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trick craving smoke
Nicotine replacement therapies can help with the physical addiction, but having tricks up your sleeve to distract you from the psychological habit can be just as important.
There are two sides to cravings. The first is the physical addiction to nicotine, causing your body to experience withdrawal symptoms when you quit smoking. Nicotine Replacement Therapy can help you manage this, and NiQuitin Lozenge offers the type of treatment that works for you.
If you've tried to quit before, you'll know that the habit of smoking is psychological too, so you need some tricks up your sleeve. If you miss the feel of a cigarette in your mouth, holding something in your hands, or just the act of socialising with other smokers, it's useful to have some distractions that focus your attention on something else for around 15 minutes to keep you from giving in. Here are some ideas.
Breathe
Sit up straight, relax and breath in deeply through your nose, then out through your mouth while you count to five. Breathe like this for a few minutes when you think about having a cigarette. Simple but effective.
Get physical
If you usually go outside for a cigarette break, walk around the block for a few minutes instead. It's amazing what you can find when you explore.
Get spiritual
Now might be a great time to take up meditation. As well as helping lots of people make sense of their life, it's handy because you can do it anywhere.
Get in touch
with your friends or workmates. It might sound simple but taking the time to have a chat helps to break up your day and keeps you away from cigarettes. You could do it online by updating your facebook page or twitter account. Your friends will always be happy to hear from you.
Train your brain
with the hundreds of games and apps available. If you're not careful, you might get distracted for more than a few minutes! Challenge yourself by doing a crossword or practicing your sudoku, keeping you occupied and developing your brain power at the same time.
Shop shop shop
Organise your weekly food shop or buy a new book or DVD online. Have your shopping delivered so you don't have to worry about making the trip to the shops to pick it up, where you might also be tempted to buy cigarettes.
Buy a present
for that upcoming birthday. Everyone's forgotten to buy a card or a gift at one time or another, and it's the thought that counts.
Go surfing
Take advantage of the huge source of information available to you online, by finding the answer to something you've always wanted to know.
Stay up to date
by reading the front page of your favourite newspaper, online or the old-fashioned way.
Plan a trip to the movies
by watching the latest trailers online.
Keep your ear to the ground
There are podcasts, audio books, radio shows and music downloads all available to distract you for a few minutes.
Find a book with short chapters
and read just one to distract you from a craving. Alternatively, read a graphic novel or a magazine.
Plan something worth planning
Get excited about a holiday you're looking forward to, an upcoming wedding or birthday, or even the weekend, and enjoy living in the future for a moment.
Bank
Check your balance online, arrange payments or just keep track of how much you're saving without cigarettes.
Make a list
of things you need to remember - writing shopping lists, reminders, a guest list for a party or even a bucket list could all be useful distractions.
Get to work
Without cigarettes, you might be able to concentrate better on your tasks for the day, keeping you occupied longer.
Eat or drink the right stuff
Drink more water, make a herbal tea, snack on fruit, nuts and seeds. To help overcome cravings you could try NiQuitin lozenges.
Treat yourself
It's ok to allow yourself a few small luxuries. If you enjoy chocolate, indulging a little once or twice a week shouldn't hurt and it could stop you missing cigarettes.
These are just some examples of what could distract you from your psychological attachment to cigarettes. It's really up to you and there's no right or wrong way to go about it.
Nicotine is what keeps you hooked on cigarettes, so it's worthwhile understanding how it works.
Nicotine is the thing that makes cigarettes both pleasurable to smoke and addictive. It is a chemical that occurs naturally in the tobacco plant. When you inhale the smoke from a cigarette a large amount is drawn into your lungs and transferred to your blood – travelling to your brain within seconds. In the brain nicotine causes the release of chemicals that give you feelings of pleasure and relax you for a short period of time. It is the rapid delivery of nicotine to the brain that gives you a buzz or rush.
As you continue to smoke over a long period of time the brain changes and starts to expect nicotine. When you smoke, you inhale nicotine from cigarettes. When you quit smoking, your receptors no longer get the nicotine they need, and cry out for more – that's why you get cravings and withdrawal symptoms, such as irritability and restlessness, which can overwhelm your willpower.
A popular myth about smoking is that the nicotine in cigarettes is what causes cancer and other health risks. The truth is that aside from nicotine cigarette smoke contains over 4,000 other chemicals, including at least 50 that increase your risk of cancer.
This is one reason why nicotine can be used in Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT). In this type of treatment you replace the nicotine from cigarettes with Therapeutic Nicotine that's delivered in a different way, such as through Nicabate patches or lozenges.
It's a safer way to take nicotine because you are not inhaling all the other harmful chemicals in cigarette smoke at the same time. Therapeutic Nicotine helps reduce the temptation to smoke, making it easier for you to cut down or stop smoking cigarettes. Over time you gradually reduce the amount of NRT you are using until you are no longer smoking or using NRT.
Taking up a good habit to replace smoking means you'll be making two positive changes at once, and might even help you with quitting.
Quitting can be tough, but try not to think of quitting as giving something up. Rather, you're starting something positive and entering into an exciting new time in your life. It might help to replace your cigarettes with something that's better for you, that gives you something to focus on and helps to represent this big change you're making for the better. At the same time as freeing yourself of something negative, you'll be getting even more value from your decision to quit.
Drink right
Developing a new habit can be really simple. It could be as straightforward as drinking more liquid throughout your day. Taking on plenty of water will keep you hydrated, improve your skin and keep you full so you don't crave food as much either. It's an ideal habit to get used to because it can be easy, cheap (or even free) and great for improving your health. If you want to add some flavour, you could have a herbal or green tea.
Eat right
Most people could stand to improve their diet a little, so why not use quitting as an excuse to do it? Eating pieces of fruit or carrot and celery sticks during the day is a much healthier option than reaching for the biscuits and can give you plenty of energy and useful vitamins and minerals. Snacking on nuts and seeds is great for your health too, and is something to keep your hands busy at the same time as killing those hunger pangs. You could also improve what you eat for your main meals - buy a new cookbook and practice a few recipes, plan your weekly shop to include more fresh fruit and vegetables, and try and stick to eating the right kinds of foods wherever you can.
Get active
Most people know that exercising is good for your body - it can help you lose weight, make you healthier and even prevent illnesses. It's also proven to improve your mental capacity. As your health improves from quitting, it'll become both easier and more fun too. Try walking, jogging or running for just half an hour a few times each week. Try swimming , or get some real focus by joining a team. Whatever sport you choose - football, netball or dancing - it's a great habit to get into.
Whatever good habit you pick to replace smoking, think of it as something that represents the big step forward you're making. Just as smoking was a big part of the old you, your new habit can be an important part of the new you. Remember what a hugely positive change you've decided to make and enjoy the benefits of making it.ing the Myth that it is hard to Stop Smoking
Despite the impression that is given by mass media and believed to be common knowledge, the addictive element of nicotine is much easier to deal with than the mental aspect of ending your smoking habit. The reality is that the cravings felt when you decide to give up smoking are pretty easy to deal with. The biggest change and perhaps the hardest part is to change the structures in your brain that have formed around the belief that you are a smoker.
The following article will give you a heads up on how to tackle the new behavior of being a non smoker with mental tips and some insight into how to give up smoking.
The Nicotine Addiction
There is without a doubt an addictive element to smoking that comes in the form of Nicotine in the tobacco, as well as the other chemicals added to cigarettes that enhance the absorption within your body. What is overstated is the intensity of addictiveness.
For example you can and do go without smoking while you sleep, you are not woken by a craving to have a cigarette during the middle of the night. Granted if you wake up you can choose to have a smoke – but you are not so strongly addicted that it controls or interferes with your life to the point where you are woken in the middle of the night just to have a smoke. No doubt there have been times when the only reason you decide to have a smoke is because you have noticed your so pre-occupied with something else you have simply forgotten to remember to have a smoke.
The reality is, that nicotine is removed from the body pretty quickly, in fact a person is able to smoke 3-4 cigarettes a day without the body having too much trouble removing the poison’s from your system. Within 2-3 days after stopping smoking the nicotine has been removed from your system and almost immediately the effects begin to reduce and are almost completely gone within a week or just a little longer.
Steps in gaining a feeling of Confidence
Cravings – what are they really?
We are told and tend to believe that nicotine cravings are akin to much harder drugs – but lets examine this myth and be honest with ourselves.
Usually you know it is time to have a smoke because you notice the ‘feeling’ or craving in your stomach and begin to feel agitated. The feeling is not that much different to a feeling of hunger. Be honest, there is no pain, no intense physical sensations, just a nagging feeling like you get when your hungry. The agitation is about the same as you feel if someone’s car alarm has gone off and you have noticed that it has somehow disturbed your peace of mind. You have consistently throughout your life managed to avoid eating when hungry and have lived through the few minutes of someones annoying car alarm. So the truth is, you can handle this situation, you always have before – just when it relates to smoking you have been convinced that somehow you can’t manage the slight 3 minutes of discomfort.
And as you know – if your unable to act on this sensation of craving – it goes away pretty quickly. If you do not take the time to act on your ‘addiction’ you tend to forget about it with no consequence until it occurs again and your able to have a smoke. As we have already established – you can go all through the night or during a long plane trip without the cravings bothering you too much at all.
Smoking is mostly mental
If your honest with yourself, the obvious answer to stopping smoking is to enhance your mental skills to combat what has become a habit. Over time your brain has changed it’s structure to maintain your belief that you are a smoker. One aspect of this is your sub conscious mind, which does it’s best to provide for you answers to the types of questions you ask yourself and the types of beliefs you hold about who you are. If you ask yourself “why can’t I give up smoking”? your sub conscious will do it’s best to answer this question for you, creating automatic thoughts such as “it’s addictive I have no control” or ‘I just don’t have the willpower” or worst of all “Why give up something I enjoy doing”. The bottom line is – for a while you are going to have to challenge this automatic response and start to dictate to your unconscious how you want to be instead. The good news is that it does not take very long for your sub conscious to start providing you with automatic responses that support being a non smoker.
Mental Tricks to Stop Smoking
1) Re-frame what you are doing.
You are not giving up anything! When you use the words give up it implies a loss – when the reality is your gaining so much more. Your gaining health and energy, your gaining money, your gaining self control, your gaining the self respect that comes with creating your own reality and not being a slave to advertising or mass opinion. So stop saying I am giving up smoking, instead remind yourself that you are gaining health or control
Do not give into the temptation to smoke. Most of the time we tell ourselves “It’s time for a smoke” or “I’ll just take a rest and have a smoke” but we are not really responding to a need to smoke. Smoking does not relax you, it is taking the time to take slow long deep breathes and allow your mind to mentally drift off from the task at hand that relaxes you. You can do this without the smoking – Billions of people already do, and so can you.
2) Expect the craving.
It is going to happen, your body is going to notice the lack of nicotine and remind you it is time to have a smoke. You already know you can handle the craving, you can handle a couple of minutes of feeling hungry and being slightly annoyed. Tell yourself ‘if I really need one I can do it in an hours time” because you know you can always choose to have a cigarette you just choose to have it a little later on, and you repeat telling yourself this.
The good news is that on day 2 or 3 as a non smoker the cravings become less frequent and less annoying. Most people find that after 4-7 days they hardly even give a second thought to smoking. If the thought pops into your mind you are already with your standard answer ‘later’ and can continue with what your doing
3) Something to do when your eating/resting,taking a break
Most of us have formed the habit of having a smoke after a meal or while drinking or even as a reward after we have done some work. Lets examine this aspect. Paying good money to slowly kill yourself is not a reward. You already know this – and now you understand that this is just a automatic response from your sub conscious mind to answer questions you can actively change your response by challenging what your thinking. When you notice your having this thought you say to yourself “Self, that’s not like me, what I want to think instead is ….” And fill in the type of thought you would rather have.
Having a smoke while your drinking or after dinner is just a habit. Plenty of people manage to do these activities without this habit. Again you make yourself conscious of what you want and challenge any automatic thoughts from the old pattern of behavior. It really is this easy
4) Re-frame what smoking means to you.
You will see other people smoking, and in the past this may have been an automatic trigger for you to reach for your pack and lite up. You need to create new automatic thoughts that occur when you see this external sight. You might like to say to yourself “wow, beat that guy could have brought a boat or car by now” or “My kids are so lucky I am their role model and not that guy”. You can create a few lines for yourself so that you are prepared to create the brain structure that supports your decision to be a non smoker.
To stop smoking, you are going to have to work on the most difficult aspect of being a smoker and that is the automatic thoughts and behavior you have created to support the illusion you are a smoker. The addiction and cravings are the easy part, you noticing and challenging your thoughts and fleeting feelings is not that much more difficult, it just takes a little longer to reprogram your sub conscious mind.
You can of course use a therapy modality that specializes in changing your sub conscious mind such as hypnosis or NLP. Using such an approach is not always necessary but can provide a big jump in your journey towards being a non smoker. But you are also able to take responsibility for the retraining of your mind to move you in the direction of being a healthy non smoker by reminding yourself of the steps listed above.
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