Ten unusual quit smoking tips

Tired of the same old quitting tips? How will you navigate the up to 72 hours needed to reach peak withdrawal and again reside inside a nicotine free body? The below cold turkey quitting tips are vastly different from the advice rendered by those advocating the use of weeks or months of nicotine replacement products.

1. The Law of Addiction - "Administration of a drug to an addict will cause re-establishment of chemical dependence upon the addictive substance at the old level of use or greater." Yes, just one powerful puff of nicotine and all your hard work is down the drain. Adherence to just one rule guarantees success to all ... Never Take Another Puff.

Nicotine rewired your brain, growing millions of nicotinic receptors in eleven different regions. Although your mind's nicotine induced dopamine/adrenaline intoxication is an alert high, your chemical dependency is every bit as real and permanent as alcoholism. Treating a true addiction as though it were some nasty little habit is a recipe for relapse. There is no such thing as just one puff. Nicotine dependency recovery truly is an all or nothing proposition.

2. Measuring Victory - Forget about quitting "forever." Like attempting the seemingly impossible task of eating an entire elephant, it's the biggest psychological bite imaginable. Instead, work hard at adopting a realistic and do-able victory yardstick that celebrates freedom an hour, challenge and day at a time. If you insist on seeing success only in terms of quitting forever then on which day will you celebrate?

3. Emotional Phases - Chemical dependency upon smoking nicotine is one of the most intense, repetitive and dependable relationships you've likely ever known. It has infected almost every aspect of your life and thinking. Be prepared to experience a normal sense of emotional loss when quitting that gradually transports you through six very different phases: (1) denial, (2) anger, (3) bargaining, (4) depression, (5) acceptance, and (6) complacency. This emotional journey is normal and a necessary part of recovery.

4. Do Not Skip Meals - Each puff of nicotine was your spoon releasing stored fats and sugars into your bloodstream. It allowed you to skip meals without experiencing wild blood-sugar swing symptoms such as an inability to concentrate or hunger related anxieties. Don't add needless symptoms to withdrawal but instead learn to spread your normal daily calorie intake out more evenly over the entire day. Don't eat more food but less food more often.

Drink plenty of acidic fruit juice the first three days. Cranberry is excellent and a bottle will cost you about the same as a pack of cigarettes. It will help to both accelerate the up to 72 hours needed to remove the alkaloid nicotine from your body and help stabilize blood sugars. Take care beyond three days as juices can be rather fattening.

5. Avoid All Crutches - A crutch is any form of quitting reliance that you lean upon so heavily in supporting recovery that if quickly removed would likely result in relapse (a person, product, service or activity). If you feel the need to lean upon a quitting buddy be sure that your buddy is either a sturdy long-time ex-smoker or a never-smoker.

With the exception of using extreme care with alcohol during early withdrawal, you do not need to give up any activity when quitting except for using nicotine. Likewise, successful long-term quitting is not dependent upon you engaging in any new activity either. Contrary to the junkie-thinking you've likely fed your mind, everything you did as a smoker you'll soon adjust to doing as well or better as an ex-smoker.

6. Crave Coping Techniques - You have conditioned your mind to expect the arrival of nicotine when encountering various times, places, activities, people, events or emotions. The first time you encounter each crave trigger you should expect a short yet possibly powerful anxiety episode lasting up to three minutes.

Don't fear or hide from your triggers but confront and extinguish each of them. You'll find that most are re-conditioned by a single encounter during which the subconscious mind does not receive the expected result - nicotine. Welcome and embrace every episode as each reflects a beautiful moment of subconscious healing, and the reclaiming of another aspect of your life.

Average number of craves per day

One crave coping technique is to practice slow deep breathing while clearing your mind of all needless chatter by focusing on your favorite person, place or thing. Another is to say your ABCs while associating each letter with your favorite food, person or place. For example, "A" is for grandma's hot apple pie, and "B" is for ..." It's doubtful you'll ever reach the challenging letter "Q."

7. Cessation Time Distortion - A recent study found that nicotine cessation causes significant time distortion. Although no subconsciously triggered crave episode will last longer than three minutes, to a quitter the minutes can feel like hours. Keep a clock handy to maintain honest perspective.

8. Caffeine/Nicotine Interaction - Amazingly, nicotine somehow doubles the rate by which the body depletes caffeine. Yes, your blood-serum caffeine level will double if no caffeine intake reduction is made when quitting. Although not a problem for most light to moderate caffeine users, consider cutting caffeine intake by roughly half if troubled by anxieties or experiencing difficulty relaxing or sleeping.

9. The Smoking Dream - Be prepared for an extremely vivid smoking dream as tobacco odors released by horizontal healing lungs are swept up bronchial tubes by rapidly healing cilia and come in contact with a vastly enhanced sense of smell. See it as the wonderful sign of healing it reflects and nothing more.

10. Relapse - Remember that there are only two good reasons to take a puff once you quit. You decide you want to go back to your old level of consumption until smoking cripples and then kills you, or you decide you really enjoy withdrawal and you want to make it last forever. As long as neither of these options appeals to you the solution is as simple as ... no nicotine just one day at a time, Never Take Another Puff!

Benefits of Quitting Smoking

Benefits of quitting smoking are many. If you quit smoking then there will be considerable minimization in the risk involved due to cancer, heart disease and other deadly diseases. Earlier you use to get tired up easily, but now you have more power. You will also gain resistance from cough, cold and flu.

Another benefit of quitting smoking will also save the money, which you were burning to destroy your health. Nicotine will show its effects in the initial phases of quitting smoking. It would be almost impossible to handle this temptation of nicotine.

However, try to divert your mind. You will also have to face the withdrawal symptoms like headache, irritation and coughing. All these are positive signs of quitting smoking. Drink water to avoid them and make your hands and mouth busy.

You may feel anxiety during the initial phases of quitting smoking. To get rid of anxiety, do not opt to take caffeine drinks, instead inhale deep breaths and go for walk. Exercise is the best way to handle the problem.
Another important one of the benefits of quitting smoking is that carbon monoxide (CO) level in your blood will minimize and there will be considerable increment of oxygen level.

Your skin will turn pink and there will be glow at your face. Your heartbeat will be normal and lungs become clearer. If you are not smoking for a year or two, your risk to heart attack gradually decreases.

Look out for a friend interested in getting rid of it, to make it more interesting. Both of you can do wonders. Always try to avoid places that encourage smoking. Many people usually put on a lot of weight after quitting smoking. Go for exercise program, eat healthy food and improve your way of living to avoid weight gained.

Some drugs can replace the harmful nicotine. But, it should not be taken without the advice of Doctor, for instance Bupropion, Nicotine inhaler, Nicotine gum, and Nicotine nasal spray. These drugs will surely helpful in quitting smoking

Quit Smoking Tips:

* Firstly, you need a firm determination to quit smoking. When you have determined firmly to quit smoking, and then decide a date. Now, from this particular date, you will firmly determine to quit smoking.
* As the date of quitting is nearing, try to reduce the cigarette intake and the conditions when you smoke. Take a glass jar, fill it with water and drop all the butts of cigarette into it.
* For a smoker, smoking is one of the essentials. Now you have decided to quit smoking and to attain the quitting, try some other work at the time of smoking.
* In your free time, try to concentrate on the advantages after you quit smoking cigarette.

7 Days Stop Smoking Program

The first thing to do is set a date when you are going to stop smoking. Let’s start one week from today. That will give you plenty of time to practice with the weapons in your arsenal. Eight days from today, it will be the beginning of the end of your smoking habit.

Days 1 and 2

Examine your smoking behavior for the first two days. Every time you light up, ask yourself:

1. Why am I smoking this cigarette?
2. Would this be an easy one or a difficult one to do without?
3. If I did not smoke this cigarette, what would I do instead?

Day 3

Let’s get out and test your weapons today.

At least once today, use your weapons to shoot down the urge to smoke.

During the five minutes that it will take for the urge to pass, try out some of your arsenal. Try one, or all, or find a combination that works for you.

Day 4

Today is the big testing day. If you haven’t already tried it, skip those one or two cigarettes that you feel may be the toughest to give up in your daily routine. Pick the ones that you rated “difficult” during your monitoring period.

Remember, this is a practice period, and you must not get upset if you are unable to give up a difficult cigarette. You must practice and experiment with your different weapons to realize how you can be more effective.

If you found skipping that cigarette very hard or even failed in the end, review any factor that got in the way of your success. The most common causes of difficulty or failure that a potential quitter faces are:

Chemical properties of addiction

When you do not have that cigarette, you feel lousy. If you are a heavy smoker, a nicotine patch may help to relieve your bad feelings.

Social pressures

You may find yourself in a situation like, card game, party, coffee break during which you would normally smoke. It may help to let others know of your desire to stop smoking, and also your reasons to stop smoking.

Enlisting the aid of a non smoker to confide in may also help. Make sure that he or she is aware of your goals so that they do not say or do anything to instill a negative impact on your desire to stop smoking.

If you feel that you may not resist the social pressures of smoking, consider the option of giving up these social encounters for two or three weeks until the urge passes and you can be comfortable again.

Tension and negative emotion

A crisis occurs during your work or personal day, and one of the main reasons for you to smoke has been tension reduction. Try to deal with your negative emotions and use the tension reducing methods that we talked about earlier.

Get away from the area that the tension is associated with. Take a walk, or go to another room. You may also find that nicotine gum will give you enough tension relief to get through.

Days 5, 6, and 7

You are now heading down the home stretch. In the next three days, your goal is to come out of this week smoking half the cigarettes that you would normally smoke. If you started as a one pack a day smoker, cut back to ten cigarettes per day, or less.

The fewer the better

During days 5 and 6, set your goals toward achieving positive results on day 7. Maintain your smoking record during these three days, and continue to decrease your dependency on nicotine.

What do you do if you still have doubts? This is probably due to your chemical dependency on nicotine. It is a highly powerful drug, and many factors have been working together to make you dependent.

Discuss with your doctor about the feasibility of a patch or nicotine gum. Nicotine is the hook that has gotten you to smoke which carries the harmful effects to your body. With the help from the patch or the gum, you will have all he tools you need to successfully quit.

The nicotine patch or gum will give you a steady influx of nicotine into your system, which will be reduced slowly over a period of several weeks. Do not smoke while on the nicotine patch. You could experience a dangerous overdose of nicotine.

What You Can Eat

	Food Groups	Enjoy Adequate Amounts Of	Limit
	Grains	Breads, brown and regular rice, ready-to-eat flaky whole grain cereals, pasta, oats, tortillas, pita bread	Baked goods made with heart-unhealthy fat (See Fats & Oils below)
	Vegetables	All fresh, frozen, and canned vegetables	Vegetables topped with cream sauces, whole milk cheese, and butter
	Fruits	All fresh, frozen, and canned fruits	Fruits topped with cream
	Dairy Foods	Nonfat and low fat milk and yogurt, reduced and low fat cheeses, and light ice cream	Whole milk, 2 percent milk, whole milk cheeses, and full fat ice cream
	Meats & Meat Alternatives	Lean cuts of meats, such as tenderloin, sirloin, round, and lean or extra lean ground beef, turkey, or chicken, low fat luncheon meats and hot dogs, dried peas and beans, skinless poultry, fish, beans, tofu, peanut butter, nuts, egg whites, and egg substitutes (Keep meat, poultry, and fish to about six ounces daily)	Fatty cuts of meat such as untrimmed meats, hot dogs, sausages, and bacon, excessive egg yolks*, organ meats (liver), poultry with skin, and fatty luncheon meats, such as bologna and salami
	Fats and Oils	Soft margarine, olive, soybean, canola, corn, peanut, sunflower, and sesame oils	Whole milk, yogurt, and cheeses, full fat ice cream, cream

*Since an egg yolk contains over 200 milligrams of dietary cholesterol, these need to be balanced within your diet in order to harness your daily cholesterol intake. Egg whites are free of dietary cholesterol.

- By Joan Salge Blake, MS, RD, LDN. Blake is a nutrition professor at Boston University and a nationally known writer, lecturer and nutrition expert.

Which are the best acne treatments? It depends! by Sarah Rhodes

For women it may be necessary to change some of the cosmetics you use daily ensuring that any foundations, blushes, eye shadow or moisturizers are oil free. It is best to look for products labeled noncomedogenic as these do not promote the formation of closed pores that cause the formation of spots and pimples. Even using these particular products some women may find their condition worsening. Additionally, it may be difficult to apply foundations during the first few weeks of treatment as the skin may become red or scaly, particularly with the use of topical tretinoin or benzoyl peroxide.

Herbs such as chamomile, lavender, juniper, bergamot, dandelion root, and burdock root can be used to reduce toxicity and improve the overall condition of the skin. Echinacea and poke root are often used for their anti-inflammatory properties and red clover may be beneficial for its estrogenic action. Witch hazel has excellent astringent properties and may be very effective on acne.

You might think that treating acne requires you to see and consult for prescription. Well, you can actually treat it by yourself! You can find solutions right in your home or garden! Applying toothpaste in your acne and letting it stay overnight is just one and actually the most common home treatment for acne most people do. You can also try a variety of paste or mask that are great options made from different plant species. You can choose from applying salt and vinegar solution, lime, ripe tomatoes, methi(fenugreek) leaves, lemon, dried basil leaves, mint juice, cucumber, corn flour and egg white, sandalwood, roasted and powdered pomgranate, ground radish, oatmeal, almond powder, honey, ground orange peel, nutmeg and milk, turmeric and tender neem, ground sesame seeds, papaya, and drumstick pods and leaves. Truly natural home treatments for acne!

There seems to be a growing number of different treatments but usually over the counter products come in the form of topical cleansers, soaps, washes, lotions, creams, gels or even pads and patches that are applied onto the skin. When using these kinds of preparations it is important, that you cover all of the area where you have acne because then you will also be treating the hidden blemishes that you can't yet see as well as the acne breakouts that you can. Expect some trials and errors as you experiment with the different treatments available, it may take you a while before you find the right type or combination of products that work for you. Whatever you do, don't use more than one treatment at a time, particularly with medicated products, discontinue one before you try out another.

Acne isn't really helped by the sun, either. Although a suntan can temporarily make acne look less severe, it won't help it go away permanently. So don't soak up those rays - either under the sun or from a tanning bed - in an effort to help your skin.

While laser skin resurfacing, Dermabrasion, and chemical peels are the most popular methods for acne scar removal, injection methods are also used. The injections may contain collagen, or fat taken from other parts of the body. While these injections work well, they do have to be repeated often, and they can be quite expensive. The injections do not actually remove or heal the scars - it simply hides them by filling them up.
About the Author

Sarah Rhodes suffered from severe acne for many years before finally discovering a cure that works. Read about Sarah and the secret that permanently cured her acne at: acnehomesolution.com

How To Recognize Asthma Symptoms? by Gaetane Ross

If you think you might have asthma, here are some signs and symptoms that can help you distinguish between a simple cold or flu virus and the advent of asthma and/or an impending asthma attack.

Of course, the main problem with diagnosing asthma is that a typical asthma symptom is easily confused with a symptom caused by a common cold or flu virus. If you suspect that you or your child may have asthma, or if you or your child are displaying any of the following symptoms, it is imperative that you immediately see your doctor. Even if you think something is just a cold, for safety's sake, you should see your doctor and rule out asthma. Should you ignore any symptoms, doing so can have serious repercussions, especially in regard to your child's health. As with most things,a typical asthma symptoms can vary from one person to another. However, there are specific things to look out for. These include wheezing, in which you whistle when you breathe in or out. If this happens to you or your child at night or when you have just gotten over suffering a cold, it could mean that you are developing asthma. Of course, it could also mean that you are developing or suffering from a lung infection, which is dangerous in its own right. Either way, see a doctor immediately.

Of course, not all asthma sufferers have wheezing, but there are other symptoms as well. For example, does your child have a cough that just won't go away? This is an asthma symptom as well, and should be checked out immediately. Another asthma symptom that's common is to have the feeling of breathlessness, or finding it extremely difficult to breathe. Less severely, it can simply be a feeling of tightness in the chest. Keep in mind that very young children may not be able to clearly verbalize what they're feeling, so it behooves you as the parent to surmise what may be happening and get prompt medical care. For example, even if your very young child says he has a stomach ache, he may in fact be talking about pain in his chest, if he cannot be very clear on exactly what he's feeling. Having such symptoms checked out by a doctor covers all the bases and makes sure that your child is safe.

Of course, young children need to be held, and they may also say that they need to be carried or otherwise treated like an infant, especially if they've had some traumatic event in their life, such as a new baby in the house. However, this is different than the type of neediness or clinging that happens when a child is feeling ill, and you as the parent will be able to clue in on what the difference is. It should also be noted that feeling tired is a common asthmatic symptom, so if your normally energetic child is feeling lethargic, this is another clue. All in all, just to be safe, taking your child to the doctor when he or she is exhibiting any kind of illness that is clearly not simply minor should be checked out.

About the Author

Did you find those tips on "How To Recognize asthma Symptoms" useful? If so,You can learn a lot more about how we can help you here. http://Live-O-Natural.com http://www.live-o-natural.com/LiveONaturalNewTreatmentBreakthroughForAsthma.html

Fast Food's Hidden Dangers

Every day, about one-quarter of American adults eat at fast-food restaurants. Cheap, tasty, and convenient, fast food is loaded with saturated fat and calories, and it's low in fiber and nutrients. Thanks in large part to fast food, half of America's adults and one-quarter of its children are obese, double the rate of a generation ago. Even some popular chicken nuggets, which many consumers consider a healthier alternative, are flavored with beef extract and contain twice as much fat, ounce for ounce, as a ham burger.

Besides the long-term health risks of a high-fat, high-calorie diet, fast-food chains have indirectly changed the way cattle are fed, slaughtered, and processed, making meatpacking the most dangerous job in America and increasing the risk of large-scale food poisoning. In his new book, Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, Eric Schlosser describes fast food's hidden dangers.

A Lifetime of Fast Food
Although most of the health problems related to fast food aren't felt until middle age -- obesity and diabetes are at an all-time high --- the damage starts before children enter kindergarten. Hoping to shape eating habits, fast-food chains market heavily to children. About 96% of American school-aged children recognize Ronald McDonald, second only to Santa Claus. Almost every American child eats at a McDonald's® at least once a month.

Fast food runs on cheap labor, usually supplied by teenagers. Child labor laws that restrict work schedules are often ignored at fast-food chains. Although part-time employment can teach teenagers responsibility, teenage boys who work long hours are more likely to abuse drugs and get into trouhle. They also risk getting hurt: Each year about 20,000 teenagers suffer work-related injuries, about twice the adult rate.

Meatpacking Factories: Injuries and Food Poisoning
To keep meat prices low, most slaughterhouses have moved out of big cities and into small towns. Instead of hiring skilled, unionized workers, meatpacking plants frequently recruit recent immigrants who are willing to work hard for low pay on assembly lines that turn living cattle into frozen hamburger at record speed. To keep up the pace, plant workers often abuse methamphetamine. Meatpacking has become the most hazardous occupation in the US, with three times the injury rate of factory work. Each year, at least one-third of all meatpackers are injured on the job.

Concentrating cattle into large feedlots and herding them through processing assembly lines operated by poorly trained employees increase the risk of large-scale food poisoning. Manure gets mixed with meat, contaminating it with salmonella and Escherichia coli 0157:H7. Schlosser reports a US Department of Agriculture (USDA) study that found 78.6% of ground beef contained microbes spread primarily by fecal material. Because of current processing methods, each contaminated carcass is distributed to a large number of people. The typical frozen hamburger that is used in fast-food restaurants contains meat from dozens or hundreds of cattle, multiplying the risk of food poisoning.

E. coli 0157:H7 is one of the worst forms of food poisoning. Usually spread through undercooked hamburgers, it's difficult to treat. Although antibiotics kill the bacteria, they release a toxin that produces dreadful complications. About 4% of people infected with E. coli 0157:H7 develop hemolytic uremic syndrome, and about 5% of children who develop the syndrome die. E. coli 0157:H7 has become the leading cause of renal failure among American kids.

Meat also can become poisoned as it's processed into hot dogs or bologna. The US Food and Drug Administration and the USDA recently warned that children under six and pregnant women should avoid hot dogs and sandwich meats unless they're thoroughly cooked, due to the risk of Listeria monocytogenes infection. Once mixed into food, L. monocytogenes continues to multiply, despite refrigeration. Usually, it causes mild flu-like symptoms, but it can turn deadly in young children. Pregnant women are 20 times more susceptible to infection, which may lead to miscarriage or stillbirth. Each year, L. monocytogenes causes 2,500 serious illnesses and 500 deaths. As food processing is concentrated among fewer and fewer facilities, large-scale contamination becomes more likely. Last year, for example, agricultural giant Cargill recalled almost 17 million pounds of processed poultry products due to the risk of L. monocytogenes.

Jeffrey Zurlinden, RN, MS, is a Nursing Spectrum contributing writer.

Bibliography
Kilman S. Listeria outbreak in Cargill turkey poses problems for meat industry. Wall Street Journal. December 20, 2000:84.
Kulman 1. Pregnant women get no bologna -- or shark or brie. U.S. News & World Report. 2001; 1 30(4}:52.
Marcus M. Organic foods offer peace of mind -- at a price. U.S. News & World Report. 2001;130(2):48-50.
Schiosser E. Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin; 2001.
US Food and Drug Administration. FDA issues letter to industry on food containing botanical and other novel ingredients. Available at:

http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~lrd/tpnovel.html