You have decided to quit smoking and you have done that already. But you need to be careful about the fact that staying tobacco free is more important and difficult. Let’s find out how you can stay tobacco free after you quit smoking.

Dealing with withdrawal

Once you quit smoking, you will need to deal with withdrawal. When you try withdrawal from nicotine, it has two parts physical and mental. There may be some physical symptoms but they are not life-threatening. They may tempt you to again start smoking. However, the mental part of quitting and staying tobacco free is the bigger challenge for you and anyone else who wants to stay tobacco free. Tobacco is already linked with many of the things of your life that you do. It may be linked to your waking hours, eating, drinking, going to the bathroom etc. You will need to unlink them from tobacco. Because of these links, you feel the need to again start smoking.

Rationalisation can be your enemy

If you want to overcome urges or cravings for smoking, you will need to notice and identify rationalisations and stop them. Rationalisation is nothing but a wrong thought which seems fine at the time. However, it is not based on reality. Such rationalisation may justify use of the vehicle but you don’t want to believe them and start using tobacco again. There may be many rationalisation in your head to justify smoking. However good they may seem, you will need to understand them and stop them from urging you to go back to smoking again. These are like some messages which may take you back to your smoking days. It may be necessary to change your thoughts to something else to get out of this strap.

Some important ideas

These ideas can help you to stay committed to quitting.

Avoid temptation

You find any type of temptation and you should avoid them. Always stay away from people and places which may tempt you to smoke tobacco. This is more important during the initial days just after quitting. After some time, your confidence in yourself will grow and you’ll be better equipped to take those temptations on.

Get more active

If you become more active, that’ll help you to staying tobacco free. It will also help you to reduce your stress. When you exercise regularly it will keep you busy while providing health benefits to you. This is like a good distraction which will distract you from the urge, temptation and realisation that may take you back to smoking. You can also do something which you have been planning for some time but could not find the time to do. You need to distract yourself and keep yourself busy all the time so that you don’t have time to think about smoking and tobacco.

Reward yourself

When you reward yourself for a behaviour, it is more likely to strengthen your behaviour which is going to be a habit after some time. So, whenever you are able to fight the urge or temptation to avoid smoking, you should always reward yourself. That little task will help you to create a positive habit of not touching tobacco any more. It will help you to feel better about yourself and more satisfied. You can simply put the money for the tobacco in a jar and at the end of the week or month; you can buy yourself a gift which will be your reward.

References

1. Quit Smoking Magic – New!!
2. Benefits of Quitting
3. Quitting Smoking