Deciding to give up smoking is a big decision and many smokers this October will be participating in the Stoptober challenge to quit smoking for 28 days. The decision to quit smoking could have a huge and positive effect on your health and well being too. But let’s be honest – it won’t always be smooth sailing.
Smoking is a habit in more than one way. You’ll be addicted to the nicotine, certainly, but you could also find you struggle to keep your hands occupied. You’ll have got used to the feeling of holding a cigarette as well as smoking one.
In short, it pays to be distracted. Think of something else to hold in your hand instead. Some people switch to e-cigarettes, but you might also want to keep something else handy for times when you’re not using your e-cigs. It doesn’t matter what it is – just choose something you can easily fiddle with and keep close at hand. A coin, a pen, even a small pebble or worry stone – anything can work.
Whenever you feel the urge to smoke coming on, find things to do with your hands and your mind. Ideally you should already have a list of things to do so you can immediately try one of them. People have all kinds of things they turn to when the urge arises. Maybe one of these will help you:
• Read a book
• Listen to music
• Clean the car
• Go for a walk
• Do some cooking
• Chew some gum
• Go somewhere where smoking is not allowed
Everyone finds different distraction techniques that will work for them. It’s really a case of trying different things until you find the ones that make the most sense for you. Most cravings pass in a relatively small amount of time. The trick is to get through that period of time by doing something else.
If you do switch to using e-cigarettes, you could benefit from having more than one of them. For example, keep one at home, one in the car and maybe one at work too. The idea is you should always have one with you. The same applies to sugar-free gum and that worry stone or pen you have been using to fiddle around with to keep those hands busy.
Remember too that the longer you go without a cigarette, the fewer nicotine cravings you are likely to have. If you take things a day at a time to begin with and use as many of the above tricks as you can, you might just achieve your goal of quitting.
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