Alright, so you’re determined this year to quit smoking but you find it incredibly difficult. Even going a single day without a drag seems impossible. Well, hopefully this will be the help you need. Everyone knows that smoking is bad for you, but they don’t realize just how much quitting can help your long-term health. The body is a wonderful thing, and quitting can help reduce:
- Stress levels
- Risk of heart disease
- Risk of stroke
- The amount of times you have to go outside in winter
It’s amazing what the body can do in just a short period of recovery after quitting. While it can’t repair all the damage, it can bring you almost back to a non-smoker’s level. That should be incentive enough to quit.
If you need a little more help, let’s look at what happens to your body a week, month and even ten years down the road.
No Smoking For Eight Hours
This will be perhaps the hardest period of the whole process. An entire work day without a smoke and your body will be feeling heightened stress levels and huge cravings. That’s good, it means the nicotine is leaving your bloodstream, and your body can start to heal.
After Two To Three Days
Without gum, e-cigarettes or patches, this is a tough hurdle to climb. You’ll be moody, angry and have the patience of a gnat. But if you can do it, taste and smell receptors already begin to heal, meaning that red velvet cake for Mitchell’s retirement will taste so much better.
After One Week
Your body is over the worst of it, but your mind isn’t. You’ll start to think about smoking constantly, and the deep cough will remind you and your co-workers of it every few minutes. This is actually a good thing, as it’s your lungs expelling much of the garbage you’ve inhaled over the years.
After Two Weeks
Your circulation will begin to return to normal, especially to the mouth. All of the damage you’ve done to your gum tissue can begin to heal. Suddenly your mouth is on it’s way back to that of a non-smoker.
A Month Without Smoking
Usually cravings start to subside, and the body can really get down to work. In another month your risk of heart attack has begun to drop, and you shouldn’t still be out of breath after climbing the stairs.
After Three Months
The cough starts to go away, and your lungs should be able to handle exercise better. Long walks on the beach can go back on your personal ad.
No Smoking For Half A Year
One Year
Congratulations, you’ve just halved your chance of heart attack or stroke in just one year. Doesn’t seem that hard does it? As an added extra bonus heart disease risk gets cut in half. Typical smoker physical features go away after one to five years.
Five Years Without Smoking
Diabetes isn’t talked about enough as an outcome of long-term smoking, but after five years it shouldn’t matter. Your risk is now the same as a non-smoker.
Five To Ten Years
You’ve probably forgotten you ever even wanted a smoke, but congratulations! Now your risk of stroke is back to the level of a non-smoker. When you were a smoker, it made your blood sticky and hard to move around the body, but it flows as free as a river.
Ten Years
Lung cancer is what everyone thinks about when they talk about dying from smoking. After a decade without cigarettes, your risk is half that of when you were smoking. Risk of other types of cancer are also dramatically reduced.
Finally After Ten Years Of No Smoking
Smoking is basically now just something you did when you were young and naive. Well done. Your risk of heart disease is now close to that of a non-smoker, and you can breathe easily. It’s not too late to quit!
