Preparation to quit smoking
Overcoming the smoking habit requires a strong will and personal commitment. It’s a decision no one else can make for you. Get ready to quit smoking. Find out, reflect and, if you’re determined… go ahead!
Write your purpose on a piece of paper and focus on the positive aspects of it. If you want to, remember that you have the ability to do it.
Based on the goals you set, create a weekly schedule to make them a routine. You can make copies of the schedule and post them in places around the house that you pass by most often, whether it’s on the fridge, on the bathroom door, or on the bedroom shelf.
Share your purpose with others. Share your expectations with them. They can collaborate and help you achieve this.
There are strategies aimed at breaking tobacco use, emphasizing the fact that smoking is a learned behavior and, therefore, can be controlled and modified.
Staying smoke-free is something we learn, so we may fail a few times until we finally succeed. It is important not to forget that you can, and must, learn from mistakes. It is best to think that quitting smoking requires effort, but that any smoker can quit smoking and stay smoke-free if they really want to.
In the first moments of abandonment, it is common for the feeling of having lost something important to appear. However, as the days pass, this feeling will disappear. Little by little, the cigarette will lose its importance and you will return to enjoying things and activities in the same way as before.
Resources to stop smoking
Without smoking, life tastes better. If you’re really motivated and don’t know how to quit smoking, you can do it with the help of professionals from the Spanish Association Against Cancer.
How? The AECC puts at your disposal a series of tools. It has face-to-face and online services to quit smoking, with a guide available for download and a mobile application that will accompany you and facilitate the process of quitting smoking.
If someone around you is also determined to quit smoking, suggest that they do it together and set a date to quit smoking. You can help each other and accompany each other throughout the process! All their services are free. Choose the help that best suits you and your needs. And if you have doubts, they can advise you. Call the freephone: +34 900 100 036.
✅ Smoking removal services
The smoking cessation services of the Spanish Association Against Cancer are programs to quit smoking designed to accompany you in the process of quitting tobacco through a specific and personalized help program with the aim of facing the process of quitting tobacco.
Throughout the sessions, you will be able to achieve a series of challenges until you are able to stop smoking for good. For this reason, its professionals will provide you with all the information about its risks, withdrawal syndrome control and self-control techniques.
Dispel the myths about quitting smoking
Put an end to the myths about tobacco. Do not take refuge in the myths about tobacco, phrases that we have heard so many times, such as the following:
Popular false beliefs
1 ❌ 💬 “Only people who have suffered a good scare or those with a lot of willpower can succeed in quitting smoking”
FALSE Anyone can quit smoking. The important thing is not willpower, but making the decision, being clear about the objective and putting in place the strategies to achieve it.
2 ❌ 💬 “It’s very bad when you quit, the remedy is worse than the disease”.
FALSE Sometimes it’s not easy to quit, but there are so many benefits that it’s worth the effort. In addition, the symptoms of tobacco withdrawal last only a few weeks and if you want to avoid them, today there are effective methods that make it easier to quit.
3 ❌ 💬 “I don’t notice that it hurts me as much as they say”.
FALSE Although for a while you do not perceive the harmful effects of tobacco, you are causing damage to your body. Just smoking a cigarette causes an increase in blood pressure and an increase in heart rate of 10 to 15 beats per minute.
4 ❌ 💬 “A person who smokes less than five cigarettes a day is not a smoker”.
FALSE With just one cigarette a day, a person should be considered a smoker. In addition, any amount of consumption can lead to dependence. On the other hand, according to a study published in The Lancet, smoking less than five cigarettes a day has been associated with approximately two-thirds of the lung damage generated by smoking 30 or more cigarettes a day.
5 ❌ 💬 “I’m not addicted to tobacco, I can stop smoking whenever I want. Tobacco is not a drug.”
FALSE Every smoker is physically and psychologically dependent on tobacco, even if he smokes little. Tobacco fulfills all the requirements of a drug and, as with other substances, the false belief of self-control is associated with failed attempts to quit smoking.
6 ❌ 💬 “It’s too late to quit.” It’s not worth it.”
FALSE It’s never too late to quit. No matter how long you have been smoking, you will always experience positive changes in health, physical and mental well-being, economy and aesthetics.
