Trading Your Bad Habit for Something Better

By Chris James

One of the catchphrases to describe mouth-to-mouth resuscitation used by life-saving instruction from the past has been:

"In with the good air ... out with the bad."

This directive actually can be rather helpful when it comes to designing a program to be used for smoking cessation. Of course, when it comes to a stop smoking initiative in your own life, you really are quite literally replacing the bad air of cigarette smoke with "good air." However, this life saving mouth to mouth resuscitation is useful and informative on another front as well.

Many doctors now agree that it may be beneficial and provide the smoker their best chances of quitting by using more than one method at a time. As it seems that people who have successfully quit, have done just that. They did not rely on just on method, but two or more, to help them break the habit.

The reality is that one step everyone interested in stopping smoking should take is what might be called "the good habit exchange." The fact is that a typical smoker, on any given day, spends what really does amount to a significant amount of time, puffing. In this day and age of extensive no-smoking zones, the smoker actually has to devote a good deal of time just getting to a smoking area, never mind smoking, time and time again throughout the course of any given day.

Research has demonstrated that those smokers who consciously select a "healthy habit" to replace the time they've spent smoking have an enhanced chance of stop smoking success. Moreover, by adopting a healthy habit to replace smoking, they are bettering and enhancing their lives on whole new additional levels.

The healthy habit alternative to smoking does not have to be anything complicated. For example, rather than smoke a cigarette at the designated smoking area at work, take a brisk walk around the block. Rather than smoking, resurrect the age-old art of letter writing and send a true piece of written correspondence (on paper!) to a friend or family member. The list of healthy alternatives and healthy substitutes to smoking is literally endless. And again, accompanied with other smoking cessation tools, the good habit exchange really will increase your chances of ultimate stop smoking success. - 29956

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