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It is common knowledge that smoking is one of the most deadly activities that you can engage in; indeed, every time you inhale a cigarette you bring over 4,000 chemicals and toxins into your body. It is also well known that secondhand smoke is just as dangerous as smoking; cigarette smoke still has those toxins after all. If you are interested in smoking cessation, then think of it as something that you not only do for yourself–you do it for the health and wellness of others around you.
One highly problematic aspect of smoking indoors is that rooms get clogged with smoke. Children and babies are often left with no other option than to breathe in that smoke. And guess what? According to smoking cessation researchers, children and babies inhaling the air in a smoke-filled room is the equivalent of them smoking 10 cigarettes.
If the numbers above don’t shock you, then keep reading. Children and infants breathe at much faster rates than adults. Children and infants breathe between 20-60 breaths per minutes while adults breathe 14-18 times per minute. This means that infants and children breathe in much more toxic smoke per minute than adults. When children are exposed to smoke, the risk for the following complications increases dramatically:
- Respiratory illnesses like asthma, bronchitis, pneumonia and bronchiolitis.
- More frequent colds and coughs
- More common middle ear infections
- Possible cancer in childhood and/or adulthood.
If there is anything that can compel you to engage in smoking cessation, it should be the harm that secondhand smoke can do to children. The effect that tobacco smoke has on children should make you think twice about picking up that next cigarette. If you find that it is difficult to stop smoking then remember that above all, smoking is a habit. The body is not addicted to nicotine–the mind is addicted to the psycho-social habit. In order to overcome this habituated activity, smokers need to learn to mindfully practice mind over matter. That is why enlisting the help of a hypnotherapist is a great smoking cessation strategy–a hypnotherapist can help you locate old, destructive thought patterns (like the belief that you need to smoke) and then help you re-build new healthy ones (like the belief that you don’t need to smoke).
If you are serious about smoking cessation, and serious about the health of those around you, check out the hypnotherapy option and learn to get your thoughts and habits under your own control.