-

Stop Smoking - Change Your Lifestyle

While you by no means have to avoid your friends and start an entirely new life when you quit smoking, you should - at least in the beginning - try to be realistic about your socializing. And you don't have to move to a new town, either. Just don't spend a lot of time with smokers and don't hang around in places where you can smoke if you've just quit. The hardest period when trying to quit smoking will always occur at the beginning, and you will end up torturing yourself if you spend that period in bars or clubs or other places that you normally associate with smoking.

Early stages of quitting

One of the reasons many people hesitate to quit smoking is they feel it will require a big change in their lifestyle and that they will no longer be able to socialize with their friends. Many feel they may be ostrascized in some way. This really isn't the case, but you do have to understand that in the early stages of quitting, some lifestyle changes are going to be in order.

Avoid situations you associated with smoking in the past. You should also make an effort to make your lifestyle more active - once you quit smoking you'll likely be dealing with a lot more pent up energy and anxiety, especially during the early stages, and the best thing you can do to deal with it is to incorporate more activities into your into your daily routine.

    If you are at a loss for what to do, you need only a little imagination:
  • Take up a new hobby or develop a new interest
  • Jog a mile, or work up to it gradually
  • You can always read a book, or
  • Help your child with his homework
  • Go Fishing
  • Visit a museum
  • You get the idea...

If you can change your lifestyle, you will also benefit by creating new associations that have nothing to do with smoking. You will begin to partake in new activates that are in a "post-quit" phase of your new life. By slowly increasing the number of activities you do that you don't associate with smoking, you will slowly create an entire lifestyle that does not accommodate or include smoking.




Web     You Can Quit Smoking, Too