The Real Benefits of Quitting Smoking

For many people, the benefits of quitting smoking are simply related to their health or expenses. Or, in some cases, the health of their loved ones.

But the benefits of quitting smoking is a big, big picture indeed.

Smoking tobacco has an impact on:

Your health.
Your expendable income.
Your mental health.
Your environment, lifestyle and perceptions.
Your relationships.

The true benefits of quitting smoking:

1. Your health.

This one is obvious, but few people realise how widespread the effects of smoking are.

a. Smoking has been linked to increased risk of 12 types of cancer.

b. Smoking has been linked to various respiratory problems, including COPD, or Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, a progressive lung disease, and emphysema.

c. Smoking has been linked to various heart conditions, including increased risk of heart attacks and heart failure.

d. Smoking has been linked to various problems during pregnancy and breastfeeding. These include the risk of reduced foetus growth, with children of smokers often born smaller than they would have been if the mother did not smoke.

e. Smoking reduces your lung capacity, often leaving smokers out of breath after climbing a flight of stairs.

Of course, it also affects others in your household due to secondary smoke inhalation.

Quitting smoking reduces the risk in all of these areas.

2. Your expendable income.

Aside from the obvious cost of the cigarettes themselves, there are a number of hidden expenses and costs, including:

a. More expensive medical aid and life insurance.

b. The reduced value of your car and furniture upon selling or trade-in. It’s quite a job to get the smell out of it.

c. Smokers – on average – earn less than non-smokers.

d. The lower average income means a reduced income when you retire – and need to spend more money on your health.

e. Lost income due to more frequent illness.

f. Less money to spend on yourself and your loved ones.

All of these can be avoided by quitting smoking.

3. Your mental health.

Many smokers believe that smoking helps them to deal with stress. In reality, the stress they experience stems from withdrawal symptoms, urging them to smoke another cigarette in order to “feel better again”.

Yes, smoking helps you feel better for a short while. But the repeated withdrawal symptoms mean that the actual stress being reduced is the stress from withdrawal.

When you quit smoking, however, the stress and anxiety from chronic withdrawal goes away. In addition to that, the chemical balance in your brain improves, leading to increased dopamine production – which in itself makes you feel happier.

You will be less likely to feel depressed, and quitters generally also feel more in control of their lives after quitting smoking for good.

4. Your environment. lifestyle and perceptions:

a. Nicotine released during exhaling settles on any available surface. As such, it builds up on your furniture, walls, curtains, carpets, and your clothes over time.

Once you quit smoking, it becomes easier to clean all of these.

b. Nicotine dulls your sense of smell and taste. A few weeks after quitting, you will find that food smells and tastes better. So do flowers and nature.

c. You will no longer have to plan around cravings. Aside from not having to carry cigarettes and a lighter any more, you also won’t have to hunt for a place to smoke when you are in public or at work.

Plus of course, you won’t have to brave the winter cold for a puff any more.

5. Your relationships.

Upon quitting smoking, you are likely to find that your relationships will improve on all levels. Personal, family, work and friends.

People that would have avoided you in the past, or – as a potential date – not have given you a second glance – become open to approach.

Also, if your partner is a non-smoker, the absence of the lingering smells, combined with more available money for special times and purchases, is likely to result in a happier relationship.

In conclusion:

The benefits of quitting smoking are staggering when you add them all up.

After reading all of this, the only question that you have to ask yourself is this:

What is worth more to you – the life you have now, or the life you CAN have?