Quit Smoking
As part of a research project to help people quit smoking, Premier Community Health provides one-on-one or group tobacco cessation sessions. The program is one hour each week for eight weeks. The topics covered in the sessions include: choosing a method to quit, symptoms for recovery, practicing stress management techniques, making a plan to quit and dealing with cravings or weight gain while quitting. The service is offered free to the public and is taught by a certified tobacco treatment specialist. Call (937) 227-9427 for more information.
Being Smoke- and Tobacco-Free
When you stop using tobacco, your body begins to heal almost immediately. Here are some of the benefits of being smoke-free.
Within 20 minutes
Your heart rate and blood pressure drop toward normal levels.
Within 8 hours
The carbon monoxide level in your body drops, and the oxygen level increases. (Carbon monoxide in cigarette smoke steals oxygen from the blood cells.)
Within 12 hours
The carbon monoxide level in your blood reaches a normal level.
Within 48 hours
Your chances of having a heart attack decrease. Your sense of taste and smell begins to improve.
Within 72 hours
Your bronchial tubes begin to relax and make it easier for you to breathe. Your lung capacity increases.
Within 2 weeks to 3 months
Your circulation improves (circulation is constricted by cigarette smoke). Up to 30% of your lung functioning increases.
Within 1 to 9 months
Coughing, sinus congestion, and shortness of breath improve. You begin to feel less tired. Cilia (the tiny hair-like structures in your nose and lungs) begin to grow back and are able to clear mucus and other dirt from the lungs and nose and reduce the risk of infection.
Within 1 year
Your risk of heart disease decreases to half that of a smoker’s.
Within 5 to 15 years
Your risk of stroke is reduced to that of a nonsmoker.
Within 10 years
Your risk of lung cancer is one-half that of a smoker’s. Your risk of cancer of the mouth, throat, esophagus, bladder, cervix, and pancreas decreases.
Within 15 years
Your risk of coronary heart disease is equal to that of a person who never smoked.
It’s never too late to quit using tobacco.
Why Is Tobacco Harmful?
- Tobacco and the chemicals in tobacco products are harmful to your body. We know that tobacco addiction is more difficult to break than heroin addiction. Consider these facts:
- A naturally occurring ingredient in tobacco, nicotine, causes addiction to nicotine and plays a part in building cholesterol
- Nicotine is a drug
- Tobacco smoke contains carbon dioxide, which snuffs oxygen out of blood cells. We all need enough oxygen in our systems for energy, movement, and exercise endurance
- Tobacco use raises your heart rate and blood pressure levels
- Chemical contents in tobacco smoke change some of the chemical operations in the brain
- When you inhale cigarette smoke, nicotine is carried deep into the lungs, is quickly absorbed in the blood stream, and travels to the heart, brain, liver, and spleen. All of these organs are susceptible to damage, including the risk of cancer, because of cigarette smoke
- Nicotine lowers body temperature
- Nicotine constricts blood flow through the arteries and negatively impacts blood circulation in the body
- The body treats cigarette smoke as a foreign substance. Initially, the body will fight nicotine by giving off signals that it does not belong in the body―such as stomachache, headache, dizziness, etc. Eventually the body builds a tolerance to nicotine, and the previous amounts of nicotine are not enough to bring the body a sense of enjoyment. Soon it takes more and more nicotine to make the body feel satisfied. Thus, the tobacco user needs to take in more and more nicotine to feel the same sense of enjoyment he/she felt when they initially started to use tobacco. In a sense, the brain is retraining to view nicotine as a normal substance
Cigarettes contain more than 400 chemicals. Nearly 200 are deadly, and more than 20 are known to cause cancer. When you puff on a cigarette, you take in more than 4,000 chemicals. The burning of tobacco causes combustion, which causes the chemicals to interact and create new, often more damaging ones.
Click here for a list of the chemical contents of cigarettes.