What Happens To You When You Quit Smoking?

If you are a smoker trying to quit, it is important that you know what happens to you when you quit smoking in order to keep you motivated. After all, quitting smoking seems to be one of the most difficult things that you could hope to do so you will need all the help you can get right?

Smoking is a hugely destructive thing to do. Despite the fact that you seem to enjoy it so much, it is the single biggest cause of premature death in the western world. That is why you need to make every effort to overcome your addiction to nicotine and get off the smokes once and for all.

The good news is that what happens to you when you quit smoking is all positive - there are no negatives as far as your health is concerned. One of the initial benefits, apparent within 30 minutes, is that as your nicotine levels start to subside, your blood vessels start to relax and your blood pressure eases as a result. Your heart is less stressed and your heart rate will fall too.

When you smoke, you are put through a roller coaster of stress from the toxins in tobacco smoke. This causes your blood pressure and heart rate to go up and down like the proverbial bride's nighty. Once you stop smoking, this roller coaster of blood pressure and heart rate stops too.

Within 8 hours of quitting smoking, your blood oxygen levels are rising significantly, your blood carbon monoxide levels are falling significantly and your body's nicotine levels are falling steadily. Within 24 hours, carbon monoxide levels in the blood will have fallen to the same level as that of a non-smoker. This is good because it means your blood can work properly at last.

One of the most noticeable things that happens to you when you quit smoking is the sharp increase in your sense of taste after about 2 to 3 days. You will be able to taste things much more clearly than before as the deadening affect of tobacco smoke on your tongue and nose subsides.

It will be at about this time that you are also starting to suffer the worst of your cravings for tobacco. Nicotine levels will be at an all time low for you and your mind will probably be fixed on either food or cigarettes. This is one of the most difficult stages of quitting smoking that you must overcome.

If you can persist with abstaining from the smokes, you will also start to notice an improvement in your breathing. The muck that has been placed in your lungs from smoking will start to be cleaned by your body. You will develop a cough that may seem worse than your smoker's cough from before. This is natural as your lungs start to cleanse themselves of the filth that has accumulated over time.

Another significant change that happens to you when you quit smoking is the improvement in your blood circulation. It should improve within the first three months and you will notice in fewer incidents of cold feet or hands. You may also notice fewer occasions of 'pins and needles' (paresthesia).

Some of the main benefits of what happens to you when you quit smoking become most apparent after about a year off the smokes. Notably, you will be able to breath much more easily and you will neither cough, nor wheeze as you used to when you smoked. You are half as likely to suffer a stroke as you were when a smoker.

After about 5 years, you are statistically at half the risk of a smoker of suffering from a heart attack. Your chances of stroke will have now diminished to that of a non-smoker too.

After about 10 years, you will have halved your risk of cancer, particularly lung cancer, but as a former smoker, you should always be aware of the higher risk that you face. Your chances of suffering from a heart attack will have diminished to that of a non-smoker too.

As a final thought on what happens to you when you quit smoking, you should understand the effects smoking has on your life expectancy. Quitting before you are between 35-40 should see your life expectancy pretty much unaffected from smoking. That's not a guarantee though and people do die from smoking related diseases even in their 20's!

It is important to know that there is evidence that for every year you smoke after this 35-40 year window, you reduce your life expectancy by around 3 months on average. A smoker at age 60 should expect to die 5 years younger than a non-smoking counterpart. That should be food for thought and should help keep you motivated in any attempt to quit smoking.

This article is by Tom Dainty, a quit smoking therapist and author of The Quit Smoking Bible, a cognitive behavioural therapy approach to quitting smoking. His work is only available from http://quitsmokingbible.com Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tom_Dainty