Every year, more than 3000 non-smokers develop lung cancer, which is caused by passive or secondhand smoke. Besides causing lung cancer, secondhand smoke is also responsible for a host of physical conditions, including cervical cancers, nasal sinus cavity cancer, lung disorders and breathing problems.
It’s your responsibility to help nonsmokers live
A majority of smokers do not care much about their own health. But that is by no means an excuse to keep on smoking and polluting the environment which is shared by so many non-smokers. Tobacco smoke contains more than 4000 toxic and harmful substances that can severely damage the health of passive smokers. The risk of passive smoking is too much to ignore when it comes to pregnancy. It’s been reported that women who smoke during pregnancy are more likely to give birth to stillborn babies, compared to non-smoking mothers. Worse still, sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is more prevalent in babies who have been exposed to cigarette smoke during pregnancy.
Protect others’ hearts
Passive smokers face an increased risk of heart diseases, including chronic coronary heart disease, stroke, atherosclerosis, and heart attack.
How to quit smoking
It is not easy to stop smoking with willpower alone. If you have been smoking for a long time you will me more dependent on nicotine for a number of reasons. Nicotine can provide certain pleasurable effects which often help smokers deal with anxiety, tension and stress in a better and more relaxed way. Besides, nicotine dependency is not a short-term process. Just as it takes time to get reliant on cigarettes, it may take longer to reverse that reliance and be able live without tobacco smoke. So your first step toward quitting should be to carefully estimate your level of dependency on nicotine. A professional counselor may help you determine this after evaluating the number of cigarettes you smoke every day.
The next step towards smoking cessation is medical treatment. Quit smoking pills such as Champix (varenicline) may be of great help in quitting. This medicine can help you overcome the withdrawal symptoms that you are likely to experience for a few days after you quit smoking. Varenicline tartrate, the active ingredient in Champix, also helps in killing the feeling of satisfaction you get after smoking. This way it can help you grow averse to cigarettes and reduce the number of smoke you have every day.
How to start treatment
Champix is a prescription medicine, so you must consult a doctor to find out if you can take it as a stop smoking treatment. Never buy it without a valid prescription as doing so may put your health at risk. After you have been prescribed this medicine, set a quit date and start taking it a week before that date. It will make sure that you do not have to stop smoking overnight, which will have less psychological impact on you. By the time you will approach your preset quit date, the medicine will start to have its effects on your body, which may make it easy for you to quit without much discomfort. Always seek help and support from your friends and family members who do not smoke and do not like you to smoke. It will motivate you to quit soon, so that you can start living a healthy life and let others live happily.