Overcoming The Smoking Habit

What we are finding is that precisely the methods which are known to improve heart health also help build the needed motivation to stop smoking.

Exercise is one example. Regular, rhythmic physical activity strengthens the heart and also does something inside a person that reduces the urge to smoke.

When people start brisk-walking or jogging, they find that smoking impedes their performance, and that cigarettes no longer taste good. So they stop the habit.

Smoking is definitely on the decline among people who jog or do brisk-walking.

A healthful diet can create the same anti-smoking effect. One of the best diets for improving heart and circulation features raw, whole plant foods like seeds, nuts, fruits and vegetables. Research has documented the value of that diet for heart improvement.

Equally interesting is the observation that people who are able to stick with a raw food diet not only lose their desire to smoke, but soon find cigarettes less tasteful; eventually,
they are not able to tolerate the smoking habit at all.

Combining a healthful diet and regular exercise with the inhaling of smokeless air will lead people to the achievement of a glow of aliveness that is so good it cannot be described in words alone. You have to feel it to believe what can happen to you.

To those who find it hard to stop smoking because they will experience stress if they do so, here’s some advice from health researchers: Regular exercise provides a degree of protection against emotional stress by conditioning the body’s stress adaptation mechanism. Researchers have discovered, for instance, that physically-fit individuals have a better reserve of such hormone-like chemicals as adrenaline which help the body overcome prolonged tension. Psychologists offer yet another reason: exercise releases nervous tension and anxiety by providing an outlet for pent-up feelings of aggression and hostility.