Smoking in Recent Headlines

From 2/25:

We already knew that smoking can lead to gum disease and tooth discoloration. But a new study, to be published in the Journal of Dental Research in April, shows that smokers are also almost twice as likely to need root canal treatment. Read more: Cigarette Smoking Nearly Doubles Risk For Root Canal Treatment.

In Britain, despite being exempt from recent smoking ban legeslation, soldiers will no longer be able to light up in barraks: Soldiers face barraks smoking ban.

From 2/24:

Nicotine-addicted residents of Ontario are being offered the chance to win a car while simultaneously bettering their lives: Quit smoking and win a car.

A Bradford company is using man's best friend to help employees kick the habit: Dog helps smokers quit.

Meijer, a Toledo-based business, is but one of the growing number of companies that are charging (or else planning to charge) smokers a higher health care insurance premium: Meijer Charges Employees $25 for Smoking.

Smokers Beware!!

by Dr. Robert Osgoodby

By now, most people are well aware that smoking causes lung cancer. Cigarettes, pipes, cigars, and chewing tobacco kill more than 434,000 Americans each year accounting for one out of five premature deaths in this country. Lung cancer is just the first in a long list of tobacco related illnesses:

• Bladder Cancer - Smoking causes 40% of all cases of bladder cancer.

• Breast Cancer - Women who smoke are 75% more likely to develop breast cancer.

• Cervical Cancer - Up to one third of all cases of cervical cancer are directly attributable to smoking.

• Childhood Respiratory Ailments - Children exposed to parents tobacco smoke have six times as many respiratory infections as kids of nonsmoking parents.

• Diabetes - Smoking decreases the body's absorption of insulin.

• Emphysema - Smoking accounts for up to 85% of all deaths attributable to emphysema.

• Esophageal Cancer - Smoking accounts for 80% of all cases of esophageal cancer.

• Gastrointestinal Cancer - Smoking at least doubles the risk of cancer of the stomach and duodenum.

• Heart Disease - Smokers are up to four times more likely to develop cardiovascular disease than nonsmokers.

• Infertility - Couples in which at least one member smokes are more than three times more likely to have trouble conceiving.

• Kidney Cancer - Smoking causes 40% of all cases of kidney cancer.

• Mouth Cancer - Tobacco causes the vast majority of all cancers of the mouth.

• Premature Aging - Constant exposure to tobacco smoke prematurely wrinkles the facial skin and yellows the teeth and fingernails.

• Stroke - Smoking doubles the risk of stroke among men and women.

• Throat Cancer - The vast majority of cases of pharyngeal cancer are directly related to smoking.

While smoking has officially been recognized as a cause of lung cancer, scientists have also confirmed another tobacco danger, that breathing the air containing someone else's smoke (second hand smoke) poses many of the same risk as smoking yourself.

Doctors and Scientists have been reporting on the dangers of tobacco and smoking for nearly four decades. Many serious illnesses are directly attributed to smoking. If you want to live a longer, healthier life, quit smoking today!

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Dr. Osgoodby was a finalist in the "EAS Body for Life" Contest. Stop by his web page at http://bestbodyever.com to see his before and after pictures and subscribe to his monthly newsletter.

How to Quit Smoking - 7 simple steps to stop smoking

by Matthew James

Finding a way to quit smoking sometimes seems like the search for the Holy Grail. However, achieving your aim doesn't have to be fraught with stress and difficulty. Here are seven simple steps that you can take to stop smoking.


Step 1 - Overcoming cravings

Being a smoker is like using crutches for so long that you think the crutches are a part of you and your own legs waste away, but when you stand on you own two feet again, the strength soon returns.
When people smoke more than half of what they breathe is fresh air - pulled through the cigarette right down into the lungs. So if you feel any cravings you can instantly overcome them by taking three deep breaths. Whenever you do this you put more oxygen into your bloodstream. This means you can use deep breaths to change the way you feel instantly and give you power over the cravings.


Step 2 - Why do you want to quit smoking?

Next, think now of all the reasons you don`t like smoking, why it`s bad and why you want to stop. Write down the key words on a piece of paper. For example, you get short of breath, it`s dirty and your clothes smell, your breath smells and it`s expensive, inconvenient and so on. Then, on the other side of the paper, write down all the reasons why you`ll feel good when you`ve succeeded in stopping. You`ll feel healthier, your sense of taste and smell is enhanced, and your hair and clothes will smell fresher and so on. Whenever you need to, look at that piece of paper.


Step 3 - Re-programme your thoughts

Next, we are going to programme your mind to feel disgusted by cigarettes. I want you recall 4 times when you thought to yourself `I`ve got to quit`, or that you felt disgusted about smoking. Maybe you just felt really unhealthy, or your doctor told you in a particular tone of voice `You`ve got to quit` or somebody you know was badly affected by smoking. Take a moment now to come up with 4 different times that you felt that you have to quit or were disgusted by smoking.

Remember each of those times, one after another, as though they are happening now. I want you to keep going through those memories and make them as vivid as possible. See what you saw, hear what you heard, and feel how you felt. I want to take a few minutes now to keep going through those memories again and again, overlap each memory with the next until you are totally and utterly disgusted by cigarettes.


Step 4 - What are the consequences if you don't stop smoking?

It`s also helpful to really consider for a moment what the consequences are if you don`t stop smoking now, if you just carry on and on. Imagine it, what will happen if you carry on smoking. What are the consequences?

Next, imagine how much better is your life going to be after you`ve stopped. Really imagine it is months from now and you successfully stopped. Cigarettes are a thing of the past, keep that feeling with you, and imagine having it tomorrow, and for the rest of next week.


Step 5 - Breaking smoking associations

Also the human mind is very sensitive to associations, so it`s very important that you have a clear out and remove all cigarettes from your environment. Move some of the furniture in your house and at work. Smokers are accustomed to cigarettes in certain situations. So, for example, if you used to smoke on the telephone at work move the phone to the other side of the desk.


Step 6 - Take a break!

Smokers use cigarettes to give themselves little breaks during the day. Taking a break is good for you, so carry on taking that time off - but do something different. Walk round the block, have a cup of tea or drink of water, or do some of the techniques on this programme. In fact, if possible drink a lot of fruit juice. When you stop smoking the body goes through a big change. The blood sugar levels tend to fall, the digestion is slowed down and your body starts to eject the tar and poisons that have accumulated. Fresh fruit juice contains fructose that restores your blood sugar levels, vitamin C that helps clear out impurities and high levels of water and fiber to keep your digestion going. Also try to eat fruit every day for at least two weeks after you have stopped.
Also when you stop, cut your caffeine intake by half. Nicotine breaks down caffeine so without nicotine a little coffee will have a big effect.

Step 7 - Change your feelings

You were used to using cigarettes to signal to your body to release happy chemicals, so next we are going to programme some good feelings into your future. I`d like you to fully remember now a time when you felt very deep pleasure. Take a moment to recall it as vividly as possible. Remember that time - see what you saw, hear what you heard, and feel how good you felt.

Keep going through the memory, as soon as it finishes, go through it again and again, all the time squeezing your thumb and finger together. That`s right, see what you saw, hear what you heard, and feel how good you felt. Pictures big and bright, sounds loud and crisp and feelings strong. We are making an associational link between the squeeze of your fingers and that good feeling.

Okay, stop and relax. Now if you have done that correctly when you squeeze your thumb and finger together you should feel that good feeling again. Go ahead do that now, squeeze thumb and finger, and remember that good feeling.

Now we`re going to programme good feelings to happen automatically whenever you are in a situation where you used to smoke.

Next I`d like you to squeeze your thumb and finger together, get that good feeling going and now imagine being in several situations where you would have smoked, but being there feeling great without a cigarette. See what you`ll see hear and take that good feeling into those situations without a need for a cigarette. Imagine being in a situation where someone offers you a cigarette and you confidently say `No thanks, I don`t smoke`. And feel good about it!

Author Info

Matthew James is the founder of http://www.Self-Hypnosis-Tapes.biz a website dedicated to promoting the use of self-hypnosis and NLP for self-improvement. The site offers a range of essential resources and techniques that will enable you to achieve greater success.

Smoking in the 21st Century

by Mark McAuley

By now we all know that smoking is bad for us. I mean really, can there possibly be anyone left in the modern world that doesn't know this? The things people are finding more and more is that there are fewer places for them to smoke. I live in Ontario Canada. And it seems like every year there are more places being banned from smoking.

This year, where I live they have banned smoking from bars, which was one of the last places where smoking was still allowed. I believe that our local, government run casino is the only place left where people can smoke.

I'm sure it wont be long before the government outlaws smoking in your own car. Which means that more people every year will be looking for easier ways to quit smoking, because anyone who has ever tried to quit, knows how hard it really is. All the non-smokers out there find it very easy to tell smokers, "just quit, throw away your cigarettes and don't smoke anymore."

Everywhere you look there are solutions to help people quit smoking. From pills and patches, gum and hypnosis, hardcore smokers have a myriad of choices to help them stop smoking. It is great to have choices in life, so it can be up to each individual which program will work best for them. Of course, in a supply and demand market, with millions of people trying to quit smoking at any one time, this means that none of these ways are cheap.

If you can get the heavy smoker in your family to understand that the money they spend on cigarettes in a few months, could pay for a great system that will help them to quit without all the side effects that keep so many people from staying off cigarettes. Most people have withdrawals; they eat more so they gain weight. Once they see themselves getting heavier, a lot of people will just pick up the cigarettes again. That's why every company that makes stop smoking products will spend millions of dollars trying to find ways to reduce the withdrawal symptoms, and pump up your metabolism.

When I quit, the biggest problem I had was getting used to not having something in my hands or mouth. More so than withdrawals this was my biggest obstacle to overcome. What I found worked best for me, was to chew sugarless gum; also I would chew on toothpicks. After a few months, I would chew less and less until I didn't even need the gum or toothpicks.

So as we move on, and year after year there are less places for smokers to light up, there will be more options to help people quit. Which actually is a good thing, because what works for some people, won't work for other people. If you are tired of being one of those people freezing outside your office building or factory door, then it is time to find something that will work for you.

Within six months after I quit I really noticed an easier time breathing and fewer colds during the year. Overall I just felt better. Like they say, "don't quit quitting". Good luck.

Mark McAuley is a 40 year old father. He works at a factory and is struggling along with a website. He usually just writes from personal experience. Visit his websites at: http://purplemoose.us http://finalsmoke.purplemoose.us