"I've tried everything! Help me!"

If you chose this box, you probably:

• Have tried quitting a number of times and ended up smoking again.
• Are quite heavily addicted to nicotine.
• Have a lot of other pressures to keep smoking (like friends, stress, family ... etc.)

These are some tips that helped people like you quit:

• Deep breathing: this can be done either standing or sitting. It has a cool effect. Give it a try. First, let yourself relax--go limp, then inhale slowly and deeply. When you've taken as much air into your lungs as you can comfortably hold--stop--pause for a minute and then breathe out--slowly--until all the air is expelled. At the very end of the breathing out cycle give an extra little push to remove the last bit of air. Repeat the cycle 5 or 6 times. This should not be hard, rapid breathing. Rather it should be slow, deep relaxed breathing.A

• Another breathing exercise that is very helpful is to mimic a cigarette. Breathe in and out as if you actually had a lighted cigarette in your mouth. You will find that what you are actually doing is sighing.

• From an ex-smoker: "Here's a trick that really helped. I brought ten different kinds of cigarettes and placed one of each in my cigarette case. This meant each time I went to light up I had to smoke a different brand. For me, at least, this made smoking very unpleasant."

• Develop a set of rules: I developed a set of rules as to where I could not smoke. I found this very helpful. For instance, one rule was that after I came home at night I could not smoke in my apartment. If I wanted to smoke, the rule said that I had to walk to the basement furnace room (which is horribly hot). For the first couple of evenings I was dragging myself up and down the stairs several times a night. Under no circumstances would I break the rule. Finally, I gave up in disgust and stayed in my apartment without smoking. It worked. I then developed another rule to make it extremely difficult and awkward to smoke in another area of my daily activity. It worked again. I eventually pushed those beloved old weeds right out of my life altogether.

• Try yoga. It's very hard to smoke while standing on your head.

• Another Ex-Smoker: "What helped me was to keep a careful record of my reactions to not smoking. When the urge came I stepped back, almost as though I was an outsider looking in. I did a clinical analysis--on what I was really thinking, feeling and experiencing as the urge came over me. This really helped. I became so fascinated with my reactions not to smoke that I lost my desire to take the cigarette."

• Talk to yourself! When the urge comes say--"take it easy now, calm down."

• Stop feeling sorry for yourself! How ridiculous! Sorry because you're breaking a habit that might cripple you just at the time in life when you want to start living!

• Keep foremost in your mind the thought that you "do not smoke." I found this very helpful particularly in those situations where the gestures of smoking were almost automatic. When you say to yourself in this or in that situation--"I am not a smoker," you can stop this before you even consider the possibility. The thought controls the act.

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