You don't need to be told that smoking is bad for you health, but as obvious as it may seem, it's a good question: Why should you quit smoking?
In order to answer that question however, you need to ask yourself some other questions first.
Why do you continue smoking? If you have a good idea of the reasons why you smoke, you'll be in a better position to tackle them when you decide to quit. Do you smoke because all your pals smoke when you're at the pub? If so, that's something you'll need to address when you quit smoking. If you find that it's tough not to smoke when all your friends are smoking, explain to your friends that you have quit smoking and that you'd rather stay inside for a few minutes when they go outside to smoke. If you don't want to do this, try some NiQuitin Lozenges or Gum - when your friends are all going for a cigarette, you can join them but have a lozenge or gum instead.
Now think about the last time you had a cigarette: How did you get to the place you were? Did you have to go outside? Did you have to leave the room? Did you have to go to the shops to buy another pack?
Now think about why you did those things: Did you fancy a walk to the shops or nipping outside to stand in the open air? Or was it your craving for nicotine that made you do it?
There's one answer why you should quit smoking: The nicotine is in control.
You also have the financial implications of smoking. Do you want more spare cash? - at £5 for a pack of cigarettes, you're burning an awful lot of money each time you light up. You can use this to your advantage however, by creating an incentive to stop by measuring how much you can save by quitting - if you smoke 20 cigarettes per day, that's almost £2,000 a year which you could spend elsewhere.
Last but definitely not least, there are the health problems associated with smoking - if you want to leave these behind, you'll need to quit smoking, sooner rather than later. Lung cancer, heart disease; these are fatal illnesses which are caused by smoking. When you stop, your health will start improving almost immediately.
If you want to find out exactly what will happen to your body from the moment you quit, see our article on What Happens When You Quit Smoking...
