Counting
Down the Days to Freedom – Your Quit Smoking Timetable
The
human body is a remarkable thing. Although smoking is a powerful
physical addiction that alters your body, just days after your last
cigarette, your body begins to repair itself. Even after decades of
smoking, your body will bounce back and you'll feel better than ever.
Knowing that it's only a matter of time can help you stay motivated
to quit smoking when things get rough.
Here
is a basic timetable of what you can expect when you quit smoking.
- Less than an hour after you take your last puff, your heart rate and blood pressure drop to non-smoker levels.
- About 8 hours after your last smoke, the nicotine level in your body is reduced to almost nothing. It will drop to about 6-7%, which is a 93% reduction from just several hours before.
- In 2 days to about a week, your physical cravings will be at their worst. They'll peak sometime during this time, and then they weaken and fade. This is the toughest time and you should be vigilant to resist temptation. By the tenth day or so, you'll have something like two cravings a day, each about thirty seconds (although this varies from person to person).
- During this same time, your lungs begin to repair themselves. You'll feel that you're breathing easier and you'll have more lung capacity than you ever did while you were smoking.
- By the tenth day, you'll have no more withdrawal symptoms. All of the chemicals contained in cigarettes will be flushed from your system and your body has adjusted fully to the absence of nicotine.
- Within the first few months after you quit, your body flushes itself completely of all the nicotine that remains in your body. Within 2-3 months, you're nicotine free and the nicotine metabolites which the drug is chemically broken down to will have passed out of your body.
- The lungs will continue to repair themselves for almost the next year. By 9 months, your lungs cilia will have grown back and you'll have no smoking-related respiratory problems.
It
sounds easy, doesn't it? Well, don't be fooled. During the peak of
your withdrawal symptoms, it's very hard to resist the urge to smoke.
Cravings may come at many times throughout the day and if you're a
heavy smoker, withdrawal symptoms can be quite severe.
Many
people who are trying to quit seek outside help. You can use nicotine
replacement therapy (NRT) options such as the nicotine patch to help
you reduce physical symptoms if they're severe. NRT methods have high
success rates and vary in price and availability (some are only
available by prescription).
You
can also combat cravings through stress reduction techniques like
deep breathing and meditation. If you know your triggers well and
recognize that nagging voice in the back of your head telling you to
smoke, this helps a great deal as well.
It's
hard to quit smoking, but people do it every day and you can too.
