Your family has begged you to give up cigarettes. Your doctor says that if you don’t, you could suffer serious health consequences. Your insurance company dangles a discount in front of you to get you to quit. So, why haven’t more people quit yet? It is time to quit smoking for good, so use the following tips to help you give up the habit.

Using some type of nicotine replacement is a good way to slowly ease your addiction to smoking when you’re trying to quit. Nicotine replacements come in many forms, including lozenges, gum, and patches that can be worn on the body. These products give your body a small dose of nicotine, which eases cravings for using tobacco products.

Keep a cold glass or bottle of ice water nearby at all times. When you get a craving for a cigarette, take a sip of water–even if this means you hardly put the bottle down at first. This gives you something to do with your hands and mouth, and it can be a useful way to prevent snacking, too.

If you want to quit smoking, you need to identify factors that will motivate you to stop. Preventing lung cancer, tooth decay, gum disease and emphysema, or protecting your family are strong motivators. Showing respect for your body and for the gift of life is also a powerful motivating force. Whatever reason you choose, it needs to be enough to prevent you from lighting up again in the future.

Stop smoking to benefit your loved ones, and their health. They are probably exposed to your secondhand smoke, and this can cause breathing and health problems. So by choosing to quit smoking you not only lessen the risk of you getting a type of disease, or other kind of illness, but you also reduce the chance that a loved one will too. Not only will you be saving your own life, you will be keeping your loved ones healthy.

Blow off some steam to keep yourself from blowing smoke. One of the most effective ways for you to work through nicotine cravings is to exercise. As an added bonus, you will feel the effects of your improving health more readily if you subsidize quitting smoking with a more rigorous exercise routine.

You should commit fully in your effort to quit smoking. If you have failed before, you likely did not fully want to quit smoking. While quitting for the benefits is compelling enough, you should find better motivators to fuel your efforts. You will find yourself more successful in the long run.

Have alternate coping mechanisms in place to deal with the stress that you used handle by smoking before you attempt to quit. Avoid as many stressful situations as possible in the early stages of your attempt to quit. Soothing music, yoga and massage can help you deal with any stress you do encounter.

Increasing the amount of exercise you do can help you quit smoking. Exercise not only distracts you from smoking, but it also helps to reverse all the damage you have done to your body over the years by smoking cigarettes. Start slowly if you have to, and gradually increase the amount of exercise you do each day.

If you are trying to quit with the use of crutches such as patches and medication, then you need to be careful. When you begin taking in these other substances, you are in turn putting yourself at risk of developing a new dangerous addiction. Be careful when you begin your quitting crutches.

Avoid dieting when trying to quit smoking. A lot of aspiring quitters try to diet while quitting so they can avoid the supposedly inevitable weight gain. However, in doing so, they’re depriving their bodies of too much at once and they wind up relapsing. This just means gaining weight, while they’re still smoking.

Consult your doctor about quitting. Your doctor can prescribe smoking cessation aids such as nicotine gum or nicotine patches. In addition, your doctor may know some strategies for controlling cravings that you don’t know. He can help you create a plan to stop smoking as well as monitoring your health while you work on quitting.

If you are thinking about quitting smoking, it is extremely important to have a plan. One of the most important parts of this plan is setting a “quit date.” This is the date when you plan to completely stop smoking. Whether you want to quit cold turkey or ease your way into it, having a specific date when you want to be done smoking will help you stay on track.

Now you have some good information to help you kick the habit, and get healthy. Stopping your cigarette habit will allow you to be happier, healthier, and you will live longer too. Use the money you are saving to treat yourself and your family to something special.

Quickly Quit Smoking By Using This Advice was originally published on Spring