While the tobacco free month 2022 just started, maybe you are wondering if quitting smoking overnight is a good idea?
Physical habit obliges, sudden cessation of smoking may seem problematic on paper. After all, how will your body react if you take away the daily dose of nicotine it has been accustomed to? Well know, as Professor Daniel Thomas says straight away, that this does not present “no health risk. Nevertheless, it is better to avoid doing it.” Fine, but why?
Why stop gradually?
It’s a fact: the more abrupt the cessation of smoking for heavy smokers, the higher the risk of relapse. “The addiction is such that they will quickly resume. Their daily life is very often made up of a rapid succession of stops and starts.” The solution ? A gradual decrease, “helped by nicotine substitutes, such as gum or patches.”
The idea: to make the cigarette and its substitutes coexist for a time, until the first appears useless to the smoker and is therefore completely stopped. Not merely diminished, therefore, “because there is no light smoking. No proportional relationship between exposure to cigarettes and the risk it entails.”
How long does the quitting phase last when following a treatment?
“Smokers often tell themselves that they are going to have to stop suddenly when they are accompanied, explains the cardiologist. However, this is not always the case. Sometimes it’s really fast, and sometimes it’s not.” It all depends, therefore, on the smokers and the level of addiction.
But what’s even more interesting is the reason behind this concern around the overnight shutdown: “For smokers, the cigarette is a companion, with whom we are in phase, even if all this is of course ambiguous, since we want to stop. And behind the sudden stop, there is therefore the idea of rupture. They therefore do not necessarily wonder what will happen to their health, but what will happen to them at all.
In short, the cigarette is a love story that, as the song wants, ends badly. If you are thinking of throwing away your packages forever, start by consulting a tobacco specialist and, above all, take your time!