Kick the habit and Stop Smoking

On a 24/7 basis anyone who smokes is encouraged to quit by the NHS. With even more support available to anyone looking to quick smoking.

An annual event happens every year called StopTober, it is a nationwide drive to encourage people to kick the habit. Every year, it is thought that over 150,000 smokers commit to kicking the habit for good. With over 8 million adults in England smoking cigarettes, the impact on health can be catastrophic.

A struggle

Like many things in life, smoking is a habit and habits can be hard to break. It takes a firm, unwavering commitment – also known as willpower – to ignore the cravings that accompany stopping smoking.

The nicotine in cigarettes affects the brain and when levels drop, the cravings for a cigarette is what causes many people trying to kick the habit to relent.

Cravings can last for only a few seconds, but this is the time when someone is at their most vulnerable to reaching for a packet.

The benefits of giving up smoking

As well as the obvious health benefits, there is also the money saved from not buying cigarettes. Depending on how many a day you smoke, you could save hundreds of pounds over the course of the year.

Find out how much you could save with the NHS smoke-free calculator.

How hard is it, really?

It is tough.

People who have successfully kicked the habit will have tried and failed on numerous attempts previously. Some people go it alone, others attend -stop smoking groups’, referred by their doctor or have signed up voluntarily.

As well as the cravings to deal with, there is the ‘something to do with my hands’ that many smokers say they found difficult to change – they were so used to smoking!

For other people, smoking was something they did as part of another activity, such as socialising or whilst they walk the dog, spend five minutes in the garden, enjoy their evening in front of the TV…

One thing is clear, of the 20% who were successful in quitting smoking in 2016 – 2.5 million smokers tried to kick the habit – the biggest difference in their attempt to stop smoking was support.

This came from many different areas of their lives – from their nearest and dearest, from motivational apps, calculating how much many they were saving and so on – and this is what Stoptober is all about.

Take the step Stoptober 

Need more convincing? Take a look at this facts to help drive you on to kicking the habit for good Stoptober 2018;

* Every cigarette is thought to shorten your life by 11 minutes
* Most smokers started smoking at a very young age and have smoked for a long time but it is never too late to kick the habit
* In 1974, nearly half of the UK population smoked – now it is less than a sixth of the population
* There are more than 4,000 chemicals in tobacco, with some being very injurious to your health
* No matter how long you have smoked or how heavy your smoking habit, as soon as you stop smoking, your organs immediately begin to repair themselves – isn’t the human body wonderful?!