Quit Smoking Benefits - 1 Year

Your excess risk of coronary heart disease is decreased to half that of a smoker after one year.

Cigarette smoking is directly linked to 30% of all heart disease deaths in the United States each year. It plays a part in coronary heart disease and causes damage by decreasing oxygen to the heart. Smoking increases blood pressure and heart rate, both of which are hard on the heart. Quitting tobacco is the absolute best thing you can do for your heart and for your health overall.

If you've put a year between you and the last cigarette you smoked, congratulations! Be grateful for the freedom you have created for yourself. Protect and nurture it. The benefits of the positive choices you've made will continue to grow as you move forward from here.

Here at About.com Smoking Cessation, we offer certificates (free) to commemorate your first year smoke free. They can be printed out and framed, or used as a wallpaper background for your computer. You've worked hard for your freedom! Select a certificate and we'll personalize it and send it out to you as a .jpg file.

One Year Smoke Free Milestone Certificate Gallery

Smoking affects who we are more than most of us realize. Quitting tobacco is similar to peeling back the layers of the onion to find the person you were meant to be before addiction stepped into your life. Read through some of the perspectives of those who have completed their first year smoke free:

One Year Milestones

Statistics tell us that only 7% of those who quit without support are still smoke free at the end of their first year. Fortify your cessation program with plenty of support from the forum here at Smoking Cessation.

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Your chance of achieving long-term success with quitting tobacco increases significantly after two years.

Smoking Relapse Rates Drop Off Sharply After Two Years

If you're thinking about quitting smoking, there is no time like the present to get started. Change begins with a single first step. Stop just thinking about quitting, and start taking action. Throw the cigarettes away, and start your quit today.

Quit Smoking Benefits: 5 to 15 Years

Start the quit process now: Sign up for a free Quit Smoking e-course.
Source:

2004 Surgeon General's Report: Poster: Within 20 Minutes of Quitting 27 May 2004. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

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Benefits of Quitting Smoking

What happens inside our bodies when we quit using tobacco? Have all of the years of smoking or chewing caused too much damage for quitting to be of any benefit? Not at all. The human body is amazingly resilient.

Within the first 20 minutes of quitting, the healing process begins. The benefits will continue to improve your health and quality of life for years.

Use the links below to read about the physical changes your body will go through when you quit smoking:

Quit Smoking Benefits:

The First Two Days

Two Weeks to Three Months

One to Nine Months

One to Two Years

Long Term Benefits - 5 to 15 Years

Get quitting now: Sign up for a free Quit Smoking e-course to guide you through the process.

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Six Month Benefits

AT SIX MONTHS WITHOUT ONE SINGLE PUFF AND AFTER OVER 25 YEARS OF SMOKING, THESE THINGS HAVE DISAPPEARED: A pressure, heaviness, and pain in my lungs in the morning. Morning cough. Breathlessness in my reading voice. Breathlessness when walking up hills or stairs. Unpleasant irritation in my mouth. General tiredness and loss of energy. Headaches. Cigarette hangovers after late nights out. Yellow teeth. Bloodshot eyes. Bad breath. Hair that smells like an ashtray. Two yellow, stinky fingers. Waking up at night coughing. Colds that turn into terrible chest colds that need to be treated by antibiotics. Gravel, broke-glass voice. Constant clearing of my throat. Constant stuffy nose.In my opinion, people who quit cigarettes are supermen and superwomen - like those who have climbed Mount Everest, or been to the South Pole, or swum across the British Channel, etc.

QUITTING CIGARETTES IS AN ENORMOUS ACCOMPLISHMENT!

So...maybe ex-smokers are the coolest, bravest, and strongest people on earth! We are rocking!

EB(Quit date: May 6, 2003) Pull up your socks. These are no small potatoes!
emilybronte(EMILYBRONTE1)

EB's List of Reasons to Quit Smoking
EB's One Year Milestone Speech

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