By smoking, you can cause health problems not only for yourself but also for those around you.
Hurting Yourself
Smoking is an addiction. Tobacco contains nicotine, a drug that is addictive. The nicotine, therefore, makes it very difficult (although not impossible) to quit. In fact, since the U.S. Surgeon General's 1964 report on the dangers of smoking, millions of Americans have quit. Still, more than 430,000 deaths occur in the U.S. each year from smoking-related illnesses. The reason for these deaths is that smoking greatly increases the risk of getting lung cancer, heart attack, chronic lung disease, stroke, and many other cancers. Moreover, smoking is perhaps the most preventable cause of breathing (respiratory) diseases within the USA.
Hurting Others
Smoking harms not just the smoker, but also family members, coworkers, and others who breathe the smoker's cigarette smoke, called secondhand smoke or passive smoke. Among infants up to 18 months of age, secondhand smoke is associated with as many as 300,000 cases of bronchitis and pneumonia each year. In addition, secondhand smoke from a parent's cigarette increases a child's chances for middle ear problems, causes coughing and wheezing, worsens asthma, and increases an infant's risk of dying from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).
Exposure to passive smoke can also cause cancer. Research has shown that non-smokers who reside with a smoker have a 24% increase in risk for developing lung cancer when compared with other non-smokers. An estimated 3,000 lung cancer deaths occur each year in the U.S. that are attributable to passive smoking. Secondhand smoke also increases the risk of stroke and heart disease. If both parents smoke, a teenager is more than twice as likely to smoke as a teenager whose parents are both nonsmokers. Even in households where only one parent smokes, young people are more likely to start smoking. Pregnant women who smoke are more likely to deliver babies whose weights are too low for the babies' good health. In fact, it has been estimated that if all women quit smoking during pregnancy, about 4,000 new babies would not die each year.
source: www.medicinenet.com
25 Reasons to Quit Smoking
Smoking is one of the most common forms of recreational drug use. It is the leading preventable cause of death and disease.
In the United States, an estimated 25.6 million men and 22.6 million women are smokers.
An average of 400,000 Americans die each year from tobacco.
No matter how old you are or how long you've smoked, quitting can help you live longer and be healthier. People who stop smoking before age 50 cut their risk of dying in the next 15 years in half compared with those who keep smoking.
Reasons to quit smoking:
#1 Your breath smells better.
#2 Bad smelling clothes and hair go away.
#3 Your yellow fingernails disappear.
#4 Stained teeth get whiter.
#5 Food tastes better.
#6 Your sense of smell returns to normal.
#7 Your work productivity increases.
#8 Everyday activities no longer leave you out of breath.
#9 You can save money. Forbes.com article says that smokers in Delaware can save as much as $998.23 individually by quitting.
#10 You can save the health of other people. Exposure to secondhand smoke (passive smoking) can cause lung disease.
#11 You will be accepted better socially. Almost all workplaces now have some type of smoking rules. Some employers even prefer to hire non-smokers.
#12 You can prevent fire. Cigarettes are responsible for about 25% of deaths from residential fires, causing nearly 1,000 fire-related deaths and 3,300 injuries each year.
#13 It decreases risk of lung disease and pneumonia.
#14 It decreases risk of heart disease, stroke.
#15 It lowers your blood pressure.
#16 It delays onset of diabetes.
#17 It improves your overall health.
#18 It decreases chances of infections.
#19 It decreases risk of various cancers including lung, esophagus, mouth, throat, pancreas, stomach, kidney as well as cervix.
#20 It decreases risk of alteration in vision, blindness and cataract.
#21 It decreases risk of hip fractures.
#22 It decreases risk of anxiety disorders and probably depression.
#23 If you are pregnant, then the risk of your baby being premature and having a low birth weight is reduced. Also the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) decreases.
#24 It decreases risk of impotency as it prevents decrease in blood flow.
#25 It does not hasten menopause.
Mark Twain said, "Quitting smoking is easy. I've done it a thousand times."
It is important to remember that quitting smoking is a process. Most smokers attempt to quit smoking one or more times during the course of their smoking habit.
95% of successful quitters have a history of at least 3-4 temporarily successful attempts prior to experiencing a sustained period of abstinence from smoking.
Atif Farid Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Atif_Farid |
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