Home > The OK Vape Information Hub > OK Vape News & Updates > How to Quit Smoking This New Year and Switch to Vaping

OK Vape News & Updates

How to Quit Smoking This New Year and Switch to Vaping

Quit Smoking for the New Year
Table of Contents
    Add a header to begin generating the table of contents

    As we head into a new year, many of us see an opportunity for a fresh start and feel invigorated to make changes to improve our health and happiness. Along with eating healthier and losing weight, New Year's resolutions to quit smoking are amongst the top 10 resolutions each year. There is no New Year's resolution more worthwhile - or more likely to bring about tangible, long-term change in your life - than quitting smoking. The challenge, of course, is actually doing it.

    Keep reading to find out more about the effects of quitting smoking and to explore some of the most common new year's resolution quit smoking methods.

    Why Quitting Smoking is the Best Thing You Can do for Your Health

    According to a 2016 survey conducted by the Royal Society for Public Health, quitting smoking is by far the most difficult New Year's resolution to keep. If you make a resolution to quit smoking via traditional means, there is an 87 percent chance that you will be smoking again by the end of the year. Those aren't very good odds.

    If you are a smoker, you already know that quitting is the best thing that you can do to improve your day-to-day life and your long-term health outlook. On average, a non-smoker lives about 10 years longer than a smoker - and that's not all. Think about how much better those latter years will be when you don't have cigarettes siphoning away your retirement savings!

    What Happens When You Quit Smoking?

    Quitting smoking greatly benefits your body in ways you might not have even imagined, take a look below at how your body starts to repair itself once you quit.

    Inside 6 Hours
    Inside 1 Day
    Inside 1 Week
    Inside 2 Months
    Inside 6 Months
    After 1 Year
    Inside 2 to 5 Years
    After 10 Years
    After 15 Years

    Your heart rate will begin to slow back to a normal rhythm, and your blood pressure (which spikes when you smoke a cigarette) starts to decrease.

    Nearly all of the chemicals are out of your bloodstream, and the level of carbon monoxide in your blood has reduced dramatically.

    Your sense of taste and smell may well improve, and the natural cleaning system found in your lungs is starting to recover.

    You will find yourself coughing and wheezing much less, and your immune system has started on the road to recovery.

    Your lungs are working much more efficiently, and you will find yourself producing much less phlegm.

    Your lungs are now much healthier and you’ll find yourself breathing much easier.

    There is a huge drop in your risk of suffering a stroke or a heart attack.

    Your risk of lung cancer is much lower than that of someone who is a continuing smoker.

    The chances of you suffering from a stroke or a heart attacked are now extremely close to that of a person who has never smoked.

    How to Quit Smoking

    Quitting smoking for your new year's resolution is going to take a good deal of willpower, but preparation and commitment are also vital to your success. Most smokers will be wanting to know how to quit smoking easily, but there is no sugar coating the fact that ditching cigarettes is not a walk in the park. There are, however, lots of tools and plenty of support for those that are committed to quit.

    Below are some of the most popular methods and tools for giving up cigarettes.

    Going Cold Turkey

    Regarded as one of the toughest ways to quit, going cold turkey takes a huge amount of willpower. If you're very committed and want to ditch nicotine completely, this could be the option for you.

    Using Nicotine Replacement Therapy

    Nicotine replacement therapies (or 'NRTs') are widely available and can be up to 60% more effective than going 'cold turkey'. These tools offer an alternative method of absorbing nicotine; the addictive substance in cigarettes. There are various NRT's including nicotine patches, gums, and inhalers, so smokers can experiment with each type to see which suits them best.

    Hypnotherapy

    Alternative therapies as a method to quit smoking have proven successful for some smokers. There is, however, little evidence that hypnotherapy increases the success rate of quitting versus other methods.

    Stop Smoking Services

    The NHS offers local stop smoking services that provide advice and support and can also prescribe medicines to help you quit. Alongside the use of stop smoking treatments, those who utilise these services are up to three times more likely to quit for good.

    Switching to Vaping

    E-cigarettes are the only alternative to cigarettes that not only provide nicotine replacement, but also imitate the physical sensations of smoking. This is likely the reason that vaping has has double the success rate compared to other nicotine replacement therapies and is now the most popular method to quit smoking. Vaping also allows you to reduce the amount of nicotine over time, helping to ease withdrawal symptoms.

    There is nothing better that you can do for your health than to quit smoking entirely. However, if the idea of going 'cold turkey' feels like an impossible challenge, Public Health England maintain that e-cigarettes are around 95% less harmful than tobacco.

    What is Vaping?

    When you vape, you use an e-cigarette containing a battery to heat a flavoured, nicotine-infused liquid called 'e-liquid', until it turns to vapour. You inhale the vapour as if it were smoke, and you absorb the nicotine through your lungs.

    There are a huge variety of vape starter kits available to suit all budgets. These range from cigarette-style kits that look very similar to traditional cigarettes, to pod vape kits that offer a wider choice of flavours and longer battery life.

    What is vaping?

    How Vaping is Different to Other Smoking Replacement Methods?

    Like vaping, nicotine products such as patches, gums and lozenges replace the nicotine that you would get from smoking. If you've tried those products, though, you know that nicotine replacement isn't a very satisfying way to quit smoking. Your body still gets the nicotine, but your lungs and throat continue to crave the physical sensation of smoking. You'll still feel irritable, and you'll still crave cigarettes. That's why the success rate among those who try to quit smoking with traditional nicotine replacement products is only about 15 percent.

    Vaping doesn't just replace the nicotine that you get from smoking; it also replaces the physical sensation that you get when you inhale nicotine into your lungs. Vaping isn't the same as smoking, but you'll find that it feels very similar. Vaping also replaces the hand-to-mouth ritual of smoking. One of the things that makes quitting difficult for many people is that, without reaching for a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, they're no longer sure what to do with their hands. Many people find that those features make vaping a far better aid for smoking cessation than anything else.

    What Vaping Isn't....

    We've already explained what vaping is: It's a replacement for the physical sensations, the rituals and the nicotine of smoking. No other smoking cessation aid has those same features. Next, let's learn about what vaping isn't.

    Vaping doesn't replace the flavour of tobacco smoke because e-liquid contains no tobacco and doesn't burn. Although you'll find many tobacco flavour e-liquids, there's nothing that can replace the flavour of smoke. The other side of that equation, though, is that no tobacco cigarette can replace the infinite variety of flavour combinations possible with e-liquid. A cigarette can't taste like a bowl of cereal, a cup of coffee, an ice cream cone or a fruity hard candy. You can experience all of those flavours - and many, many more - when you vape.

    The other key way in which vaping differs from smoking is that vaping only delivers the nicotine of smoking; it doesn't replace the thousands of other known chemicals in cigarette smoke. Even though you'll still get the nicotine when you switch to vaping, it may be a couple of days before your body rids itself of the other chemicals you consume when you smoke. Since you'll still enjoy the sensations and rituals of smoking, though, you may find the transition easier than with other nicotine replacement methods.

    Is Your New Year's Resolution to Quit Smoking?

    As you will have discovered in this article, there is nothing better you can do for your health than quitting smoking, and you will soon begin to experience the benefits. If you decide to make the switch to vaping, make sure that you research the different types of vapes and e-cigarettes to help you get off to a smooth start.

    Whichever method you choose, remember to be prepared and reach out for support in order to have the very best chance of success.

    Categories

    Recent Posts

    Shopping Basket
    Scroll to Top