Reasons Why To Quit Smoking

There are many reasons why to quit smoking, which we will go into on the rest of this web page, but the main ones are the chronic adverse effects that tobacco smoke has on your health and the health of all those around you. Most people are aware of the reasons why to quit smoking on a personal level, even smokers, but fewer people, especially smokers, understand or accept the damage that secondhand tobacco smoke does to others. This is the phenomenon called passive smoking and it can kill too.

Reasons Why To Quit Smoking

The full list of reasons to quit smoking is very long and outside the scope of this web page, but we can look at the most serious reasons to quit and those that you might not be aware of:

1. Smoking causes serious, chronic diseases such as lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, cancer of the stomach, colon and cervix. Smoking also causes coronary heart disease and various problems with the blood including high blood pressure, which can cause heart attacks. The chances of smokers getting a heart attack are treble those of non-smokers.
2. Smoking can affect memory loss. Studies have shown that smoking in middle age can cause a slowdown in thinking powers. It is also known that a slowdown in thinking powers in middle age is a warning sign for Alzheimer's. Elderly smokers are more at risk of dementia too.
3. Smoking the nicotine in cigarettes causes rheumatoid arthritis and other problems with joints and bones.
4. Smoking brings a higher chance of developing type II diabetes. Smokers have a 44% higher chance of getting diabetes in later life and it has been calculated that about 12% of all cases of type II diabetes are attributable to smoking.
5. Smoking causes cardiovascular disease, which results in high blood pressure and less blood reaching the extremities. Poor circulation of blood to the extremities means a lack of oxygen, which means tiredness and lack of energy and can mean erectile dysfunction in men.
6. Smoking affects your looks. It has a serious drying effect on the skin, which causes wrinkling.
7. Smoking causes house fires, which kill people. Houses with smokers living in them are 6-7 times more likely to catch fire than other homes. About 55% of deaths in household fires are due to cigarette smoking.
8. Smoking causes nicotine addiction, so when you go to sleep your body goes through symptoms of nicotine withdrawal, one of which may affect the amount of benefit you derive from sleeping.
9. Smoking causes early death. Even if you escape death by a serious disease, the poisons in tobacco smoke cause an early death. Smokers die ten years earlier than non-smokers on average.
10. Smoking affects your sense of smell, so non-smokers appreciate their food, drink and garden more than smokers. Many of the tastes that we say we like are actually smells which we have associated with eating (tasting) a particular foodstuff.
11. Smoking is very expensive, so not smoking will release more of your money for you to spend on leisure. You will also pay far less tax, which is often the highest part of the cost of cigarettes.
12. Smoking causes problems for non-smokers that associate with you. Smokers cause the deaths of innocent non-smokers, when they light up in the home, the car, the office, a pub or a restaurant. Passive smoking has also been suggested as a cause of sudden infant death syndrome.

If you disagree or disbelieve any of the above reasons why to quit smoking, you can easily verify them with a search online, but most of them are pretty straight forward and well documented.

Besides the above, you may have your own reasons why to quit smoking like a desire to do more sport or stop your spouse and friends nagging you.

Whatever your reasons why to quit smoking, go along to your medical doctor for help to stop smoking tomorrow and start healthy living again.