Perhaps you are having trouble breathing. Or, perhaps there will be a newborn baby arriving in a few months’ time. Or, you don’t want to end up like all of the other poor sods who died preventable deaths because they smoked. Whatever your reason, you have no more excuses. This time, you have to quit for good. Here are a few tips on how to stop smoking and stay stopped.

Be At Home When The First Withdrawal Symptoms Hit

At home, you can climb into bed and moan, which you really can’t do at work. Some days, I get up out of bed only to crawl back in as I fight off my cravings for a cigarette.  If you’ve been smoking more than a few months, you know when your body starts going into withdrawal symptoms. Sometimes these symptoms might make driving or operating heavy machinery or making any major life decisions impossible. You need to be safely at home when they hit. Getting through the withdrawal symptoms is how to stop smoking for good.

Avoid Places Where You Used To Smoke

If you constantly hang about people who are smoking and going to places where you normally light up when you are trying to quit smoking, guess what? You’ll go back to smoking. Watching and sniffing others smoking is not how to stop smoking. That’s like watching children eat Halloween candy when you are on a diet. Why put yourself through this agony? If you have to drop friends for a while, drop them. Your life is at stake here!

Keep Yourself Distracted

Another method to help how to stop smoking is to take up or more strongly pursue a hobby that involves keeping your hands or body busy. This could be needlework, crafts, gardening, playing with the dig, writing, painting, destroying the paintings and starting again, or anything that keeps you busy. The point of all this is to keep your mind off the nicotine cravings as you delay and distract. When you have the urge to smoke, do something else.  The cravings will eventually go away if you are distracted from them enough.

Don’t Light Up Again!

The advice anyone will ever give you on how to stop smoking is also the most infuriating – “You stop smoking by just not smoking anymore!” It’s as simple and yet as hard as that. Keep reminding yourself that smoking will kill you. You are saving your own life. It’s like getting surgery – after the surgery, you are in a lot of pain, but eventually you heal and have a healthier, happier life. There are how to stop smoking support groups on the Internet you can join for some mutual support.