Every year on May 31, the World Health Organisation marks World No Tobacco Day. This day is intended to be a 24-hour period of abstinence from all forms of tobacco consumption, across the globe.
The adverse effects of smoking are well documented, so I wont go into them here in any detail. From links to many forms of cancer ( particularly lung cancer, kidney cancer, cancer of the larynx and head and neck, breast cancer, bladder cancer, cancer of the oesophagus, cancer of the pancreas, stomach cancer and oral ), to non cancerous diseases such as emphysema and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, various heart and renal diseases and a whole slew of other problems, there are few things that we humans do to ourselves that cause more problems than smoking.
And probably the worst part is that smoking is so damn hard to quit. Once you are hooked, the physical and psychological addiction to smoking combine to make it a particularly hard habit to break. I know from experience: whilst I have not smoked for over 20 years, it took me 3 attempts to finally kick the habit.
The tobacco companies know this as well: that is why they put so much effort into getting people to take up the habit while they are young. In countries where tobacco advertising is still allowed, the focus of the advertising is to make smoking attractive to young people.
As a result, the WHO has chosen the theme for this years World No Tobacco Day to be “Ban tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship”. Smoking currently kills nearly 6 million people each year, and 1 in 10 of those people are non-smokers killed by second hand smoke. It is well known that tobacco advertising increases tobacco use, so eliminating all forms of advertising and promotion will have a flow on effect of reducing the number of smokers, both by reducing the number of people who take up the habit in the fist place, and by removing part of the attraction for current smokers to continue. And less smokers means less problems caused by smoking, less preventable disease and less strain on the health system.
But quitting isn’t easy. We know that, otherwise, everyone who wanted to would do it.
How do you quit?
Speaking from my experience; start small, have a plan, and pick the battles that you can win. Participating in the World No Tobacco Day is a great way to start small. If you don’t think that you can manage to quit forever, see if you can manage just 1 day without a cigarette. It’s not that hard, really, and you’ve got a couple of weeks to plan for it. Take a few minutes to plan what you will do when you get the urge to smoke. I found that just doing something that occupied my hands was helpful: it stopped me thinking about the cigarette, and gave my fingers something to do. Try following the 3 step plan like this one.
Remember, if you can quit for one day, you can quit forever. Because not smoking for 20 years is just the same as not smoking for 1 day, just doing it 7,300 times.
