The reasons to quit tobacco are long but the motivation has to come from within. You know that over a long period of time, tobacco and the other chemicals including tar is likely to cause you serious health problems including blood clots, problems to your heart and blood vessels, angina, cancer of the lungs, bladder, mouth, kidneys, and bronchial problems to list just a few. Smoking also carries greater risk through pregnancy causing some babies to have a very low birth weight, miscarriage risks may be higher and labour premature and as a smoker, you are likely to age faster and your skin become damaged. In addition, as a smoker you are guilty of increasing the risk for those around to get lung cancer, heart disease, respiratory problems, pneumonia, asthma and lung damage.

It’s important to know however that from the moment that you stop smoking, your body starts recovering from all of the chemicals that you have been inhaling. After only 20 minutes, your blood pressure and temperature starts to return to normal. After 8 hours, the oxygen in your blood begins to increase as carbon monoxide levels decrease and after only one day, your risk of a heart attack starts to drop. In addition, your sense of smell and taste will dramatically improve and you will stop smelling of stale smoke on your clothes, breath and hair.

You may want to quit and deep down, know that it is the right thing to do but you might be worried that you will fail and that your willpower is not strong enough. So with this in mind, you may need a little help to be able to finally quit this smoking habit for good. You may have heard of electronic cigarettes?  Whilst they may not have been designed to help you give up smoking but they can actually can help you to reduce the amount that you smoke whilst getting healthier in the process. If this sounds strange, you just need to know that electronic cigarettes do not have any hidden chemicals in them so unlike traditional cigarettes, you are immediately going to start feeling healthier as a result.

Most electronic cigarettes do contain nicotine however but you can use this to your advantage.

Because e-cigarettes enable you to feel the benefits of the nicotine hit much more quickly, you will not need to smoke as much to achieve the same feelings of contentment. The smoking experience is similar to that of traditional cigarettes and in fact many smokers have changed over to smoking electronic cigarettes now, preferring them to traditional ones simply because of the health benefits. Because you will be smoking less, you will be able to gradually wean yourself off of nicotine and this will make you ideally placed to then give up smoking as soon as you are ready. If you consider electronic cigarettes to be your addiction support and to use it as a resource for quitting, it will help to firmly establish this as a stop smoking aid in your mind.

Giving up smoking is vital to your health and to the longevity of your life but with the aid of electronic cigarettes, you will be able to break your smoking patterns and this will in turn help you to stop smoking altogether. There is no need to face the dreaded withdrawal symptoms and to suffer for weeks; e-cigarettes enable you to reduce the amount of nicotine that you inhale, and for your body to start off the healing process whilst you gradually take control of your smoking addiction. It’s as easy as that.

When we talk about an addiction, we mean the consistent habit that is ultimately harmful to the person and the reliance both physically and emotionally. Your behaviour may well change as a result of your addiction. For example, do you always ensure that you have cigarettes to hand? Do you feel a rising sense of panic wash over you when you realise you are down to your last cigarette? Have you tried to give up before but eventually succumbed to feelings of distress as the withdrawal symptoms kicked in?

Unfortunately, your addiction continues to grow. You might have needed just one or two cigarettes to give you those pleasant feelings of peace and relaxation but as time goes on, you then find that you need an extra cigarette just to help you maintain the same feelings. If you try to go without your cigarettes, your body starts craving for nicotine and the opposite sets in. You feel irritable, anxious and impatient.

If you are still not convinced that you might be addicted, then consider how many cigarettes you are smoking each day. Do you smoke more than seven cigarettes a day? Do you inhale deeply? Do you light up within the first half an hour of waking each morning? Have you tried to eliminate that first cigarette but couldn’t? Do you feel a need to smoke throughout the morning? Do you still need to smoke even when you are ill?

If you answered yes to these questions, it is time to face facts and know that you need to take hold of your addiction to smoking before it becomes any worse. Fortunately, when you give up smoking, you will start to feel differently immediately. Your sense of smell and taste improves dramatically and if you have a cough, then this starts to improve too. If you have found that your breathing has become a little more laboured of late or have suffered from bronchitis, then this is likely to improve too as your lung capacity increases. It might be good for you to know that ex-smokers have much better health than those who do smoke and your health continues to improve as your body begins to heal.

Smoking kills. It’s that simple. The longer that you smoke, the greater chances that you are taking with your health. In a way, every cigarette is like playing Russian roulette, you will never know which one is going to potentially be the one to trigger off cancer or some other disease. Facing up to the fact that you have an addiction to nicotine is not easy, especially if you have been kidding yourself that this is not the case. Realising that you have an addiction is the first step towards overcoming it, once the realisation has set in, then you need to consider how you want to make positive changes to your life and to stop smoking.

If willpower is an issue (and it is for many) then don’t panic, there are stop smoking options for you. Some people find using nicotine gum useful, or patches, whilst others are turning to electronic cigarettes. The reason electronic cigarettes have become so popular is that it enables you to smoke less, still inhale nicotine (although not all contain nicotine) and yet, none contain the 4000 + potentially lethal chemicals that traditional cigarettes do.  However you decide to get a hold of your addiction, it’s important that you do so, burying your head in the sand is not an option, for the sake of your health and your life, decide to overcome the power that nicotine has over you and do it today.

Smoking affects the larynx (the voice box) and you can often tell a smoker just by listening to their voice, this is because smokers often develop a deeper huskier sound and from this fact alone, you can see that the larynx can be impacted significantly.

The larynx is in three main parts. The top part is called the supraglottis, the middle is called the glottis and the bottom is called the subglottis, and the subglottis connects to your windpipe. Your larynx is important, because it opens and closes to allow you to talk, breathe and of course swallow. When you develop cancer of the larynx, the cancer starts in the cells and these cells form tissues which of course make up all of the organs within the body. When cancerous cells are present, they underpin the basic building blocks of your healthy tissues. Your body generates new cells to replace the old cells but sometimes new cells form even if your body doesn’t need them and some old cells do not die off as they should which leads to a build-up of cells forming growths or tumors. Not all tumors in the larynx will be malignant (cancerous) some will be benign of course.

The dangers are that cancer cells can break away from any tumor in the larynx and spread the disease via the lymph nodes. These cancerous cells can spread to your bones, lungs or your liver via your blood vessels too. Cancer cells can grow to form new tumors.

If you smoke tobacco, you are much more prone to developing this type of cancer and heavy smokers are most at risk. If you are also prone to heavy drinking bouts, this again increases your risk of developing cancer of the larynx.

It’s so important to quit smoking if you want to stay healthy and to avoid developing cancer. Even if you have already been diagnosed with laryngeal cancer, by quitting, you may reduce the chance of it returning after treatment. Giving up smoking can also help you to avoid contracting cancers in the lungs, mouth or the esophagus too. You will at least be giving your body a chance of fighting back to full health.

If you have a hoarse voice or have noticed any changes to your voice which has lasted three weeks or more, have trouble swallowing, a lump in your neck, a cough that refuses to go, earache and even trouble breathing, then it’s vital that you seek medical assistance immediately. These symptoms may be indicative of cancer of the larynx but they may be connected to other health problems too so an accurate diagnosis is vital.

If you are worried about giving up smoking and feel that you lack the willpower to do so, it may be worth your swapping your traditional cigarettes to the electronic versions that are in the marketplace currently. Hugely popular, e-cigarettes offer you a safer alternative. They still afford you the pleasure of smoking and you still inhale nicotine which although is not ideal, does enable you to not suffer the severity of withdrawal symptoms. Importantly, electronic cigarettes do not contain the thousands of chemicals which are cancer causing and by eliminating these from your system, you are immediately improving your health.

You can use electronic cigarettes to help you gain some control over your addiction too. By reducing the amount that you smoke, you can start to take the pressure off of you as you cut back. Electronic cigarettes really do provide you with a safer alternative to smoking whilst potentially saving you from developing any type of cancer.

The British Medical Association has in fact called for the extension to the original ban saying that the dangers of smoking whilst driving and obviously within a small space are huge. Research has shown that the levels of toxins within a car are an incredible 11 times higher than it would be if you were stood in a smoky bar. It might be that as a smoker, you completely understand the health implications and are prepared to take the risk but many do not.

At the moment, there are many discussions in Parliament regarding this topic although an immediate ban would appear unlikely. Some lines of thought are whether an outright ban would be productive or not or whether more should be done to simply raise awareness of the dangers. Another line of thought is that it may be difficult to police a smoking ban.

In England alone, it is estimated that a fifth of adults smoke and over a third of those smokers will light up whilst in their cars, this pauses a serious health problem for the smoker but also massively increases the dangers for passengers who will be subjected to passive smoking.

From these facts you can see why there are discussions about the next phase of the smoking ban but how and when it might be implemented still seems a long way off. The smoking ban in public places such as public houses in the UK caused many smokers to swop over to using electronic cigarettes. It’s not as surprising as it sounds. At the end of the day, electronic cigarettes offer an excellent smoking experience and a satisfactory replacement to traditional cigarettes and enables the smoker to still enjoy their ‘cigarette’ in most public places because e-cigarettes do not emit toxins and therefore, any non-smokers will not be subjected to passive smoking concerns.

Many of those smokers who decided to try out electronic cigarettes continue to use them because they are cost efficient, healthier and also enabled the smoker to actually gain a level of control over their smoking addiction. This is because you are likely to smoke less when using e-cigarettes, as the hit of nicotine that you get when you inhale is much quicker than normal cigarettes meaning your need for nicotine is satisfied sooner.

The British Medical Association is pushing for tougher action but there are concerns about this, although the Doctors union seem to favour the suggestion, steering the decision towards an outright ban which means even if there are no passengers, smoking in cars would be outlawed. At the moment there is no discussion on whether electronic cigarettes would be acceptable if the laws comes into play, it is likely that they will not be banned because the argument against smoking isn’t relative to e-cigarettes. Certainly if the idea is to follow suit in the wake of South Africa, Australia, the US and some states in Canada, the focus is on preventing children from being subjected to passive smoking. Second hand smoke after all can and does increase the risk of asthma, lung problems and cot death and although smokers may feel that they are being penalised, what cost to human health currently?

Whether electronic cigarettes would still be deemed suitable is unknown because they do look like cigarettes even though they do not contain any of the dangerous chemicals but if the law is passed, and e-cigarettes are not included, it is very likely that sales will rise dramatically.

Depression is an intense and often difficult condition to have to deal with and it can affect people very differently and to varying degrees. These inconsistencies can create additional problems for people such as erratic behaviour, eating more or less than they used to do and feelings of irritation.

Everyone experiences mood changes or reacts to personal stressors so you may well feel a little depressed at times. Stress, life changes, alcohol or drug addiction, genetic links and even some medication can bring on bouts of depression but it’s worth realising that depression and sadness are very different and not to be confused. Feelings of sadness or low moods may last hours or a few days, depression can last for weeks, even months and the symptoms vary but always interfere with your daily life.

Mood changes are common if you have given up smoking. You may well find yourself feeling down or restless but usually these mood changes start to improve within a week or two and they are not serious, but be prepared that they are difficult. If you are struggling with withdrawal symptoms and also feel very down following your last cigarette, then don’t contain these feelings, instead talk to your family or friends but also go and speak to your doctor and get these feelings out into the open.

Depression is quite common in smokers but no one really knows why this is the case. It may well be that people smoke because they suffer with depression and therefore the depressive illness is the trigger to make people smoke and to stop them from quitting. If you suffer from depression and are thinking about giving up smoking but are too worried to do so, don’t think that it’s not possible to take control over your addiction, but you might need a little extra advice before you do so. Smoking can often become an emotional crutch; you feel that it helps you during times of need although this is false. Smoking does not help in any way other than providing a temporary relief and importantly, smoking doesn’t treat your depression but in fact, can make you feel a whole lot worse because it is linked to some very serious health conditions.

Depression is especially likely and poignant during times that are really stressful. You may have lost a partner through divorce or be grieving, and these could easily become triggers that cause bouts of depression. If you smoke, it is likely that you will turn to cigarettes to help alleviate the stress although it will not actually help. Seek medical advice if you know that your situation is dire and you feel rock bottom.

If you feel that you need something to help you through and that giving up smoking is just too difficult when your feelings are erratic anyway and you don’t feel strong enough or resilient enough to cope with your nicotine addiction, there may be another way to cope and to start taking control over your life.

Electronic cigarettes might seem an odd solution to your withdrawal symptoms but the reality is that they are a healthier option to traditional cigarettes so at least you can be aware that you are doing something positive for yourself. The hardest part of giving up smoking is suffering from withdrawal symptoms which can be greatly exaggerated during times of stress and feelings of depression. Most electronic cigarettes still contain nicotine but it is much easier to gain the hit when you inhale and this means you will satisfy your need for the drug much more quickly and you will not need to smoke as much.

Smoking is a series of behaviours; your addiction becomes patterns formed over a period of time. Lighting up first thing in the morning, having to smoke when you drink alcohol, even walking past a certain point on the way to walk could easily be another trigger. Electronic cigarettes can help you to change the pattern formed with your usual smoking habit but from a health perspective, you can at least have the knowledge that you are inhaling thousands of chemicals less than you would have been doing if smoking a traditional cigarette. This means that your body can start healing and you can start feeling good about yourself as you begin to control your nicotine addiction.

I think the first thing that you need to look at before considering the safety aspect of electronic cigarettes is that there is little (if anything) safe in respect of traditional cigarettes. They contain formaldehyde which is used in preserving corpses and hydrogen cyanide which was used in Nazi camps and these are just two of the dangerous chemicals.  Cigarettes give off smoke and the smoke produces tar and thousands of chemicals, many of which are carcinogenic which translated means toxic and cancer inducing.

Whilst I could go on and on about the dire consequences of traditional cigarettes, let’s look instead at the ingredients of e-cigarettes and compare. Firstly, there is no smoke as e-cigarettes are not lit which eliminates passive smoking concerns and the main ingredient is a substance often used in medicines including asthma inhalers and food called propylene glycol.

Whilst most e-cigarettes do contain nicotine, they do not contain any of the other (thousands) of harmful chemicals so they are immediately much, much healthier than traditional cigarettes. There is no comparison because traditional cigarettes can kill and e-cigarettes help your body to start healing from the devastative effect of those harmful chemicals which have infiltrated your body previously. They do this by giving your body a much needed break from the bombardment and infiltration of these chemicals. Even scientists have agreed, albeit reluctantly that they are much safer. The view is that there is a risk but it equates to approximately 1 or 2% of the current risk of smoking traditional cigarettes. I know which risk I would rather take.

Quite simply, electronic cigarettes really can save your life. It’s good to be cautious of course and even though e-cigarettes have been around for a very long time, it’s only in recent years – primarily since the smoking ban, that they have come to people’s attention. The only way that you can make up your own mind is to try them and see.

One of the main benefits of smoking e-cigarettes instead is that they allow you to control the amount of nicotine that you inhale and this is because e-cigarettes provide a greater hit per cigarette and therefore you need less to be able to achieve the same effect. So instead of feeling the need to have one or two traditional cigarettes to satisfy the urge for nicotine, you may well find that you don’t even need more than a few puffs of your electronic cigarette.

Electronic cigarettes will give you a similar smoking experience to traditional ones but with the added comfort that you are not harming yourself. The moment you stop smoking traditional cigarettes, your body will start the healing process to try to eliminate the toxins that are in your system but certainly, you will start feeling that your lung capacity and breathing in general feels much better.

There will always be controversy with cigarettes, electronic or otherwise. The general opinion by those who have investigated seems to be that e-cigarettes are healthier and it is true to say that they are healthier in the short term because there is no evidence over a greater period of time. However, as they mainly just have nicotine and you will be smoking less, it has to be said that they are drastically healthier than the alternative and a great aid in the fight to combat withdrawal symptoms in a first attempt to give up smoking altogether.

There are always stories published in newspapers or announced on the TV news about how smoking is connected to yet another serious disease but it now appears that smoking is also connected to thyroid problems.  You might not think that thyroid problems are that significant, but smoking can increase your chances of developing this disease as well it leading to Graves’ disease or thyroid eye disease.

There are different types of thyroid disease essentially you can be over active or under active and it takes a blood test from the doctor’s to establish whether your thyroid levels have been impacted. As a non-smoker, you may have an idea that there is a problem with your thyroid – underactive makes you lethargic, experience weight gain and your concentration is diminished. Over-active thyroid is the opposite and you may seem drawn and under-nourished, you may just feel that your metabolic rate is incredibly high. Smoking can sometimes mask the symptoms of thyroid disease and therefore it’s no surprise that many ex smokers suddenly become diagnosed with the condition following quitting.

Sometimes these symptoms can be very subtle but gradually grow worse over a period of time and smoking will make the symptoms far worse as there are thousands of chemicals within the cigarettes that you smoke that will really aggravate any existing condition.

If you have thyroid disease and you value your life, quit now before the disease becomes much more dominant. It’s hard to suddenly quit smoking especially if you have been smoking for a long time but for the sake of your health, it’s a decision that you have to make. Smoke from your cigarette contains dangerous substances that seriously affect thyroid function. If you are aware of the chemicals within your cigarettes, you will know that there is one component within the smoke that is cyanide which when converted to thiocyanate, works as an anti-thyroid agent.  There are other components too.

If you feel that you cannot give up smoking in one go, then why not consider electronic cigarettes? They offer a positive alternative and yet still give you an excellent smoking experience. If you have never seen electronic cigarettes, you should be aware that they are not new into the market place but they are rapidly becoming popular with many smokers making the transition across.  They became more popular when the smoking ban was introduced because most places allow electronic cigarettes because there is no smoke and therefore no fumes being passed onto others.

In addition, apart from nicotine, there are no chemicals within an electronic cigarette so the moment you change over from traditional cigarettes to e-cigarettes, you can know that the damage that is being done by the toxins stops immediately. This is a great benefit to all who want to give up smoking irrespective of any health indications. Your body will at least have a chance to start healing from any damage that has previously been done but remember it will take time for your health to start improving.

You may well start to feel a little worse before you start to get better however, especially if you do have problems with your thyroid because your cigarettes and the chemicals within, may have been effectively masking the symptoms and if this is the case, medical assistance is needed. Ideally you want to give up smoking permanently as nicotine is not good for you but electronic cigarettes are a much healthier option at least and you will be inhaling thousands of chemicals less each time. If your health is important, then seriously consider making the transition over, you may be pleasantly surprised that you can really enjoy your smoking alternative and that it really helps you to gain control over your habit with a view to eventually giving up.