How To Convince A Smoker To Quit: Understand the Habit

As a non-smoker (or an
ex-smoker, depending on your situation), you probably find the entire concept of
smoking distasteful. That is, after all, why you may be seeking to help a smoker
quit their habit for good. To you, the reasons are obvious; smoking is not only
bad for a smokers’ health and appearance, but it has financial repercussions,
too. It should seem like an argument you’ll win easily, especially when
statistics about how half of smokers want to quit are bandied around. It looks
like an argument you, and a few well-learned truths about smoking, are destined
to win.

However, what you must understand if you are trying to
convince someone to quit smoking is this: smokers like smoking! That might sound
like a ridiculous statement, but it’s something many people who try and
convince a smoker to quit absolutely forget. A smoker may wish they had never
started the habit and may want to quit, but in essence they enjoy the experience
of smoking; and that’s why they do it. They probably know the downsides
already, and have still chosen to smoke.

It’s important you
don’t underestimate how much people can enjoy smoking, and particularly the
social aspect of it. When you are presenting your case, don’t ever be harsh to
a smoker, or try and shout at them in an attempt to make them quit the habit.
Instead, acknowledge this is something they enjoy – even if you can’t see the
benefits – and take a softer, more understanding approach. Using a gentler
method of convincing, you are far more likely to succeed.

Removing The Links Will Aid Your Effort

The mental effort that it
takes to give up smoking is well-known. It is certainly increased by keeping
links to your recent status as a smoker – so giving up will take a little bit of
a change in mentality. If, for example, you keep ashtrays lying around – even
clean, unused ones which can be used by visitors – then you will be more
compelled to smoke.

A lot depends on how much you used to smoke.
If smoking was a major part of your life before – you used cigarettes to enhance
your enjoyment of music, socializing or similar – then breaking the bond that it
has over you is going to be all the more problematic. You may find that
listening to the same albums and going to the same bars or clubs becomes a major
temptation, even if you cannot smoke indoors in those clubs.

The
psychological compulsion to smoke is probably the hardest part to get past. So
keeping lighters and ashtrays around, or reading books about central characters
who like to smoke pretty much incessantly is going to make giving up a lot
harder. It is best to keep reminders to a minimum. This is not to say you should
shun your best friend if they still smoke, but it might be a good idea to
request of them that they keep their smoking to a minimum when they are around
you. In the end you can’t close yourself off from all reminders, but limiting
them will help.

Dealing With The Undesirable Consequences

We all know about the
positive aspects of giving up smoking, and for the most part we know about the
difficult side too. If you really want to break the hold that cigarettes have
over you, you need to be ready to deal with the bad stuff. Paradoxically,
though, you will do yourself no favors by considering the bad stuff ahead of the
good. So how do you deal with the negative side while not turning it into a
dominating issue?

The truth of the matter is that the bad side
will be there whether or not you focus on it. The best way of dealing with it is
to push it as far into the background as you possibly can. While it may seem
like naivete to ignore the bad aspects, the truth is that you are not really
doing anything harmful – you are accentuating the positive and preventing the
negative side from becoming all-consuming. By focusing on the positive you can
deal with the negative by diminishing it to the point where it ceases to be a
factor.

When you break your leg, it gets put in a plaster cast
so that there is no pressure placed on the healing bones. Your positive mental
attitude can be the plaster cast that prevents you from racing back to the
cigarettes and unravelling all of your good work. It’s not infallible – nothing
is – but it is much better to back your own willpower and succeed than spend
hundreds of dollars finding out what works.

Making It A Little More Interesting

One of the continuing
failings of humanity is that we can be appallingly cruel to one another. When
you announce that you are giving up smoking, you may expect people to be
supportive, but it is not uncommon to find that someone will utter the dreaded
words: “I’ll bet you [unspecified amount of money] that you don’t make it
through a week without cracking.”. If this is the case, then your best option is
to take that bet. If you know you can do it, then there is no harm in making a
little bit of money into the bargain.

What you need to avoid
though is taking the bet and then once you have got through the specified time
barrier starting to smoke again. This is tempting, of course. It’s easy to
think “I’ll have the money and then start smoking again”, so it is worth
including a stipulation that you will pay the money back if you give up giving
up. All of this may sound a little bit cynical, but if you are keen to give up
yet assailed by temptation, adding an extra layer to your defenses is no bad
idea.

People’s cynicism is a tough hurdle to overcome after
deciding that you will give up smoking. Proving them wrong is not just a matter
of you being right and them being stupid. In fact, if you can show them that you
have inner strength, you will also prove a point to yourself. This can be worth
a lot in future.

The Joy Of Stopping

When you announce that
you have decided to give up cigarettes, the response of friends and family is
important in deciding how successful your bid for freedom will be. If they react
by gathering around and giving you praise and support for your decision, then
you stand a great chance of keeping to the good road. If they show concern,
saying “Are you sure? You know how hard that’s going to be?”, it’s not the
best start to your bid.

The key is to look at your cessation as
a positive thing. You know already that it is not going to be easy, but there is
a range of positive aspects to giving up smoking. The most positive of all is
the simple fact of breaking an addiction. There are no words to describe how
much more free you feel after getting the better of your cravings, and it is
this freedom and the joy that it brings that are the real prizes for anyone who
manages to dislodge the monkey from their back.

Don’t
concentrate on the fact that it is going to be difficult. Accept that this is a
given, and instead concentrate on the fact that you can do this. It is more
important to concentrate on what you are capable of than to focus on the
possible problems. In doing that, you create a bigger hurdle in your mind, and
the power of positive thinking has been proven. You can’t build a castle by
thinking that you can, but you can certainly get more done than if you
concentrate on how hard it will be.

Victoria Advocate

• Originally published December 27, 2010 at midnight, updated December 27, 2010 at midnight

Another year has come to an end, and a new one begins. with the beginning of each new year, many people decide to change some of their old habits. you know, stop smoking, lose weight, be a better person, things like that.

Here’s a resolution for those of you who are still using chemical (synthetic) products when gardening. how about making this the year you convert to a healthier way of gardening. begin using only natural products on all your gardening projects. Basically, you’ll just try to mimic nature.

Organic gardening is all about using natural sustainable products. Organic products, whether fertilizers or products for pest control, are naturally derived and renewable. Chemical products are not. Take for example the nitrogen in chemical fertilizers. There’s nothing sustainable about this form of nitrogen. the chemical form of nitrogen relies on finite fossil fuels, not only in the production of them but also for transporting them from factories.

And synthetic nitrogen is actually a form of ammonia. This form of ammonia is obtained through a process of extracting hydrogen from a source like natural gas, coal or crude oil. Is it any wonder that something like this would be caustic and do nothing to encourage beneficial life in our soils? Fact is, when used over a period of time, synthetic fertilizers destroy the soil.

Organic gardening, on the other hand, is all about life! Organic gardening is really nothing more than building the health of the soil in a way that nature would do it. What’s so important about your soil you might ask. Well, did you realize that plants get their nutrients, air and water from the soil? of course, not all soils are alike. in our areas, you usually find clay and sandy type soils. Clay soils do have a higher content of nutrients than the sandy types. Although clay soils can hold water better than sandy soils, the clay will sometimes hold water too well. Most plants do not like to stay too wet. Too much moisture depletes the oxygen supply. the lack of air can be deadly to all kinds of living things. Sandy type soils drain well but can lack many nutrients unless those nutrients are routinely added back.

However, adding natural organic matter to any type of soil will improve the texture and attract beneficial organisms that in turn create nutrients that nourish the soil. No chemical product can do this!

we all have access to raw materials from our kitchens and yards. These raw materials are some of the ingredients that make up organic matter. Organic matter is decayed grass clippings, manures, dead leaves, dead fish, kitchen scrapes and anything else that was once alive.

by mimicking nature, and routinely adding organic matter back to the soil, you are replenishing the nutrients that healthy plants need and use. This organic material will keep your soil productive. Compost, which is organic matter, is what nature, when left undisturbed, provides for all soils. Nature makes compost through the cycle of life; things are born or sprouted, they grow, they die, then decay or decompose. Make this the year that your little part of the planet is treated just the way that nature would, if you weren’t around to help.

until next time, let’s try to garden with nature not against it, and maybe all our weeds will become wildflowers.

Laurie Garretson is a Victoria gardener and nursery owner. Send your gardening questions to laurie@vicad.com or in care of the Advocate, P.O. Box 1518, Victoria, TX 77902.

<a href="http://www.victoriaadvocate.com/news/2010/dec/27/hg_laurie_garretson_123110_122776/?features&home-gardentag:news.google.com,2005:cluster=http://www.victoriaadvocate.com/news/2010/dec/27/hg_laurie_garretson_123110_122776/?features”>Victoria Advocate

Defying Temptation – Never Easy, But Worthwhile

When you are trying to
break your addition to nicotine, you will find that there is always temptation
waiting for you somewhere or other. It may be that you start to really crave a
cigarette because you saw someone on TV smoking and they looked like they were
really enjoying it. It may be that you have been hanging out with friends and
some of them haven’t given up yet. It can even be something as simple as sense
memory – you’re listening to an old CD and it takes you back to a time when you
were smoking a lot and enjoying yourself.

Temptation is an
unforgiving mistress. As Oscar Wilde once said: “I can resist everything but
temptation”. The really unfair thing about it is that it’s not a case of
overcoming it and forgetting it – temptation will return time and again, and you
will have to keep winning the battle with it. It would be easier if there were
some kind of reward system – you don’t smoke for a week, you get a wide screen
TV, or something. But this isn’t how it works. If it did, we’d all give up for
a week, get our TV and start smoking again.

If you’re a
competitive person, then you might consider temptation to be your opponent.
You’re not going to let the cravings beat you, are you? Hit them out of the
park and congratulate yourself on a job well done. Or if you are not, think
about it in another way – overcoming cravings will give you a stronger will and
make it easier to overcome other challenges in the future.

The Myths About Giving Up

Stopping smoking is not
easy, and it can be made harder if you make the mistake of buying into any one
of a range of theories which when it comes to the crunch just don’t hold any
water. Take, for example, the issue of preparing to give up. People will tell
you that it is easier to quit if you wean yourself onto menthol cigarettes. Is
this actually true? No, it’s not. There’s still plenty of nicotine in there,
and you’re more likely to go back to full-tar, smoke flavored
cigarettes.

Then there is the idea that it will be easier to
give up smoking if you only smoke at certain times – like after meals, just
after getting up or after sex. The fact of the matter is that if you associate
cigarettes with a certain time, you will always want to smoke then, and sooner
or later you’ll be adding extra caveats – only with a cup of coffee, only when
you’re nervous, right up until the point where you’re smoking cigarettes “only
because I really wanted one”. Breaking the dependence is tough, and not made any
easier by allowing exemptions.

Weaning yourself off cigarettes
is not the best way of giving up. If you are going to break the chain, it is
really best to break it cleanly and absolutely. If you fall off the wagon and
“just have one”, make sure it is just one. Don’t rush out and buy a packet
because you feel as though you might as well. Although it is best to not smoke
at all, having one every once in a while is certainly better than getting back
to being a smoke machine.

Giving Up For The Right Reasons

Controversial as it may
sound, giving up smoking because it is costing you too much rarely works. If
money is the only issue, then cigarettes are going to have a hold on you for a
while. A pack of twenty might set you back a fair amount – but what about
rolling your own, or using a small machine to make the cigarettes? There are
plenty of cheaper options, and a mere financial consideration is unlikely to
make the difference if you aren’t committed for other reasons.

Does this mean that finance is a pointless consideration in stopping
smoking? Not at all, but you need to have other reasons. Giving up for the sake
of your health is one consideration – but again, don’t expect it to be the
silver bullet. You have probably been told by other people “You shouldn’t smoke
– cigarettes are bad for you!”, and you have probably responded “No, really? I
thought they were good for me!”, laughed and carried on smoking – so you need to
confront the hard facts about how bad they are for you.

If you
give up smoking, your breathing will get better and your sense of smell will
improve. Your clothes will smell better and your skin and hair will improve. You
will wake up in the morning feeling like you can face the day without having to
reach for the cigarettes and lighter. Most importantly you won’t have to worry
about the health problems and the hole in your finances that can be caused by
smoking, and this liberation of your mind is worth the effort.

Stop Smoking – 4 Things You Must Understand

at what time you build on inquiries passed outdated via medicinal experts concerning cigarette smoking, dealing and counseling, stopping before quitting smoking exclusive of increasingly facing the temptation to homecoming to smoking is self-same difficult. you hardship to twig all but factors with the intention of would avoid you stop smoking.

First – Motivation and desire. achieve you boast the desire to renounce the smoking habit? the urge, motivation and desire to Quit Smoking are fundamental to successfully Quit Smoking. representing a booming path to quitting smoking, motivation and desire obligation buzz supreme on your mind; it has to be present piquant as much as necessary and and backed by nice reasons when to why you neediness to quit smoking. individual positively entity approximately smokers who crash in the fight to declare thumbs down to smoking is their weak determination concerning smoking. it is sunny to settle on on the paramount reasons with the intention of willpower ultimately stir up your desire to stop smoking completely.

Another incentive is to make out and before twig persons triggers in you. we comprise triggers with the intention of tempt you to assume on a new cigarette and this is the mesmerizing up-and-down you hardship to plunk in check. come again? triggers you force be present stress, fretfulness before in the least additional element, except the a large amount weighty entity is to get come again? drives you to neediness to smoke. by means of this, you desire finally overcome smoking from this time relatively the fondness completely.

The third raison d’кtre is arresting the smoking urge. Smoking isn’t while straightforward and inferior for example reputation beneath a chill shower in the morning; it is a great deal stronger and addictive, with the intention of it requires you to combat backside in the midst of entirely your arrangement and power. in the past start your stop smoking program, ensue up to date with the intention of the urge to smoke willpower show your face backside frequently and you hardship to show your face outdated piquant and scrap it. at what time you successfully run this step, you desire be real sad faster to quitting smoking.

Lastly is attaining the confidence. the in the beginning notion with the intention of compels you to ponder of quitting smoking is immediately in the same way as weighty at the same time as the subsequently one, which is why your confidence is crucial in ration you stop smoking. How piquant is your confidence? as a result with the intention of you triumph the battle, cloudless the object commencing every one of failings and refusal issues. equipment are not at all the similar and all epoch has several happenings, therefore, this epoch clothes willpower be real absolutely different.

1. Want to Understand How to stop Smoking?
2. Quit Smoking by Hypnosis – Important Top Tips that can help you Understand it Better
3. Quit Smoking – 3 Positive Motivation Methods
4. Can’t Quit? then Smoke less Cigarettes
5. Stop Smoking – Reap the Benefits of Giving Up

Stop Smoking – 4 Things You Must Understand

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