Click image for larger version

Name:	lungs-clipart-happy-lung-5-original.jpg
Views:	7000
Size:	35.0 KB
ID:	3509647

The choice to give up smoking is one of the most important ones that any smoker can ever make - this is because doing so will dramatically improve their health and wellbeing. This fact is true regardless of how old that person is and how long they have been smoking for.

Although giving up something that is highly addictive is of course not the easiest thing to do, there are ways of making the process of giving up smoking for good that bit easier and more achievable. With Numan smokers are able to purchase quit smoking kits that include certain medications that can help to suppress cravings.


Improves Health
Not only does ditching the unsociable habit that is smoking improve overall health status, but it also greatly improves the quality of an individual’s life also. Adding an extra 10 years of life expectancy is as good of a reason as any to ditch the cigarettes for good. Not only does quitting add years to life but it also reduces an individual’s risk to developing serious health conditions, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), infertility, cancer, and even cardiovascular disease. As a result, it helps to bring down the high financial burden that smoking currently has on an already overstretched and poorly managed national health service (NHS).

This is why those people who already suffer with conditions such as COPD and coronary heart disease should seriously consider giving up smoking as soon as possible. For the effects that smoking has on the body, it should also not be done by pregnant mothers as not only does it harm their body but also that of their unborn baby.


Over Time
It is important to point out that not all of these health benefits happen all at once. There is a timeline to all of them and so it may be some months or even years before you can visibly notice any of the above mentioned benefits. For instance, within just a few minutes of having a cigarette, an individual’s heart rate will come right down and within the space of 24 hours the amount of nicotine that is in the blood drops down significantly - to zero in fact. Over the course of the following week, the levels of carbon monoxide that is present in the blood drops down to the same level as a none smoker.

Longer term (one to twelve months) ex smokers can expect any shortness of breath or coughing that they previously experienced to decrease. After a couple of years, a person’s risk of having a heart attack reduces significantly and a couple of years after that, the risk of developing coronary heart disease goes down by as much as 50 percent.

Later on down the line (5 - 10 years) comes a reduced risk of developing certain cancers, namely voice box, throat, and mouth cancer. At the same time, an individual’s chance of having a stroke also goes down significantly. People can keep on experiencing benefits to their health some twenty years on from giving up smoking.