Smoking will do in more than internal organs. It takes a pretty heavy hit on health-care budgets, too. A Dutch study figured that health-care costs for smokers can be 40 percent higher than for nonsmokers. So we’d all save a bundle if everybody would just quit smoking, right?
In fact, total health-care costs would actually rise in a smokeless society. The reason is obvious: More people would be living longer to run up medical bills in other ways.
But that’s not going to happen any time soon. If you’re a smoker, you know why: It’s hard to quit. It should never be told to a smoker that quitting is easy, says Dr. Thomas Glynn of the American Cancer Society. “But nobody ever said that addiction can’t be beat,” he says. Here’s how.
Really mean it. When it comes to losing the cigarette habit, the road to failure is paved with halfhearted resolve. “Motivation is the absolute determinant,” Dr. Glynn says. “Nothing will work unless you woke up that morning and said to yourself, ‘This is it. I’m not smoking anymore.’”
Take a walk. Exercise can give you that extra motivational boost and make you feel better while you’re trying to quit smoking. “Do something really easy, particularly if you haven’t been exercising,” Dr. Glynn says. “Take a daily 15-minute walk at a time when you would ordinarily want a cigarette, like in the morning after you’ve had coffee.”
Delay the diet. You really do tend to gain weight as you try to stop smoking, Dr. Glynn says. But his advice is to concentrate on the immediate challenge, which is kicking butts. “A diet is a tough thing to handle at the same time you’re quitting smoking,” Dr. Glynn says. “Wait until you’re safely past the first two or three months of not smoking.
*80/36/5*
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