Ready to Quit tobacco? Tobacco Cessation is a bumpy ride for the users who want to quit tobacco. One needs to be well equipped and prepare themselves for the withdrawal symptoms, which is manageable if you do it with full consciousness as it makes the journey easy and interesting.
Withdrawal symptoms can be present in various ways – it can vary from mild to intense. It may be in the form of physical discomfort, that may look like an illness or it can be just feeling of depression, sadness and continuous thoughts and urges of tobacco. Tobacco has been your companion and has taken over your life for many years and now you need to break apart from this habit. Managing the discomforts that comes early on can make you win over tobacco for a life time. It is better to manage with a tailored plan to keep yourself on track.
The 7Ds of Tobacco Cessation
Most of the urges can be controlled by this ICanCaRe Seven Ds which I am going to describe. You can find more details on other blogs.
Understand these seven Ds and memorize them and respond to your cravings or urges in a healthy way. Believe me these Seven Ds are the mantras of tobacco Cessation.
The Seven Ds are
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- Drink Water
- Deep Breathing Exercise
- Delay
- Distract
- Diet
- Discuss
- Drug
1.Drink Water
Proper hydration is most important during tobacco cessation. Dryness of the mouth is a fairly common for all as part of withdrawal symptoms. During cravings just take 2 glasses of water/juice etc, surprisingly enough the cravings disappear. You feel at ease both physically and mentally. It also helps flush toxins from your body.
2.Deep Breathing Exercise
This quickly takes care of the stress, irritability and sleeplessness that comes with tobacco cessation both smoking and chewing. Follow the instruction given below:
- Close your eyes, keep your back straight, palms to the front and deep breath.
- Long inhale slowly fill your lungs with air, hold for 2 seconds.
- Exhale slowly and completely, hold for 2 seconds.
- Repeat this for 10 times. Be mindful of your breath. You will feel the calmness and relaxation.
Managing stress is the most critical thing to do during the quit journey. Mostly people use tobacco to relieve stress and sometimes quitting itself creates stress of its own. Stress causes strong urges to smoke or chew tobacco. DBE helps to destress on the spot and is a simple doable way to attain that.
3.Delay
Delay till the urges pass away. Cravings are difficult, but they usually pass fairly quickly.
Most urges last only for 3-5 minutes!
When you first quit, it may seem the craving is unending lasting for the full day, but the truth is that the urges are really short in duration. They are more during the initial few days of stopping tobacco, but with practice to learn to deal with them rather than tobacco, they will fade away.
4.Distract
Distract yourself! Think of anything but tobacco. You can do many things during these 5 minutes. But remember to avoid triggers do something different than what you did before. You can do yoga, exercise, cook, solve a puzzle etc. Distraction breaks the continuous thought process which would pull you back into tobacco. Controlling the mind and action to keep the thoughts at bay is important move ahead.
5.Discuss
Discuss with your buddy or with your quit coach. This will relieve you. Self-appreciate your resolve to quit, discuss and surely you can tide over the urges.
6.DIET
Indian tobacco use consists of chewing or smoking. There is tendency to have something in the mouth or in between the lips and fingers. Further there may be increase in appetite when one quits tobacco. Be careful to choose healthy alternatives – salad, peanuts, sprouts and so many. But please avoid fat and carbs, which would lead to increase in weight. As an alternate to chewing, I usually suggest roasted chia seeds.
7.Drug
In India tobacco use is associated with many of our routine. One of the most common is bowel movements. Some use tobacco for dental pain, some smoke to suppress cough. These have to be addressed and taken care either by some home remedies, maintaining hydration or it may require certain medications. Addressing these issues with understanding and scientific approach with reasoning will help control a majority of craving and withdrawal symptoms.
A good quit plan addresses both the short-term challenge of stopping use of tobacco and the long-term challenge of preventing relapse.
Planning for what you expect while quitting and re-planning as you move ahead in your journey will make you achieve your goals. The ICanCaRe Tobacco Wellness specialists and Quit Coach hand hold you during your journey, intervene and guide as required. The program is available online and you can connect with us through our app (https://app.icancare.in) or contact 011-430-77695 or visit https://www.icancare.in/quittobacco.
The above seven Ds are the mantras for smoking cessation. They help in most cases but need to be complemented by specific medicine, nicotine receptor agonist meant to control the withdrawal and reward phenomenon of tobacco. The bottom-line is that it is possible to quit and specialized help is available – earlier you quit better for you.