Preparation
- Chose a day when you are going to stop. Complete the for and against chart below and if you feel yourself weakening have a look and it will help remind you of the reasons why you decided to stop. If you are finding it difficult to choose a date ring one of the helplines.
- Start your diary and use it to help you to prepare properly.
- Before you give up remember to study your diary.
- Print out your diary and then identify your difficult and tempting situations. Devise a plan to help you deal with these situations. Ring a helpline to work out your personal strategy if you need help.
- Tell all your friends, family and colleagues that you are going to quit and ask them for their support. Clean your house, your car, clothes, curtains, anything that might smell of smoke. Print out your strategy and look at it whenever you feel tempted. If you have decided to use a stop smoking product visit your Pharmacist and ask for their advice.
Pros & Cons
This is a simple, practical task that should help you prepare to give up smoking. This is not the right side versus the left; you need to decide what is important to you. Print out this page and give each reason a score out of 10, 10 being very important to you. Then add up each column, if the reasons why you want to stop has a higher score then you are ready to stop smoking.
| Reasons why I smoke |
Reasons why I want to stop smoking |
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How much money will I save?
How many cigarettes do you smoke a day? How much does it cost? It's worth working this out over a longer period of time. Fill in the chart below and you might be surprised at how much you are spending on cigarettes and rather pleased about how much you could save. Here's an example of one week's savings:
| Time quit |
I will have saved |
I could treat myself to |
| 1 week |
20 a day at £5 a packet = £35 |
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| 2 weeks |
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| 1 month |
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| 3 months |
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| 1 year |
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Print this page of or copy a similar chart and keep if close at hand, if you feel tempted look at it to remind yourself of one of the reasons you decided to stop and what you are aiming to treat yourself to.
Your Smoking Diary
Keep a smoking diary for two days - start with your first cigarette of the day and enter every one you have until the very last one. Print out or copy the chart below then each time you have a cigarette write it down and fill in your answers.
| Smoking diary |
Day 1 |
Day 2 |
| Time |
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| What were you doing? |
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| Who were you with? |
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| How were you feeling? |
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| How much did you enjoy it / or not? (on a scale of 1- 10) |
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| How much did you need it (on a scale of 1 -10) |
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| How did it make you feel? |
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Analyse Your Diary
After two days, look at the entire diary, then answer the following questions:
- What sort of activities encourage me into having a cigarette?
- Is it having a cup of coffee, talking on the telephone, watching tv, going to the pub?
- Which cigarettes did I feel I could not have done without and why?
- Which cigarette do you find most enjoyable and why?
- Which cigarettes could you easily have not smoked?
- Does someone or something provoke me?
Write down your answers on a separate sheet of paper.
You now have a strategy
Once you have comments to the above questions you can identify potential danger points and need to plan your strategy. If you want some help, ring one of the helplines.
Tips for controlling temptation
- Think about when you need or particularly enjoy a cigarette and then plan how you are going to cope in these circumstances. Some people find it helpful to write down the typical times these occur. If you always have a cigarette in the morning with a cup of tea, then stop having the tea and try a fruit juice, smoothie or water instead so there is not the associated habit or trigger with smoking.
- If you feel it would help to eat something instead of a smoking decide on a sensible alternative such as fruit or sugar free gum.
- If you regularly go to the pub and associate drinking with smoking try holding your glass in your usual cigarette hand. If you associate the drink with smoking avoid the pub for a few days and try a different drink when you do go.
- Remember cravings increase in intensity for up to three minutes and then subside. Plan how you can endure the most intense period, thinking of what you can do with the money you are saving, taking a walk if practical or a deep breathing routine may prove helpful.
- Identify diversions or distractions that can replace the desire to smoke - physical exercise, chatting with a friend, brushing your teeth.
Helpful Links
Here is an excellent blog entry on all the various Apps you can use to help you quit smoking too
