Want to quit smoking in 2020? Tough. But doable

Making 2020 resolutions already? Some popular New Year resolutions are to read more books, eat health­ier, spend less money, and to exercise more. Accord­ing to a 2016 study pub­lished in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 55 percent New Year reso­lutions are health-related. But then, how many of us can stick to these resolutions for any amount of time? Around 80 percent of New Year resolutions are broken, according to another study. One of the most frequently broken ones? To quit smoking.

“I want to give up smoking com­pletely in 2020,” says Aakash Khatri, 24, who has been smoking regularly since 2013. He has tried quitting several times. But as almost all his close friends smoke, it is difficult to opt out. “I don’t want to refuse a cigarette when a friend passes me one,” Khatri says. And whenever he is under pressure, the first thing he thinks about is lighting up.

No wonder. A 2016 study in the UK found that quitting smoking is “the most difficult resolution to keep”. Of those who resolved to quit, only four percent were completely off cigarettes a year later.

But when Khatri developed ulcer­ative colitis, an inflammatory bowel disease, in January this year, he slowly started cutting down on his daily cigarette consumption. He started new work and says it took his mind off smoking. Yet he still smokes with friends. “Per­haps 2020 will be the year I quit for good,” he hopes.

Another smoker, Salina Shakya, 30, has also thought of quitting “hun­dreds of times” since 2009 when she started. But she could not go even a day without it. Shakya even bought a vape to help her quit but it was of no help. “Perhaps because my vape didn’t have nicotine,” she muses. Shakya currently has at least six cigarettes a day. “Quitting is diffi­cult but not impossible. Maybe I am not trying hard enough,” she says.

Smoking Facts

• Leads to disease and disability and harms nearly every organ of the body.
• For every person who dies because of smoking, at least 30 people live with a serious smoking-related illness.
• Smoking causes cancer, heart disease, stroke, lung diseas­es, diabetes, and chronic obstructive pulmonary dis­ease (COPD), which includes emphysema and chronic bronchitis.
• Smoking also increases risk for tuberculosis, certain eye diseases, and problems of the immune system, includ­ing rheumatoid arthritis.
• Smoking is a known cause of erectile dysfunction in males.
• Worldwide, tobacco use causes more than 7 million deaths per year.
• On average, smokers die 10 years earlier than non­smokers.

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

What happens when you quit smoking?

• Just 12 hours without a cigarette, the carbon monoxide level returns to normal, increas­ing the body’s oxygen levels.
• One day after quitting smok­ing, a person’s blood pressure begins to drop, decreasing the risk of heart disease from smoking-induced high blood pressure.
• Two days after quit­ting, a person may notice a heightened sense of smell and more vivid tastes as nerves endings heal.
• Around three days after quitting, most peo­ple will experience moodiness and irritability, severe head­aches, and cravings as the body readjusts to depleted nicotine levels.
• After a month, athletic endur­ance increases and former smokers may notice a renewed ability for cardiovascular activities, such as running and jumping.
• One year after quitting smok­ing, a person’s risk for coronary heart disease decreases by half.
• After 10 years, a person’s chances of developing lung cancer and dying from it are roughly cut in half compared with someone who continues to smoke. The likelihood of developing mouth, throat, or pancreatic cancer will be signifi­cantly reduced.
• After 15 years of having quit smoking, the likelihood of develop­ing coronary heart disease and pancreatic cancer is the equivalent of a non-smoker.
• After 20 years, the risk of death from smoking-related causes, including both lung disease and cancer, drops to the level of a person who has never smoked in their life.

Source: Medical News Toda

Distant death

Smoking is among the top three preventable causes of death around the world—a fact most smokers are aware of. Yet most of them still feel helpless.

Archana Bibhor, a psychothera­pist, says there is a psychological reason why people cannot give up smoking. Some are unable to deal with their pain, problems or their emotions and try to find an easy way out, adds Bibhor. Cigarettes are readily available and their negative effects cannot be seen right away. “Slowly, they become dependent,” Bibhor says.

When people give up smoking, they often have to deal with the pain they had been avoiding, says Bibhor. “Unable to deal with the problem, they relapse. And the cycle contin­ues,” she adds.

Those who have emotional bag­gage, have been through trauma, have unstable relationships or careers are more likely to relapse than those who have healthy rela­tionships and feel like they have more control over their lives. “Dif­ferent folks perceive problems differently. Even a small problem can feel like a big deal to some, or vice-versa,” says Bibhor.

For Sabin Pradhan, 25, smoking is a “stress-buster”. He has tried to (unsuccessfully) quit smoking 10 times. In 2013, he used to smoke more than a pack of cigarettes a day. “If I don’t smoke, I get irritated and cranky,” he says. “As my close friends smoke it is hard for me to give up.” Both at the start of 2017 and 2018, his New Year resolution was to quit smoking. Asked if his 2020 resolution is again going to be the same, he says he will never again tell anyone out loud he wants to quit smoking. “I will do it without making a fuss.”

Pradhan wanted to give up smok­ing because he was losing stamina and felt like an “old man”. Some think smoking is cool but once you are hooked, it is hard to give up, he says. “To give up smoking, it is important to have something to distract yourself with or to keep you busy.”

Bibhor, the psychotherapist, stresses that factors such as finance, health, relationship and career also matter when a person tries to quit. Many of her clients promise to quit smoking from New Year, birthday or a particular occasion. Yet they are often unwilling to make the effort. “They just feel like the problem will solve itself,” she says. “Unfortunately, there is no easy way out.”

‘Just do it’

In her long experience Bibhor has found that people who want­ed to give up smoking and started making an effort to stop immediate­ly have been more successful. “You do not have to wait for New Year,” she says.

Take Nikhil Tuladhar, 42, a chron­ic smoker who has not had a ciga­rette in the past 11 years. Tuladhar started smoking when he was just 17 and used to smoke as many as 30 cigarettes a day. “In the 14 years that I smoked, I never thought of quitting even once, until one day,” says Tuladhar, a musician and music teacher. He was at a concert and found himself huffing and puffing from a mix of cold and dust—and all those cigarettes, he reckoned. That day, he decided he would quit. For a week, even when he was at work, the only thing on his mind was a cigarette. But when a week passed, he felt like he could do it.

“I did not realize the negative impact smoking was having on my health,” says Tuladhar. He shares that once he quit smoking, “it was easier to breathe”. His stami­na increased and he had fewer stomach upsets. He says that if he had tried to slowly cut down on cigarettes, he might still be smoking today. “If you want to quit, just do it,” he advises.