A lot of smokers are aware of what they’ve got themselves into with their habit and know what effects smoking may have on their bodies and health. Despite seeing physical changes and immediate differences, it isn’t usually enough to stop the habit.
Seeing the effects in themselves won’t motivate the smoker to quit as much as actually beginning to feel their own biological degradation. It usually has to come to a point where a considerable amount of damage has occurred to the body until the smoker seriously considers giving up. Why wait when you know that physical and health problems could have been avoided in the first place?
Nicotine addiction is the answer to that question but things can get better once you quit.
Giving up smoking
Your appetite improves within a week and you’ll begin feeling more energetic. Skin conditions, taste, and smell return to normal and the ugly nicotine stains disappear from your fingers. Blood circulation also improves helping those with white finger or Reynards disease. Discolouring on toe nails may gradually diminish because your circulation is better. A reversal of of the effects of gum disease may occur if you take care with dental hygene alongside quitting smoking.
In about a year, the risk of respiratory infections and ailments such as chronic bronchitis or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, decrease. This is because cilia, a protective layer composed of tiny hair-like structures, recover and lung capacity begins restoring itself. Cilia facilitate the removal of impurities from the lungs and nasal cavities but smoking halts that process by paralyzing and destroying the cilia.
In the years to follow, the risk of cardio-pulmonary diseases significantly decreases. Furthermore, the threat of cancer drops. It is not limited to the lungs but other organs as well since the toxins and carcinogens now present in the lungs enter the bloodstream when oxygen is delivered to the different parts of the body. The chances of stroke considerably fall as well. These are all made possible when the urge to smoke is curbed. And with all of that, you now have something to look forward to when giving up smoking.
Within half an hour alone of giving your body a break, your pulse rate and blood pressure decreases considerably and starts to return to normal levels. That’s because nicotine rapidly releases adrenaline into our bloodstream, instantly augmenting blood pressure. In about two days, all traces of nicotine have left the body. There is a decline in toxic carbon monoxide levels while oxygen levels stabilize.
Quitting smoking is really an extremely arduous task. But do bear in mind how much you are preserving your life and the life of those around you who have been breathing in your secondhand smoke. It all begins with putting that cigarette down and throwing the lighter away. Remember that shortly after your last smoke, the body starts healing itself and it is a great help if we give our systems the time it needs to recover and reverse the damage done.
It is so much easier to start than to quit smoking, but in this day and age you don’t have to go cold turkey because there are a growing amount of stop smoking aids available. Do yourself and those around you a favour check them out now.