemicals in the cigarette smoke have to go somewhere, and when the smoke disappears these chemicals don’t just disappear. Instead the chemicals get absorbed by the materials around them and then transmitted to people.
The toxins and chemicals are most easily absorbed by the children and pets, as they are close to the ground and most likely to have their faces near the materials that most easily absorb the toxins (like carpets and clothes).
HOW EXPENSIVE IS SMOKING?
If we ignore all the endless health issues the cigarettes cause you and the people around you, there is still the matter of how expensive tobacco is.
A pack of 20 cigarettes can be anything up to £15, and the price is constantly rising. But for the purpose of the maths ahead let us say that you can find a pack for £10.
If you are smoking 20 cigarettes a day that means you are spending £10 a day on cigarettes. Over a week that is £70, over a month £280 and over a year that is £3360.
Bear in mind, we are using a price of cigarettes that is difficult if not impossible to find, and if you are a heavy smoker you could be using double the amount of cigarettes. Even with all that each you are spending enough to go on a nice holiday!
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF QUITTING SMOKING?
After reading that it should be obvious the health benefits of quitting smoking. Though stopping smoking can’t reverse time, it can stop the damage you are doing to your body from accumulating.
But your body is an amazing thing, and more can be repaired than you think.
For example after just 1 month:
For example after just 1 month:
1) Your skin will have started to improve
2) Your ability to taste and smell will improve
3) The voice box starts to heal
2) Your ability to taste and smell will improve
3) The voice box starts to heal
On a longer time frame though betting of cigarettes can give your body time to heal. After a few months your blood circulation will improve, which means you will be able to breathe better but also issues like tooth decay will begin to recede.
Given a few months your lungs will also start to improve, with the cilia in your lungs finally able to re-grow!
Without the constant bombardment of toxins and chemicals from a cigarette your immune system will begin to strengthen to that of a non-smoker as well.
After 5 years your heart starts to heal as well, which also means that you are much less likely to suffer a stroke as well.
And imagine in that 5 years how much money you will have saved!
WHAT ARE THE BEST WAYS TO STOP SMOKING?
So now we have gone over why it’s a good idea to give up smoking, the real question is how.
While some people think that going cold turkey is a good idea, only 3 out of 100 adults who smoked who try this have any sort of success.
To increase your chances then you will need some sort of nicotine replacement.
For the last 40 years your choices for that have been either nicotine gum, nicotine patches or nicotine sprays. Combined with nicotine replacement therapy these products have helped a lot of people quit smoking.
For the last 40 years your choices for that have been either nicotine gum, nicotine patches or nicotine sprays. Combined with nicotine replacement therapy these products have helped a lot of people quit smoking.
However as E-Cigarettes have been shown to be almost twice as effective (5) as patches or gum with helping people stop smoking, if you are serious about quitting then E-Cigarettes are the way to go.
WHAT IS AN E-CIGARETTE?
Also known as an electronic cigarette, vape pens or a cigalike, e-cigs produce a realistic smoking vapour by heating a liquid filled with flavours and nicotine which you inhale.
E-Cigarettes have been shown to be up to 95% less harmful than traditional cigarettes (6) as they only have 4 ingredients, and don’t have the 4,000+ chemicals and 50+ known carcinogens found in cigarettes.
E-Cigarettes work by producing a realistic cigarette smoking sensation and delivering the nicotine people who smoke, without all of the extra chemicals.
Smokers then can still get the same taste, feel and nicotine from a cigarette, without putting carcinogens into themselves.
It’s great for the people around you as well, as studies have shown that the health effects of 2nd hand effects of e cigarettes are tiny to absolutely nothing.
And even better, using them will still save you money!
At SMOKO a box of 5 refills costs a maximum of £9.99, with each refill having over 30 cigarettes worth of nicotine in. That means for less that £10 you are getting 150 cigarettes worth of nicotine. To put it another way, let us say you use 1 refill a day (which is more than average), you would be spending £2 a day.
Compare that to £10 a pack from earlier, and in 1 day of using an e-cigarette you have saved £8. In just 1 year of using an e-cig you will have saved yourself almost £3000!
TRYING TO GET HEALTHIER AND QUIT SMOKING IN 2024? LET E-CIGARETTES HELP - CONCLUSION
If you serious about quitting in 2024, then an E-Cigarette is the best and easiest way to go.
Not only can you get the nicotine you need, but the same physiological feeling of having a cigarette as well.
Try the SMOKO E-Cigarette Starter kit today for FREE* and see if you can quit smoking in 2024!
*(when you purchase 1 pack of E-Cigarette refills. One per customer.)
REFERENCES
(1) Health matters: stopping smoking - what works?
(2) Tobacco smoking: the leading cause of preventable disease worldwide
(3) 10 of the Worst Diseases Smoking Causes
(4) Health Problems Caused by Secondhand Smoke
(5) Using E-Cigarettes to Stop Smoking
(6) Vaping in England: evidence update February 2021
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Written by Jonny Shaw
Jonny Shaw – Is a former smoker of 7 years before becoming a client of SMOKO E-Cigarettes. He started working with SMOKO 10 years ago after successfully quitting with our cigalike and now heads up our Customer Service. Jonny helps countless people every day to find the right solutions to quit smoking cigarettes using our range of vape and electronic cigarette products.
