To learn how to quit smoking successfully you will have to deal with smoking as a habit. If you are not sure that smoking is a habit, keeping 3 days or more of daily smoking logs will show you how your smoking is related to time, places, people, and activities. Getting to know your patterns and seeing how they are actually habits will help you in the process of quitting smoking.
To break a habit, you must change something that has become automatic – something that you are doing without thinking about it first. Think about where you keep you cigarettes and how you light your cigarettes. Do you think these have become habits for you?
Sometimes you may reach for a cigarette and light it without thinking about it. If you are a guy who keeps your cigarette pack and lighter in your left shirt pocket, wear shirts without those pockets for a few days in a row. If you are a woman who keeps them in a certain part of your purse, move them to a different location. If you have to think about where you are keeping them, you break the cycle of automatic behavior. Likewise if you use a lighter, switch to matches or vice versa. Later in the quit process, stop carrying a lighter and matches, so you have to ask someone else for a light.
Times related to your smoking habit are: After the alarm rings in the morning; break time outside your workplace; and after your evening meal. People related to your habit are your co-workers, members of your bowling or softball team or best friends who smoke. Activities include talking on the phone at home, drinking coffee or alcohol, and driving your car or truck.
What are some ideas that will help you break the smoking habit?
• Delay your first cigarette in the morning
• Drink juice or tea in the morning and wait until later to drink coffee
• Take your break at a different time at work
• Take a short walk after dinner in the evening
• Take a different route to work so you have to think about your driving
While you may think “that will never work for me”, think of some things that WILL break the cycle of your smoking habit. Anything that helps you think, rather than smoke automatically will help you cut down on your smoking and eventually quit smoking.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Friday, June 19, 2009
How to Quit Smoking - Using a Daily Smoke Log
Smoking Cessation: Learn About Your Smoking Habits
Smoking cessation starts with an initial “first step”. You have decided to quit smoking. Congratulations! Before deciding on the method you will use to quit, one of the best things you can do is learn about your own smoking behavior. Why do this before you quit? Regardless of whether you use the a nicotine patch or go “cold turkey” on your quit date, one thing is true – you will have to change your current smoking behavior in order to remain free from smoking.
Make a 3 day commitment to keep a daily smoking log. If you have a job, be sure that at least one of the log days is a “work” day. One of the days should be a weekend day or a day when you are not scheduled to work. It is best to keep the log for a minimum of 3 consecutive days.
Your log sheet should contain: time of day, location, the activity you are engaged in, the feeling you are experiencing just before you light up, and your degree of need for the cigarette: 1 (low) to 5 (high). Examples :
7 AM / Bedroom / Just got out of bed / groggy / 5
7:30 AM / sitting at kitchen tale/ drinking coffee and reading the newspaper / tired / 4
8 AM / in car / getting ready to drive to work / anxious about work / 4
Wrap the paper around your cigarette pack to keep the two together. There is one rule in keeping a log: you must write your notes on the log BEFORE you light up to have the degree of need and feeling be accurate.
You may feel angry or resentful about writing down all the information. This is normal. What you learn about yourself and your smoking will be worth your efforts.
At the end of 3 days, the records will show you the number of cigarettes you are smoking daily and the times of day that you smoke the most cigarettes to build up a nicotine level in your body. You will see that a certain events are triggers to smoke: drinking coffee or alcohol, driving your car, being with a friend who smokes, the end of a meal, answering your phone. You may realize that negative feelings trigger smoking or that it is difficult to describe your feelings. After a few hours without a cigarette, your degree of need may be ranked 4 because your nicotine level is low and you crave a cigarette. It may take 2 cigarettes to satisfy the craving. You will learn these things and much more – especially if you continue with your log.
If you keep the log for a full week, you begin to ask, ”Do I really need this cigarette? What can I do instead?” At this point, you begin to cut down on your smoking, and begin to discover the power of the log in smoking cessation.
Smoking cessation starts with an initial “first step”. You have decided to quit smoking. Congratulations! Before deciding on the method you will use to quit, one of the best things you can do is learn about your own smoking behavior. Why do this before you quit? Regardless of whether you use the a nicotine patch or go “cold turkey” on your quit date, one thing is true – you will have to change your current smoking behavior in order to remain free from smoking.
Make a 3 day commitment to keep a daily smoking log. If you have a job, be sure that at least one of the log days is a “work” day. One of the days should be a weekend day or a day when you are not scheduled to work. It is best to keep the log for a minimum of 3 consecutive days.
Your log sheet should contain: time of day, location, the activity you are engaged in, the feeling you are experiencing just before you light up, and your degree of need for the cigarette: 1 (low) to 5 (high). Examples :
7 AM / Bedroom / Just got out of bed / groggy / 5
7:30 AM / sitting at kitchen tale/ drinking coffee and reading the newspaper / tired / 4
8 AM / in car / getting ready to drive to work / anxious about work / 4
Wrap the paper around your cigarette pack to keep the two together. There is one rule in keeping a log: you must write your notes on the log BEFORE you light up to have the degree of need and feeling be accurate.
You may feel angry or resentful about writing down all the information. This is normal. What you learn about yourself and your smoking will be worth your efforts.
At the end of 3 days, the records will show you the number of cigarettes you are smoking daily and the times of day that you smoke the most cigarettes to build up a nicotine level in your body. You will see that a certain events are triggers to smoke: drinking coffee or alcohol, driving your car, being with a friend who smokes, the end of a meal, answering your phone. You may realize that negative feelings trigger smoking or that it is difficult to describe your feelings. After a few hours without a cigarette, your degree of need may be ranked 4 because your nicotine level is low and you crave a cigarette. It may take 2 cigarettes to satisfy the craving. You will learn these things and much more – especially if you continue with your log.
If you keep the log for a full week, you begin to ask, ”Do I really need this cigarette? What can I do instead?” At this point, you begin to cut down on your smoking, and begin to discover the power of the log in smoking cessation.
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