Since childhood, we have been told about the terrible dangers of smoking, confirming this with medical research and facts from the life of smokers. But why do people smoke, not paying attention to the harm done to their own health?
Where does smoking addiction come from?
Prolonged stress
A long chain of stressful situations can unsettle even the most calm and balanced person. At this point, instead of looking at the situation from a different angle or distracting from it with some activity, many begin to look for a quick way to calm down and relax. And very often it is smoking.
Having found such a quick way to obtain moral satisfaction, every time during the next dispute with someone or just a serious conversation, a person lights up another cigarette, believing that this will calm his nerves and be able to correctly assess the situation. The most interesting thing is that it really helps him. But not because smoking cigarettes allegedly "calms", but because he firmly inspired this idea in himself.
fashion influence
As unfortunate as it may sound, fashion trends often make people make mistakes. So, for example, the publication of a photo shoot in the glossy magazine with the participation of a model smoking in the frame can become another surge in the fashion for smoking. Moreover, such fashion trends are spreading very quickly. Literally the next day after the release of the magazine, it will be possible to observe how many teenage girls and girls who have not previously used tobacco smoke, imitating the famous fashion model.
Transitional age
Replenishment of the ranks of smokers at the expense of high school students and students may occur not only because of a new round of fashion. Among the common reasons why teenagers start smoking, the following are also popular:
- The need for recognition by peers and the desire to be like everyone else. The fear of adolescents to become a black sheep is sometimes so great that they are capable of many stupid things, including smoking.
- The desire, on the contrary, to stand out from the crowd.
- Protest. Sometimes young people start smoking as a sign of protest, thus opposing themselves to society and trying to show everyone their independence and independence. Think rockers from the 80s. They had a very characteristic pattern of behavior: they smoked cigarettes, ridiculed the vices of society in their songs, drank a lot of alcohol and behaved, to put it mildly, defiantly.
Nicotine addiction
Dependence of smokers on cigarettes can be of 2 types: physical and psychological. At the heart of physical dependence is the addiction of the body to nicotine. Psychological dependence is based on a person's clear belief that smoking relaxes, calms, helps to concentrate faster, etc. The difference between these types is that psychological addiction is often the reason why smokers start using tobacco, while physical addiction becomes its consequence - the main problem that people smoke and cannot quit this bad habit.
How to quit smoking?
Once you figure out why people smoke, it's much easier to start the process of quitting the habit. However, you need to prepare yourself for such a step from the moral side. It is necessary to at least briefly familiarize yourself with the medical literature and deeply understand the harm that smoking brings to health, as well as calculate how much money is spent on buying cigarettes per year. After that, take all your will into a fist and stop smoking.
Quit once and for all
Most ex-smokers are advised not to "reinvent the wheel", but to quit smoking abruptly and at once - once and for all. Having chosen this path, in no case should one succumb to weakness and think that one cigarette (or more) a day will not change anything (justifying oneself by the fact that it is still less than it was). Once the decision is made, there is no turning back!
Throw gradually
A similar method is suitable for those who have a clear nicotine addiction. To quit smoking, they need to gradually reduce the number of cigarettes they smoke per day. For example, if a person smokes a pack of cigarettes a day, then you should try to reduce the number of cigarettes by at least one piece every day. When it comes to 2-3 cigarettes a day, you can abruptly quit smoking altogether.
Lead a healthy lifestyle
Psychologists have found that smokers who start to eat right and play sports eventually get rid of this negative habit themselves. How does this happen? The secret, again, lies in self-hypnosis. The psychology of a person is such that when he starts eating healthy food and exercising, he involuntarily refuses unhealthy foods and other obstacles that prevent him from leading a new, healthier lifestyle.
In addition, when doing many recreational exercises, the smoker will notice shortness of breath. Swimming and running are particularly illustrative examples in this regard. After unsuccessful attempts to combine smoking and exercise, a person is likely to come to the decision to give up cigarettes.
Also, the following recommendations can be of great help in the fight against addiction:
- Listening to audio files and reading books about the dangers of smoking.
- Drinking enough water.
- Replacing habitual cigarettes with electronic ones, which later turns out to be much easier for some than regular ones.
- Also, when you really want to smoke, you can try to replace cigarettes with something sweet or seeds. Or take a cigarette and, without smoking it, imitate the process of smoking for 10-15 minutes.
- Refusal to visit places where smoking is allowed (smoking areas and halls in nightclubs, restaurants, etc. ).
- An agreement with acquaintances that they do not smoke during communication.
- Posting affirmations on the walls of the house (words and pictures that carry the meaning of the desired) on the topic of a healthy lifestyle. For example, pictures of healthy beautiful people and pictures of smokers that cause disgust. This helps to fix in the subconscious mind the right type of behavior in the fight against smoking.