Cognitive Quit Smoking

2 Responses to “am quitting but it’s hard”

1. Scottie Salazar Says:
   June 21st, 2007 at 2:51 pm

   Hi Bluejeansbabe,
   I remember the early difficult days of my own quit, over a year and a
   half ago. Have you looked through the information on the cognitive
   quitting website? One of the most helpful things to my quit was taking
   the time to really commit to the foundation statements I found there.
   Once I had truly commited to the reality that smoking a cigarette
   wouldn’t make anything in my life better and was not an appropriate
   response to any circumstance in my life, a lot of the agony was gone. I
   didn’t need to hang on tight and battle increasing cravings, I simply
   needed to find an alternate, more helpful response to whatever was
   needed in the moment. This helped me to successfully negotiate my
   Mother’s illness and death by lung cancer during the first four months
   of my quit.
   The early physical symptoms can be a challenge, but they don’t last
   forever, and there are ways to manage. I found exercise (even something
   
   as fast and simple as several quick trips up and down stairs) to be a
   wonderful way to fight anxiety, reduce stress, energize myself, and
   distract until the temporary urge to smoke had passed.
   Good for you for taking the steps to a healthier life.
   -Marki
   PS Have you thought about which benefits of being a non smoker are most
   important to you?

2. Kelvin Janessa Says:
   June 22nd, 2007 at 1:48 pm

   HI Sandra,
   I completely understand what you’re saying about reading all sorts of
   material and not finding anything that works.
   This may sound harsh, but you’re not likely to read anything that will
   work. The reason is that reading or just thinking alone will not change a
   habit. The only way to change it is to actively get involved with it.
   That’s why we push you to set a timer and start to discover the body cues
   that are connected to smoking. Sandra, you have to ‘do’ something for
   change to start to happen. The timer is one of the easiest things to do…
   no drugs, no cost, nothing more than a 60 second time out once an
   hour. That’s less time than it takes to smoke a cigarette.
   It’s up to you to take that first step and I know how hard that can be.
   Most of us have stood where you’re standing, trying to get it together to
   just start. One way is to let your alarm in the morning be the thing that
   gets you started. When it goes off, set your timer for an hour later and
   
   take 60 seconds to check in with your body. You’ll probably notice stiff
   and achy, a bit of foggy headed as you’ve just woken up, and maybe some
   hunger. If you start taking little steps to deal with the body cues you
   notice, you’ll dramatically reduce the struggle involved in quitting.
   You’ll see that it has less to do with will power and more to do with
   understanding and then simply acting on that understanding.
   What do you say? Give it try?
   If I can be of any help, please contact me at Steve@…
   Steve

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