Introduction
Smoking is a bad habit that steals time, health, and energy. Despite the fashion for a healthy lifestyle, there is still a substantial number of heavy smokers in the world. These people claim that they have tried to quit smoking many times, but it proved to be impossible. However, modern research and positive experience in practical application of new methods show that quitting is real and necessary. As one of the most common addictions of the mankind, smoking has psychological roots and nature (Carr, 2014). Many people start smoking because of silly reasons and it takes much time and effort to eliminate this bad habit. The best way to avoid smoking is its prevention and preserving people from the first tries. However, those who have already started should also realize and categorically accept life without cigarettes as the only possible way for functional and non-violent co-existence in the society. The addicted face numerous challenges on the way to smoking prevention. I know people overwhelmed with the desire to quit their bad habit and the inability to unwind from the trap of their bad habit. Smoking prevention lays in deep non-violent reconsideration of personal values, aims, and the relationships with the natural and social environment.
Keeping Balance Between Health and Lifestyle
The roots of any addiction originate from some psychological problem, inner misbalance, and the need for tension smoothing (Carr, 2014). Any heavy smoker should initially understand what the exact cause of the dependence on nicotine is. Elimination of the genuine cause of stress is the basis of smoking treatment and prevention. The decision lies in understanding that smoking is just a habit by which one is trying to deaden some physiological problems. The mistake is that people rarely discover the root cause of their addiction. They want a momentum effective decision. Therefore, the first thing to do is to perceive the reason of distress and misbalance with the environment.
Sometimes smoking reasons are outward and depend on the surrounding reality of every effected individual. In such case, the way out is in the change of social activity, habitat location, and the circle of communication. Lifestyle stipulates everyday choices, and if an addicted person finds people with the same problem, shares his/her experience, and tries to find the solution, it creates many prepositions for success. Smoking does not relieve anyone from problems (Carr, 2014). It only adds self-deception that cigarettes are an easy way to relax and unwind. People who think reasonably understand that this is just a myth.
People often start smoking at school age. For example, in Norway, scientists surveyed a large group of young people and found that by the age of 13 more than half of boys and girls try to smoke. In Ireland, among the high school students, it was revealed that 44% were smokers. In the US, smoking is not less than 4.5 million schoolchildren. The statistics analysis shows that more than half of smokers start it before the age of 16 (Cook, 2012).
The desire to feel a real adult is one of the main reasons for smoking initiation among boys. For some teens, smoking is a symbol of self-affirmation and protest against the smoking ban, which teenagers believe arbitrary. So, the promotion of healthy lifestyle and exposure of the negative effects of smoking are an essential contribution to combating this evil.
Waste of Money
Smoking leads to everyday expenses on cigarettes. Realizing that it is harmful for health, people pay for self-destruction. Simple calculations of possible savings as a result of rejection from smoking can make people reconsider their bad habit (Carr, 2014). Such practice is compatible to the small monthly contributions to the bank when people do not feel any tangible effect on their budget and manage to multiply their funds with the course of time. In case with smoking, addicted people get a double advantage. They save actual money and the money necessary for the treatment of unavoidable future illnesses caused by smoking.
Regardless of the quantity of cigarettes consumed per day, smoking unavoidably leads to health problems. Coronary heart disease, chronic bronchitis, emphysema, asthma, and, finally, cancer are the segments of the same chain. Smoking does not only give rise to many diseases but promotes evolution or directly stimulates the development of diseases, thus weakening the protective reaction of the body (Crawford, 2009).
It should be noted that teenagers, the most vulnerable group of nicotine consumers, usually buy the cheapest grade of cigarettes, where the nicotine content is much higher than in expensive. Furthermore, they finish them to the end, and the greatest amount of nicotine is known to be contained at the end of a cigarette. Teenagers smoke quickly as often they have to hide their bad habit. All this contributes to significant poisoning of the body. Sometimes, teenagers finish other people’s cigarette butts, which can lead to infectious diseases. As a result, families should keep alert and not be too categorical when they prohibit smoking and do not give money for cigarettes. The addicted will find a way, but the trust will be lost.
Seek Support from Family and Friends
The family is the basis of human character and the root of behavioral preferences and deviations. Relatives always affect each other and create possibilities for success in combating problems and evils. If a person originates from a socially adapted family with healthy lifestyle and strong principles, there are more chances to avoid smoking in the future. On the contrary, in poor environments with smoky air in the flat, children inhale the smoke and believe it is a norm and part of their lives. There are exclusions in both examples, but, on the whole, the environment motivates and gives the example of a norm (La Torre, 2013).
Smoking creates chemical dependency difficult for combating alone. People with addictions usually lose their social connections and fall into aggression against the world. Thus, the help of relatives is an essential contribution to the rejection from smoking. On the first stage, the effect of nicotine starvation can be mitigated with special medicine. Some people treat smoking as a disease and find it effective to support the addicted relative with medical help and treatment.
In cases of prolonged smoking experience, people feel desperate and claim that they cannot cope with the problem without some outer support. However, the first and utmost condition for the success achievement is in the strong personal decision that one can.
Keep Busy by Doing Physical Exercises
The composition of blood changes under the influence of smoking. It reduces the number of red blood cells and leads to the faster aging of blood vessels. Nicotine in tobacco requires increased oxygen supply, but, simultaneously, carbon oxide provided by the tobacco smoke reduces its arrival. In addition, a part of the hemoglobin is closely associated with carbon monoxide to form oxyhemoglobin, which lacks the ability to deliver oxygen to the body’s tissues (La Torre, 2013). Thus, a smoker inhaling tobacco smoke condemns himself to oxygen starvation.
Staying in the open air is an effective way to the psychical and physiological balance. Doing outdoor activities launches the inner potential of the organism to self-restoring. Work in the garden unites human body with the energy of birth and soil. Growing plants is a revealing experience that shows that everything has its order and consequence in nature. Watching peaceful sceneries and landscapes, overcoming long distances, and discovering new places broadens human mind and sharpens the perception. Contemplation of natural beauty and the contribution to the environment preservation is an important step on the way to restoring spiritual balance. At the same time, staying outdoors and doing outdoor activities nourishes organism with oxygen. Eliminating the roots of misbalance with the environment helps people better than any medical or artificial intrusion (La Torre, 2013).
Marinating a Healthy Diet
Rejection from smoking is the outcome of the combined change in approach to healthy lifestyle. Marinating a diet creates new sources of natural energy necessary for combating the evil addictions. Girls and women are likely to start smoking in the pursuit of fashion and imitation of coquetry with men. Some girls justify their bad habit by the fact that it allegedly does not allow them to gain weight. In fact, smoking sometimes leads to weight loss. It happens due to the fact that nicotine provides a negative effect on metabolic processes and decreased appetite. However, girls should understand that there are more effective and safe methods to reduce body weight, in particular, moderate food intake and physical education classes (Cook, 2012).
Nicotine adversely affects metabolic processes. The content of vitamin C in the blood of smokers is half less than in the blood of non-smokers. Moreover, vitamin C deficiency can also develop in those who do not smoke, but constantly stay in the tobacco smoke. The lack of this vitamin has a particularly harmful effect on children’s health. Vitamin C deficiency is very significant for those children and adolescents who either adopted adult habit smoking or are forced to breathe in smoke-filled poisoned areas. As a result, marinating a healthy diet is crucial for keeping balance of vitamins and minerals in the body.
Restoring Body and Health from the Energy Lost While Smoking
Numerous scientific studies have clearly shown that smokers live on average 5-6 years less than non-smokers (Cook, 2012). In heavy smokers, life shortens more than ten years. In England, a large number of premature deaths from respiratory or cardiovascular disease are associated with smoking. In France, each year smoking kills about 35,000 people. In the United States, the number is over 300,000 people (La Torre, 2013). Japan had the largest study conducted to ascertain mortality due to smoking (La Torre, 2013). It was found that the mortality rate among men and women smoking cigarettes is 22% higher than among those who do not smoke. So, this bad habit steals not only people’s health and energy but the time of living. After quitting, human organism needs restoration, renewal, and the further development in order to avoid recession.
The negative impact of smoking on human mental activity shows itself in waning memory, headaches, irritability, insomnia, fatigue, and neurasthenia as a result. Experiments have shown that the time of work that people do in eight hours requires two hours more if smoking a pack of cigarettes (La Torre, 2013). The long-term habit can worsen eyesight or develop deafness. Smokers often have deadened sense of smell and taste. Such people cannot taste the sweet and have blunted the ability to distinguish odors. So, the way to self-restoration should have a complex approach. It is important to have hobbies, read, learn languages, and exercise regularly.
Belief in Oneself and Keeping on the Track of the Plan
Many people start smoking thoughtlessly and under the influence of some authority. When a teenager tries it for the first time, the body prevents the introduction of poison. The non-acceptance shows itself in tickle in the throat, nausea, cough or dizziness. Then the smoking habit becomes so strong and compelling that it grows into addiction and dependency. So, the most important issue is staying alert and having no compromise in rejecting the addiction. Anyone should have confidence in the right to remain non-involved. Everyone needs to be aware that smoking has a very harmful effect on the health, and it is not cool. People suffer nervous and cardiovascular disorders; their complexion is usually pale and faded. Smoking causes delays in growth, weakens memory, and reduces intelligence and attention. People become irritable, distracted, and poorly perform at school. When one can detect such states in behavior, it becomes a starting point from reconsidering the attitude to smoking.
It is crucial to remember that passive smoking causes not less harm than active. The forced inhalation of tobacco fumes by people who do not smoke, but are in contact with smokers, leads to numerous health problems, too. The polluted air creates discomfort to non-smokers, thus reducing their efficiency. They complain about headache, lethargy, weakness or asthma symptoms. Susceptible individuals suffering from allergic diseases can experience painful symptoms.
An hour of inhalation of tobacco smoke in the smoke-filled room by non-smokers corresponds to real consumption of four cigarettes. People who regularly stay in smoke-filled, poorly ventilated areas may become ill with tuberculosis, inflammation of the pharynx, larynx, trachea or bronchi. Recent studies have conclusively proven that non-smokers regularly inhaling tobacco smoke have lung cancer just as often as those who smoke. Researchers randomly selected 200 clinic patients, and 32 of them have found susceptibility to dry particles of tobacco smoke (La Torre, 2013). This suggests that millions of people suffer from allergies due to passive smoking. Many adults smoking indoors cannot imagine what kind of damage they cause to children. Sometimes adults smoke even holding the baby in her arms. Studies have shown that children whose parents smoke in the first year of life double the frequency of bronchitis and pneumonia.
Those who smoke should restrict their bad habit in the places of cooking and eating, where children are in public, and in any other place where smoking may be unpleasant for others. It is desirable that children do not see their parents smoke.
Final Quitting Smoking
History shows that the strict pursuit of smokers did not stop the habit from its spreading. The cessation or reduction of tobacco products manufacture did not help either. People surrogated tobacco. For example, during the Civil War, a large number of home-grown tobaccos appeared. In the 1950s, Kansas (USA) banned the sale of tobacco products (Cook, 2012). However, those measures had no effect. Smoke continued, and the ban was lifted.
No restrictions or production limits lead to a positive result. Any violent attempt to change the situation creates only more counter-effect, and producers and consumers went into the shade market. Current approaches in the fight against smoking rely on people’s awareness and consciousness. School propaganda among teenagers shows the irreparable damage to health and reproduction function. When students see the examples and participate in joint projects directed at smoking quit, they start seeing the problem from a different angle. The admission and discussion of the problem is a half way to its solution.
The struggle for human health is one of the most important global challenges of the modern society (Cook, 2012). The prevention of chronic diseases lies in the necessity to eliminate the influence of harmful factors, which primarily include smoking. Health workers need to strengthen preventive work among the population by educating people and promoting healthy lifestyle. The examples of success are an effective instrument in quitting bad habits.
The fight against smoking is based on three basic principles. The first lies in the development in people of a strong belief that smoking is harmful and causes irreparable damage to health. The second states that administrative measures to control and ban smoking in public places should come into legal force in all countries worldwide. Finally, reducing the number of smokers through their awareness of harmful effects leads to more positive results than any restrictions and bans.
Conclusion
Smoking is a harmful habit that has numerous ruinous consequences. However, many people still suffer from the cult of this bad habit that existed in the years of their youth or adolescence. The attempts of the strong prohibition on the state level led to no results and only increased the desire for the forbidden joy. Modern methods offer a complex approach to the salvation of the problem and underline the importance of non-violent effect. They involve the promotion of healthy lifestyle advantages, the change of human vision, values, and general improvement of physical state through exercise, diet, and the other restoring practices. Moreover, the addicted should realize that they cause harm to their relatives and friends who do not smoke. Joint efforts and understanding of the threat of addiction made smoking unfashionable and forced people try their best and finally overcome their addiction.