Stop Smoking Tips to Train Your Mind and Body to Hate Smoking

Skeptics often scoff at the power of positive thinking. However, when you want to stop smoking, your mind is the most important tool at your disposal. A large part of your addiction is psychological; you will experience a week or so of physical withdrawal symptoms, but most people start smoking again long after they physical addiction has passed. That is because they still think that they need cigarettes. If you follow these stop smoking trips to train your mind, you will soon find yourself physically repulsed by the thought of smoking and therefore never want to smoke again.

The first tip to successfully stop smoking it is train your body to love fresh air again. For years, your oxygen intake was tainted with tar and nicotine; even when you weren’t smoking the residue stayed in your throat and lungs. Now, whenever you feel a crazing coming on, instead of reaching for a cigarette, take three deep breaths. The physical act of deep breathing relaxes you and you will also feel revitalized by your increased oxygen intake. It should help the craving to pass quicker and will eventually lead to healthier lungs that don’t want to filled with smoke and tar.

If you write out your feelings, it helps to make them more concrete and therefore more easily accessible. Take a piece of paper and write down everything that is bad about smoking. You can start with the well-known health problems, progress through what your friends and family say about your habit, and end up with how it is awful to leave the bar and shiver in the cold while lighting up. Keep that list around so that if you feel the need to smoke you can instantly remind yourself why you quit in the first place.

Another great list to make is how many days, weeks, and months you have been tobacco free. Take some time to make an attractive chart and put it up on your refrigerator. Give yourself a gold star or sticker for every day you don’t smoke. Create a reward system that allows you to treat yourself after you have accumulated so many stickers. Yes, this method is also used for getting good behavior form young children, but it really works. If you are quitting with the help of a friend or a spouse, let them be the ones to reward you.

Other great things to write down to help you stop smoking are all the money you save each week by not smoking, all the health benefits you accrue from not smoking, and all the good things in your life that you can better enjoy now that you have quit smoking. These stop smoking tips and methods should help you to train your mind so that you never even want to be near a cigarette again.