No Smoking Day on the lucky 13th of this month is an annual health awareness day in the UK that’s intended to help smokers who want to quit smoking. It’s been going for more than 30 years now and has helped thousands of people quit the habit – and get much healthier as a result.
Research conducted following the 2009 campaign showed that one in 10 smokers quit on No Smoking Day that year – so if you’re a smoker you can do it too. You need to really want to and then to keep at it. Stopping is easy; but staying stopped requires real dedication – especially in the beginning.
It’s worth it to get the addict “monkey” off your back, as each year that monkey gets heavier. It cost you a lot more than money…
The NHS states that smoking is the biggest cause of preventable deaths in Britain, causing 80,000 deaths each year. One in two smokers die before their time from a disease caused by their smoking, and for those smokers that don’t die early, their health will undoubtedly suffer leaving them unable to live life to its full potential.
It definitely won’t help either with your training sessions and in getting lean and fit. So here are some of the reasons you should quit smoking:
- Smoking causes fatal lung diseases, such as lung cancer and pneumonia. It’s not just a theory: smoking causes more than 80 per cent of deaths from lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
- Smoking ups the chance of heart disease and damaged arteries, which means more risk of heart attack, stroke and brain problems. In fact, smoking doubles the risk of having a heart attack or stroke by at least 50 per cent.
- It lowers the oxygen reaching your skin, so you’ll get more wrinkles, a yellow hue and as well you’ll have much more chance of getting cellulite. Not only that, your teeth will look yellow, your breath will smell and you’ll get gum issues that can lead to teeth falling out.
- Smokers have bones that are more likely to break, and it means increased chance of stomach cancer or ulcers, throat cancer and kidney cancer. Smoking also lowers fertility.
If those are not enough reasons to quit – and they definitely are! – consider those around you too. Secondhand smoke is not healthy for anyone, especially children who are particularly vulnerable. Every time a child breathes secondhand smoke, their body is getting thousands of poisonous chemicals put into it. With babies, it increases the chances of a cot death.
But if you quit, your health (and those around you) starts to improve immediately. So stop now!
