Quitting smoking again at 37

Its been 2 weeks since I've quit smoking cold turkey and not for the first time. The longest I've ever gone without smoking cigarettes was around 3 years. So that's the longest period of time since quitting smoking cold turkey and starting the ugly habit again. How and why did I start smoking again...I think being around people who smoke, inhaling the smell of tobacco and last but not least experiencing that calming effect you feel after smoking a cigarette and then of course the addiction that comes with that short lived comfort. You never get enough of that pleasurable feeling because nicotene is in fact an addictive drug. Questions you have to ask yourself One thing that stands in the way of you not smoking is that you have not realized why you smoke, what is the reason that makes you smoke cigarettes? Get a piece of paper or even better buy a little book that you can jot down some of your personal thoughts. Knowing why I "wanted to smoke" and "needed cigarettes" was what helped me to get over this silly addiction. You have to actually WANT to quit or you never will and its as simple as that! Getting back to the excuses I had for smoking which seemed perfectly rational at the time.... These could be: a) boredom b) nervous tension (anxiety) c) feeling of frustration d) depressed outlook towards life (negative thinking) e) feelings of loneliness Quitting smoking cold turkey fact #1 Smoking is a bad habit! True √ What is a habit? Quite simply an action that we perform regularly, most often without even thinking about it, and especially without even needing to motivate us to achieve it: a habit is an action performed by default, which does not happen only if the circumstances prevents us , or if we make a conscious effort not to realize them. Our habits are thus distinguished from all the other tasks that we perform in the sense that they occur not , unless we make a conscious effort to perform. We see immediately the power of these habits: we accomplish them mechanically, day after day, and their effects end up adding up, and can potentially produce enormous results on our lives . And this power can serve us, as we serve: it applies indifferently to our bad habits as to our good habits, and can therefore perform miracles as well as disasters. Smoking every day will mean having less money to use for interesting or useful things, decreased physical performance, premature aging, and ultimately cancer and premature death, all for a stupid habit that the we contracted most often during adolescence, to mark its difference and its desire to be an adult, whereas on the contrary we surrendered to the height of conformism and manipulation, thus letting us lead by the nose by companies representing what capitalism has most execrable to adopt a behavior that all our friends followed (in this sense, I also find that communists who smoke are a contradiction so intense in their principles that they should be shot at ! 😉). Conversely, do a little sport every day at sunrise to start your day in great shape, to carve a body performant and desirable, maintain its shape and health, slow down aging and lengthen our life expectancy (see for example this study showing that the average death rate of those who engaged in average physical activity was 60% lower than that of the sedentary group). Two habits, two things that we do mechanically, two things we enjoy, two dramatically different results: here is the force of habits. She is neutral, blind, and can bring us woes or blessings. But this strength can be channeled and used for our greater benefit , by accomplishing one thing, seemingly simple: changing our bad habits into good habits . Quitting smoking cold turkey fact #2 √ What makes bad habits different from good habits? In my opinion it's quite simple:

Bad habits are everything that serves us and moves us away from our goals. Good habits are everything that benefits us and brings us closer to our goals.

Thus, I will put in bad habits all the behaviors that have an adverse effect on your health, unless dying young or suffering from a serious and chronic disease is part of your objectives ... For example, what do we do if we have a habit of smoking? We enjoy a little moment of pleasure several times a day, often following a habit that we are anchored in a moment of our life where we were little mature and unstable emotionally, without thinking in the least about the consequences of pleasure in the long run, or if we could not replace this pleasure with another, which brings us closer to our goals or at least does not distance us from it ... And sometimes, as with the cigarette, the more the time passes andthe more we develop an habituation to this habit, physical or psychological , and the more difficult it is to stop it, or even to only consider stopping it. Note that this phenomenon of dependence can also take place with positive habits, and that in this case we used this famous power habits to our advantage! So how do we change our bad habits into good habits? I will not give you a miracle method to stop smoking. But I propose a simple method in 6 steps that will allow you to review all your current habits, to identify those who serve you and act to replace them with better. 1 - The first step is to identify your main habits. Take a sheet of paper and a pen and sit quietly in a place where you will not be disturbed. Then, list twenty of your habits. Mentally go through one of your typical days in your head, and one of your typical weeks if you can, and write down all the things you do regularly and mechanically, without realizing it. It can be anything from simple things, like nibbling a piece of chocolate at 4 o'clock, to taking a shower straight when you get up, to engaging things that you've put in place with a real effort, like running a half an hour every day or you have to read an hour a day, going through intermediate things like watching television when you get home from work or playing video games regularly.Do not give up until you've written twenty . 2 - Once these 20 habits listed, let them rest a little, then go back to your list and determine if these habits serve you or not. Typically, all the habits having a negative influence on your health will be put in the category "Bad Habits". And all the habits that do not advance towards your goals will be potentially classified in this category too (if you do not know your objectives, it's time to put yourself in: take a sheet of paper and list your 10 main objectives, the short term in the long term 😉). Be careful, however, not to fall into excessive productivism: it is normal to spare small - and big! - moments of pleasure unrelated to your goals to relax. But it seems to me definitely advisable to classify in the category "bad habits" all the small and great pleasures that are not neutral but really serve your objectives and your health. The cigarette is definitely part of this category. For activities such as television or video games, it seems to me preferable to determine a daily or weekly time limit where the neutral habit will pass to the "bad" box: so half an hour of TV per day may be OK for you, and an hour no. 3 - Once these bad habits have been detected, write them down on a new sheet of paper, and write next to what it serves you, in terms of your health and your goals . This could be for example: I drink too much beer (or alcohol) when I go out with my friends: it's bad for my health in the long run, bad for my wallet, and it does not match the image of an accomplished man and well in his skin that I wish to be. I eat 6 squares of milk chocolate a day: since I read Will we be Immortals? I know that carbohydrates and saturated fats (which are stuffed with milk chocolate) are not good for my health. I drink two cups of sweet coffee a day: ditto. I watch an hour and a half of TV a day: I realize that this time is lost and does not bring me much, and I would like to use it for more interesting things. I tend to look at my emails too often: since I read GTD , I know that it creates interruptions and greatly hampers my productivity. Etc. 4 - Then determine for each of these bad habits what you would like to have instead : typically the best habits that will advance you towards your goals. This could be for example: I drink too much beer (or alcohol) when I go out with my friends: I will limit myself to two glasses of alcohol per night, and consume more soft drinks. I eat 6 squares of milk chocolate a day: I will switch to dark chocolate (much better for health) and reduce my consumption to two squares. I drink two cups of sweet coffee a day: I will drink instead two cups of green tea, without sugar. I watch an hour and a half of TV a day: I will limit the television to half an hour a day, and spend an hour working on my goal. I tend to look at my emails too often: I will only check my emails twice a day at 10am and 4pm. Etc. Readers of this article also read: 5 tips for optimizing your Young Entrepreneur Productivity 5 - Then determine an action plan to eliminate bad habits and replace them with good ones . For each bad habit, determine a decrease and replacement goal, and a deadline to reach it. I recommend you start small, and make a gradual progression, and especially focus only on one or two habits at a time . First choose the habits that seem the easiest to change, it will quickly bring you benefits and give you confidence to attack bad habits more difficult to dislodge. For example, it was very easy for me to replace sweet coffee with unsweetened green tea: it was always a hot drink containing caffeine, and I quickly appreciated green tea; quickly I had as much pleasure drinking my green tea as my coffee, and this one habit has many positive effects on my health (for example, a recent study indicated that the mere fact of putting two sugars in one's coffee increases 38% the risk of colon cancer). For bad habits that are more difficult to replace, go ahead gradually: start with a small step, for example instead of watching TV an hour and a half when you get home from work, watch it for an hour and a quarter, and then once is OK for you, gradually increase the difficulty. 6 - Regularly review your goals and habits , for example once a month. See if you have achieved your goals. Review your new habits, and detect the bad ones that are about to be put in place. If you see one coming up, crush it immediately! It is much easier to eradicate a bad habit when it just starts to be put in place after one year of practice : if you are vigilant on this point, you will be able, with a minimal expenditure of energy, to keep a set of healthy habits that will bring you multiple benefits, avoiding regular destructive behaviors. I will share with you as a conclusion a story that I really like: A man is at the bottom of a chasm. He crawls on the ground, agonizing: it's been a week since he's here, trying to find a way out, and a week that he has not eaten or eaten. He tries one last time to advance his arm, fails, and falls to the ground. While he is going to die, he asks, with all the forces that remain to him: "My God, why did not you give me the strength to climb this chasm?" And God answers him: "I gave you the strength not to fall." Searches used to find this article: bad habits, bad habits, bad habits, good habits, good habits, how to get rid of bad habits, how to change bad habits, how to change habits