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Trust Marandure
IF you want to quit smoking you need to come up with a “quit smoking” plan that you follow and implement religiously.
Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Far from it, quitting might be more challenging than you think. It is not a question of just throwing your cigarettes in the trash and hope for the best. No matter how convincing the facts against smoking may be, it takes more than just facts and statistics. Like I said, you need a programme to help you quit smoking.
The desire to stop smoking is good, as far as it goes, but many people make the mistake of confusing a mere desire with will-power. Along with the desire to stop smoking you will want to mobilise your will-power into positive, forceful action.
We feel that the best way to quit smoking is to stop all at once, none of this tapering-off business. The reason – it is better to have a few rough days and be through with it than to drag it out for few weeks and months. Slow torture is no fun.
You can make a clean sweep of this thing and do it easier than you think. It is our purpose to help you get over the craving as rapidly as possible – in fact, in five days time.
After quitting, the hardest part comes in the first three days, but by the end of five days the majority of individuals find the cravings definitely less or gone. Stay by it for 10 days, and you make it. Say to yourself, “I choose not to smoke”. Keep repeating your decision throughout the day from morning at eye-opening stage through the final yawn at night. As you repeat it, be sure to mean it. In repeating the decision I choose not to smoke, many people discover within themselves a positive, growing resistance to the physical craving for tobacco.
Right now is the time for you to accept fully the fact that how you think, how you see your will-power, has an actual effect, an immediate effect, on your body’s craving for tobacco. By all means remember this big relationship between mind and body, because you can utilise this principle in breaking the smoking habit. Each day, as you decide in a more forceful way, “I choose not to smoke”, remember that this strong, positive decision exerts an immediate effect on your physical craving to smoke. This is so effective to an extent that it at once perceptibly weakens the urge to smoke. Through a correct use of a will, you only not weaken a craving, but, better still, you gradually help to bring your habits under the control of reason.
During a period of strong craving to smoke look at your watch. Observe the second hand as it sweeps around the dial. Regardless of how strong the urge, you can certainly keep from smoking for a mere sixty seconds. With one minute already gone, you can hold out for one more minute. Of course you can. But you will notice something else while doing this. When the third minute elapses you will usually discover that the sharpest craving has peaked and begun to weaken. You are going to need all the will-power you have, but each additional hour and day will add to your determination and will-power. We suggest some rules to follow faithfully, to help you get over peak urges and march on towards a new way of living.
Water on the outside
This is the time to really enjoy luxury. Take a warm bath two or three times a day for fifteen to twenty minutes. Just relax. If you feel you cannot keep off the weed any longer hop back into the bath or shower. It’s pretty hard to smoke in a shower.
In addition, try another relaxing procedure – the cold mitten friction. Known in the field of medical rehabilitation as a vascular gymnastic, it will help jangled nerves, step up circulation. And make you feel like a million.
Water on the inside
Drink six to eight glasses of water between meals. Keep a record if necessary. The more liquids you can down, the quicker the nicotine leaches out of your body. Take no alcoholic beverages – no beer, no wine.
The average person may not realise the importance of sufficient water for the proper function of the human body. The brain, for example, is approximately 75 percent water. The nervous system cannot function properly without adequate fluids. Water is vital not only to help you get rid of nicotine from the system, but also to keep your nerves running smoothly.
Importance of regularity
Get adequate rest especially during these five days, have your meals at regular times, a set time to go to bed (eight hours of sleep won’t hurt you). No late nights these five days. You are going all out to conserve your nervous energy.
So plan to retire a bit earlier than usual tonight. Give those nerves a good rest. Fatigue in its many forms is an enemy of will-power. Some people habitually stay up till the national anthem is played at the close of the late show and thus rob their bodies of the much-needed rest.
No sitting around after meals
After meals, get outside, walk and breathe deeply for 15 to 30 minutes. Do not sit after eating. This is the time you will want most of all to smoke. Get outside.
You’ve been in the habit of eating a substantial dinner, only to collapse, feet up in your favourite easy chair with a smoke, a newspaper, and television. At this moment your favourite easy chair has become a dual booby trap, all saturated with the aroma from a thousand previous smokes and part of an established pattern. There you sit encircled by the permeating aroma from sofa, curtains and rug. No wonder your craving to smoke comes to life with a vengeance.
Careful what you drink
Do not drink alcohol, tea, coffee, or cola beverages. Try to avoid all sedatives and stimulants in order to build up your nervous reserves as quickly as possible. Many smokers, while trying to kick the tobacco habit, double their daily coffee intake, not realising its ability to trigger an explosive craving for the very tobacco they are trying to quit.
No eating at this table
Often we can tell when a man is smoking heavily, all his food is highly spiced. Also he eats heavily of meals, gravies, fried foods and rich foods, making it well-nigh impossible for him to stop smoking. The reason the average smoker takes strong condiments is that tobacco deadens his taste buds.
Instead, eat here
For meals, eat all you want of fruit, grains, vegetables, and nuts. Eat abundantly of fresh fruits. It is the best to eat fruit and vegetables at separate meals –nothing between meals. And only sugarless gum, if you insist.
Trust Marandure is a Naturopathy Practitioner he can contacted at 0772 482 382 or email at tgmarandure @yahoo.com
Bongani Ndlovu
Online Reporter