Key Takeaways
- Your heart rate and blood pressure drop back to normal soon after you quit smoking.
- By day two, your sense of smell and taste improves because your nerve endings heal.
- Within 12 hours of quitting, carbon monoxide levels in your blood decrease and oxygen levels return to normal.
When you quit smoking, the health benefits begin within minutes of your last cigarette. According to the Surgeon General, physical improvements in your body begin within the first hour of smoking cessation.
It may take time for your body to heal itself from the damaging effects of smoking, but it’s important to know that you’ll start to experience health benefits almost immediately after you smoke your last cigarette. Every day that you stay smoke-free, you’ll build up even more positive effects.
Once you stop smoking, you’ll notice health benefits starting in just 20 minutes. By the end of the first day, your risk of having a heart attack begins to decrease.
After 20 Minutes
Your heart rate and blood pressure drop back to normal, and the circulation in your hands and feet starts to improve. The longer you stick with your quitting smoking plan, the more improvements you be able to enjoy.
After 12 Hours
Cigarettes contain thousands of chemicals, including carbon monoxide (CO). Carbon monoxide affects your body’s ability to use oxygen and contributes to heart disease.
Within 12 hours of quitting, carbon monoxide levels in your blood decrease, and oxygen levels return to normal. As a result, your body’s tissues receive more oxygen.
After One Day
Lower carbon monoxide and higher oxygen levels in your body help improve your heart’s function, lowering your risk of heart attack.
Nicotine levels in your body also drop, which may lead to withdrawal symptoms and cravings. A solid quitting plan can help you manage these cravings and stay smoke-free.
Additionally, quitting smoking reduces blood pressure and the risk of blood clots, which decreases your stroke risk.
After Two Days
Smoking damages the nerve endings crucial for taste and smell. By day two of being smoke-free, these nerves begin to heal.
Your sense of smell and taste improves as your nerve endings start to heal. You may notice that the air smells fresher and food tastes better within a couple days of quitting.
That’s a lot of improvement for just 48 hours of smoking cessation.
The Immediate Benefits of Quitting
The chemicals in cigarettes affect you in more ways than you realize. When you quit and start to see changes in the discomforts you’ve been living with, like headaches, chronic sinus irritation, and fatigue, for instance, you start to put two and two together.
That’s not to say that every physical ailment can be traced to tobacco use, but you will probably be pleasantly surprised at some of the changes that take place once you stop smoking. Best of all, this is just the beginning. You can look forward to many additional improvements in the days and months to come.
The benefits of quitting smoking continue to build the longer you stick with it.
- By the third day, breathing will start to become easier as your lungs begin to heal.
- By the end of the first week, carbon monoxide levels will have decreased to normal levels.
- Within two weeks, your lungs will function approximately 30% better than they did while smoking and will continue to improve in the months and years to come.
Making the Decision to Quit
It takes courage to put down that last cigarette. Most people feel an intense combination of fear and excitement leading up to their quit date. Feeling afraid to quit smoking is completely normal and is a by-product of nicotine addiction.
Don’t let that fear paralyze you. Pick your quit date and stick to it. The benefits you’ll experience in the short and long term are well worth the work it takes to achieve.
Breaking the Dependence
Years of associating smoking with everything you do creates powerful links in the chain of psychological dependence you had on nicotine.
- You thought you enjoyed smoking.
- You convinced yourself that smoking calmed your nerves and helped you think more clearly.
- You thought of cigarettes as a friend, a companion, a buddy.
- You thought smoking helped you have more fun and enjoy life more fully.
Logically, you knew better, but addiction can make people rationalize and justify all kinds of crazy notions. You (understandably) like the feeling of relief you get when the nicotine level in your bloodstream is replenished.
From the time a cigarette is stubbed out until the next one is lit, smokers are in a state of physical withdrawal from nicotine.
The more time between cigarettes, the more severe the withdrawal, resulting in edginess, inability to concentrate, and even feelings of depression. It’s a vicious, never-ending cycle.
That is an addiction, not enjoyment. You don’t think of smoking as self-destructive when you first start, but over time addiction quietly teaches you that you are weak and powerless. Most people want to stop long before they are actually able to quit.
Support for Your Quit Smoking Program
Once you decide to quit smoking, it’s important to decide how you’ll quit.
- Make a plan: Choose when you will quit, how you will quit, and how you will manage cravings.
- Find support: Join a quit-smoking support group and enlist the help of friends and family.
- Try a quit aid: Nicotine replacement therapies (NRTs), such as nicotine gum, lozenges, and patches, may help you quit successfully.
- Try medication: Talk to your doctor about medications that can help you quit successfully. Zyban, Wellbutrin, or Chantix may be helpful.
Support is a key ingredient to a solid quit-smoking program. A smoking cessation support forum is a place to meet people who are going through what you are, or have been there, and can offer constructive advice. Your resolve will be bolstered more than you can imagine just by being around others who have the same goals you do.
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