Three quarters of today’s smokers trying to shed the habit are heavily hooked on nicotine.
This number is up 32 percent from almost two decades ago.
According to research presented at the American College of Chest Physicians’ annual meeting in October. Left alone, smoking could kill more than a billion people this century, according to the World Health Organization.
Why You Should Stop Smoking
Unfortunately, the fact that it’s such a difficult habit to quit makes it so dangerous. For most, quitting isn’t just a matter of willpower. However, the list of reasons to stop smoking keeps growing, and here are the most important ones!
Here’s why you should stop smoking for good:
1. Save Money
Increased tobacco taxation and the resulting rise in the cost of tobacco products is considered among the most effective tobacco control measures to date with less people continuing, or taking up smoking, as a result.
If you smoke a pack a day for an entire year, cutting that out can save you over $1000 per year!
Additionally, insurance companies increase their rates based on whether or not you smoke due to the associated risks.
2. Get Your Health Back
Smoking tobacco affects human health in a multitude of ways. With larger impact on the heart and lungs. Ranging from increased risk of lung cancer and heart attacks to rapid aging of the skin, acne, and decreased senses.
Smoking is one of the leading risk factors for heart disease and lung cancer.
3. Live Longer
Quitting smoking, preferably before the age of 40 gives back almost a decade of lost life from continued smoking.
The nicotine in cigarettes causes narrowing of the blood vessels, which means less blood flow to the outermost layers of your skin.
With reduced blood flow, your skin does not get enough oxygen and important nutrients, such as [all of the good nutrients go here and link to why blah blah].
4. Sleep Better
Since nicotine is a stimulant, that cigarette right before bed deals a sort of double blow to your body.
The stimulating nature of nicotine makes it more difficult to get to sleep. And once you do, the withdrawal symptoms of addiction invites uncomfortable and inconsistent sleep patterns.
5. Heal Wounds Faster
Besides causing all sorts of diseases, smoking gets in the way of the healing process, contributing to the difficulty in healing surgical wounds and bone fractures. Compounds like nicotine, nitric oxide, and hydrogen cyanide inhibit healing.
In 2007, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis reported that cigarette smoking impairs ligament healing after ligament-repair surgery. Smoking causes decreased macrophage response that causes a delayed or decreased healing response.
You won’t be like Wolverine or Deadpool, instantly healing from gunshot wounds. But, slowing down your own real life healing factor by smoking could create medical complications for yourself in the future. That you’ll never recover from!
6. Take Back Control
One of the most poorly understood components of addiction is ‘craving’. The urge for nicotine that has been described by most as a major obstacle to successfully curbing smoking altogether.
Although some of withdrawal symptoms are related to the effects of nicotine, for some people the symptoms are a result of psychological experiences.
For some, the feel, smell, or sight of a cigarette and the ritual of handling, lighting, or smoking it are all associated with the pleasurable effects of smoking.
Often those with cravings feel out of control, angry, and have a difficult time staying calm and composed, even if they regularly smoke but haven’t been able to at their usual time.
7. Protect Your Family
Smoking effects those around you. Not just through detrimental health effects, but through setting examples or how those around you view you. Secondhand smoke is dangerous on it’s own, containing more than 7,000 chemicals, 70 of which are cancerous.
8. Protect Your Fertility
If you’re planning on having kids, smoking has been cited as one of the reasons behind the increasing infertility rate among young people, both from smoking and from secondhand exposure to cigarette smoke.
According to a study conducted in 2010, smoking damages men’s sperm and decreases estrogen produced by women. It also increases the likelihood of miscarriages and may lead to egg damage, organ damage, or ovulation problems.
9. Protect Your Mental State
A 2007 analysis of 19 prior studies concluded that elderly smokers face a heightened risk of dementia and cognitive decline, compared with lifelong nonsmokers.
And in 2004, researchers reported in Neurology that smoking appeared to hasten cognitive decline in dementia-free elderly smokers, bringing it on several times faster than in their nonsmoking peers.
10. Avoid The Smell
Because your sense have smell may of lessened due to smoking, you may not notice just how badly you smell to other people.
The smell pushes away non-smokers and can alienate you in public spaces, where most would do their best to avoid something that they find to be ‘sensory pollution.’
The influence of smell is what of the strongest determinants of how people interact with one another, whether it’s the smell of smoke, or the odor of someone 3 days late for a shower.
Summary
Know the risks, and also know that there are many options for those that want to take that first step to knocking the habit, whether it’s professional help, home remedies, alternative habits.