How to quit smoking

Deciding to quit smoking is a big step towards better health, but that doesn't mean it's easy. The good news is that with a mix of therapies, medications, support and simply breaking your own habits, you'll be fully equipped to take on the task.

Your doctor can prescribe nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) in the form of gum, patches or sprays that help to control cravings. These products are generally available without a prescription.

• NRT releases nicotine into your bloodstream at much lower doses than a cigarette, without the tar, carbon monoxide or other poisonous chemicals you get from tobacco smoke. Most people stop using NRT within three months, but heavy smokers may need to use it for longer.

Your doctor can also prescribe medications to help you quit.

Smoking is not just a physical addiction; it is also a learned behaviour and to free yourself from it, you need to unlearn the habits associated with it as well as break the physical addiction.

• The more you understand how your habit took hold, the greater your chance of breaking it.
• If you smoke a pack of cigarettes daily, then in the course of a year you take more than 70,000 puffs, each one giving you a temporary "high" as the nicotine hits your brain.
• But your brain links the high not only with nicotine but also with all the associated gestures you make — the way you take the cigarette out of the pack, and light, inhale and hold it — and with all the situations in which you typically smoke: after a meal or with your morning coffee, for example.
• A long time before the date on which you intend to quit, make a mental list of the situations in which you usually smoke, so that during your first three days you can avoid as much as possible your most common cigarette cues.
• Start to break the habits, preferably by substituting new ones that give you similar relief and are better for your health.
• Change your routine. For example, if you are in the habit of having a cigarette with breakfast at home, go to a café instead.

When you do stop smoking, take it one day at a time. Simply concentrate on steering clear of cigarettes for that particular day. Your mind can handle thinking "none today," but could start dreaming up reasons for relapsing if you feed it the thought of "no more, ever again."

Deciding to stop smoking is not an easy task, but by trying hard, you might just be able to beat the habit once and for all.