Smoking Cessation: The Good Habit Exchange

By Chris James

One of the most common terminologies used when describing life saving resuscitation techniques has always been:

"In with the good air ... out with the bad."

This directive actually can be rather helpful when it comes to designing a program to be used for smoking cessation. Of course, when it comes to a stop smoking initiative in your own life, you really are quite literally replacing the bad air of cigarette smoke with "good air." However, this life saving mouth to mouth resuscitation is useful and informative on another front as well.

Many experts now agree that a multi-faceted approach to smoking cessation gives you the greatest chance of successfully "breaking the habit." In other words, those people who have enjoyed long term success away from smoking all seem to have one factor in common: These people did not rely on only tool in their smoking cessation plan. For example, they did not just use nicotine patches alone. They used another tool or tools - another product, plan or program - along with the nicotine patch to stop smoking.

The reality is that one step everyone interested in stopping smoking should take is what might be called "the good habit exchange." The fact is that a typical smoker, on any given day, spends what really does amount to a significant amount of time, puffing. In this day and age of extensive no-smoking zones, the smoker actually has to devote a good deal of time just getting to a smoking area, never mind smoking, time and time again throughout the course of any given day.

It is now being shown that smokers who choose to make healthy habit decisions are the ones gaining long-term freedom from the cigarette. As well, they are also finding that they are enjoying life more as their healthy habits become part of everyday routine.

Breaking the habit and replacing it with a healthy habit need not be anything complicated. Instead of having a cigarette, commit yourself to going for a walk instead. Or spend the time sending an email to someone you have neglected. With the time you save not smoking, there are so many little things that we would have like to have done in the past that we now have time for. Replace the bad habit with the good. This, along with an effective stop smoking program, will give the tools you need to quit forever.

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