Quit Smoking

Chantix quit smoking work

2009-09-20T18:08:00.000+07:00

Chantix (varenicline) is the latest prescription drugs designed to help adults quit smoking. Chantix is a nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) products like nicotine patches or nicotine gum, which have been on the market for many years. Instead, it is believed that Chantix works by blocking nicotine from reaching receptors in the brain that are normally associated with cravings and nicotine addiction. In clinical studies, patients using Chantix reported that their need to smoke was reduced. In some of these same studies, as high as 44% of patients using Chantix abstained from smoking.
How does Chantix?

To understand how Chantix works, it is important to understand how nicotine.

Nicotine affects the brain. This is one reason why it's so addictive. Nicotine enters the body and brain moving it attaches if the receptor itself small. This tells a different part of the brain to release dopamine, a neurotransmitter commonly associated with pleasure response in the brain. Feelings of joy provided by dopamine reinforce behaviors and proactively motivate individuals to perform certain activities, such as smoking.

When dopamine levels drop rapidly, smokers often feel sick and experience lust for another cigarette.

What Chantix does not attach to the same receptors to nicotine, preventing the release of dopamine. Thus, while smoking introduces nicotine into the body, nicotine is unable to produce dopamine release. Not dopamine, no pleasure, no desire for more nicotine.

Since Chantix is linked to nicotine receptors, there is some incentive, but at levels much lower than those caused by nicotine. Stimulation of "stay on" all the time, because Chantix is taken daily for a long time, to create a shield from the roller coaster ride of addiction to nicotine. Smokers have fewer cravings and less of an experience typical withdrawal symptoms they might experience without the use of Chantix.
Clinical trials with Chantix

Chantix has been tested and studied in six separate studies involving 3659 smokers who smoked 10 or more cigarettes per day.

Two of the studies were double blind, meaning that any staff administering medication, nor patients knew which drug each patient was receiving. This study removes any bias that might creep in if one or more parties have preconceived expectations about a particular pill. The two studies comparing the use of placebo (sugar) pills, Zyban (bupropion, another prescription smoking cessation medication) and Chantix. Both surveys had almost identical results, with 44% of patients treated with Chantix refrain from smoking during weeks 9 and 12 of study. Patients receiving Zyban had an abstinence rate of 30%. Placebo patients had abstinence rates of 17% in first study and 18% in the second.

Five of the six studies examined long-term abstinence rates, with 40 weeks of follow-up. In all studies, patients treated with Chantix were more likely to remain smoke-free after treatment ended than those treated with placebo or Zyban.

A sixth study was conducted to determine whether patients could benefit from an additional 12 weeks of treatment, after the initial 12 weeks of treatment. The study found that patients who used Chantix for additional 12 weeks were more likely to abstain from smoking during the 12 weeks of treatment, and were more likely to remain smoke movement after treatment ended.
Chantix Side Effects

As with most prescription and non-prescription medicines, Chantix may cause side effects.

Chantix patients have reported a variety of side effects, including nausea, headache, difficulty sleeping (insomnia, vivid or strange dreams), constipation and gas. If these symptoms persist or if they bother you, your doctor know.

Other more serious side effects such as suicidal thoughts, depression and behavioral changes were also reported. It is important to report these symptoms to your doctor. Your family or others around you to see these effects before they notice you.

Before taking Chantix, tell your doctor about any history of depression or other mental health problems as they may worsen when taking Chantix.

Use caution when driving or operating machinery until you know how Chantix may affect you.

Chantix should not be taken with other quit smoking medicines.

If you have kidney disease or receiving dialysis may require a lower dose of Chantix.

If you are pregnant, planning to become pregnant, or if you take insulin, asthma medicines or blood thinners, talk to your doctor before you start taking Chantix.
Dosage Info

Smokers who have a prescription Chantix should first establish a quit date when they will completely stop smoking. They should start taking Chantix a week before the date they quit.

Pills should be taken after a meal, with a full glass of water.

The recommended dose of CHANTIX is 1 mg twice daily, following the introduction of one week to medicines:

Days 1 to 3: 0.5 mg once daily
Days 4 to 7: 0.5 mg twice daily
Day 8 to end of treatment: 1 mg twice daily

If the patient can not tolerate any adverse effects of Chantix that they may have their dose reduced temporarily or permanently.

Chantix treatment should be for 12 weeks. After the initial 12 weeks, patients who remained smoke-free benefit for an additional 12 weeks of treatment to enhance long-term smoking abstinence.

Patients who are unable to successfully quit smoking during the first 12 weeks of treatment, or relapse after treatment, should be encouraged to try again after they were sent their first testing ground was not good luck.

Most As in any method or smoking cessation product, Chantix users are more likely to quit successfully if they are self-motivated to complete their custom, and if they are given additional support and advice. Ask your doctor for their help and suggestions to make quitting easier and more successful.
Conclusions

While the results of Chantix are promising (up to 44% drop rate), all will help every smoker to quit. Nothing short of death will force a smoker to stop their habit. Sorry, but their is no magic pill. Influencing and changing the way the brain reacts to nicotine can improve your chances of quitting smoking permanently. But you must want to give up first, and be willing to stick it out, even if you have some discomfort. Remember also that smoking is more than an addiction to nicotine. As a smoker, you create a life that tends to revolve around your next cigarette. To close, you need to change and disrupt the routine, not doing certain behaviors that tend to trigger a desire for a cigarette, such as getting a drink at a bar, and perhaps most importantly, should you think you can go actually smoking.

7 Tips to Help Quit Smoking

2007-02-07T13:48:00.000+07:00

7 Tips to Help Quit Smoking by Nathan Johnson

1.) State of Mind The first thing that you have to do is get in the right state of mind. This is a vital step and should be the first step taken to help quit smoking. They're physical withdrawal caused from nicotine, but this can be overcome by a strong and sound mind. Having a strong will allows you to overcome a lot of things, physical or mental. You have to believe that you're strong enough to quit.
2.) Avoidance A great way to quit smoking is to stay away from areas that you smoked. Staying away from bars and clubs can be a great way of avoiding smoking and smokers. People that drink tend to smoke more when they're drinking and light up more because they're in the company of so many smokers.
3.) Avoid Stressful Situations Now I know that everyone tells you to avoid stress for a variety of reasons and it can be very tough to avoid these situations with work, family etc. Well if you can't avoid these stressful situations then you're going to have to learn to deal with them by finding some good stress relief techniques. How many times have you had something bad happen and then to combat this you have a cigarette or maybe more than one.
4.) Keep Yourself Busy Keeping your body busy is a great way of keeping your mind busy and if your mind is busy than you won't think about smoking as much. Be creative and remember old activities or hobbies that you haven't done in awhile or just do more of the ones that you already do.
5.) Keep your Mouth and Hands Busy Smoking is a habit, a bad one at that. You get in the habit of putting something in your month, over and over again. So learn a hobby that keeps your hands busy. Have suckers, gum and some healthy snacks around.
6.) Be Healthy Drinking lot of water and eating healthy food can make the body feel better and can make the mind feel better. This can help you resist going back to smoking. Exercise is also a great way to make you feel better and a great way to take your mind off smoking.
7.) Remember all the People you are Helping When you decide to quit smoking you are not only helping yourself, but also the people around you. Let's face it, if you don't quit smoking, it will kill you one day. Imagine the people who are close to you. They no longer have to deal with secondhand smoke from you. You're also setting a good example for all the youth you interact with. We're all influenced by others and when you smoke it sends a bad message to them.
About the Author
Nathan Johnson quit smoking and got his mom, dad and brother to quit smoking. He can help you quit smoking today. Learn his secrets at his web site: Click Here!

Be A Quitter. Smoking is Killing You

2007-01-30T10:35:00.000+07:00

Be A Quitter. Smoking is Killing You by Aaron Snider

When you quit smoking, the benefits begin within minutes of your last cigarette.
At 20 minutes after quitting: blood pressure decreases pulse rate drops body temperature of hands and feet increases.
At 8 hours: carbon monoxide level in blood drops to normal oxygen level in blood increases to normal
At 24 hours: chance of a heart attack decreases
At 48 hours: nerve endings start regrowing ability to smell and taste improve This is the most trying time for most quitters. The first 2 days to urge to smoke will be the strongest. They say one day at a time...pfft.. more like one minute at a time. Find something else to do during that time you would be out smoking and the urge will pass. After over coming a few urges you will see that it's not so hard to make it through that 5 or 10 minutes that time seems to stop while you have that nic fit.
The first day most experience crankiness, difficulty concentrating or inability to focus, and insomnia. Working the first day seems to be very difficult. You may want to schedule your quit day for a day off. Snuggle up with a book, watch some TV, do some writing. Anything that will help you get from craving to craving without too much hassle with other people. I find when I write down the symptoms I'm having when I have a craving it focuses me on how I'm feeling and I think to myself "boy, I never want to go through this again." This reinforces, for me, why I'm quitting in the first place.
Don't be afraid of your emotions. This time will produce some strange emotions for you. While quitting I have even felt sorry for the cigarettes. I know that sounds dumb, thinking that an object that will eventually kill you, needs some consoling itself. So I wrote my cigarettes a "Dear John" letter. I told them that I'm sorry, but it's time for me to move on with my life. I listed my reasons I was quitting and posted that letter at my desk. Every time I want a cigarette really bad, I visualize the cigarettes moving on and finding a new boyfriend. LOL. Sounds stupid, but whatever works, huh.
Something else that's worth mentioning here I think is the fact that when you started smoking you had to learn how to smoke. Remember taking short drags and inhaling them fast so you didn't cough on them. Then eventually taking longer more satisfying drags. Then years of smoking after dinner, in the car, when you wake up. What you need to do now is learn how to not smoke. Learn how to start your morning without a cigarette, learn how to finish dinner and not smoke, learn how to drive and not smoke.
So take it a minute at a time, and understand that during this tough time you are learning how to not smoke just as you learned how to smoke so many years ago.
About the Author
Download my special report: How To Quit Smoking Right Now And NEVER Have A Nicotine Fit. With full give away rights. http://www.e-bookdepository.com/recommends/stopsmoking

Quit Smoking : Overcoming this Physical and Psychological Addiction

2007-01-29T22:14:00.000+07:00

Stop Smoking - Overcoming this Physical and Psychological Addiction
By: Carol Stack

Simply wanting to stop smoking is a large part of the battle to succeeding. Often knowing that cigarettes are destroying your health is not enough incentive. You don't want to think about all the health problems that smoking can cause.After all, between the physical addiction to nicotine and the psychological addiction, the whole person, mind and body, is craving the next cigarette. With that strong pull encouraging you to the next smoke, the thought of getting cancer, having a heart attack, or hurting your unborn baby might not be enough to make you decide to stop smoking.That your health doesn't deteriorate with the first cigarette encourages you to believe that smoking is not dangerous. Tobacco takes twenty to fifty years to damage your body with cancer or heart disease.For a young person who is encouraged to start smoking at fifteen or seventeen that seems like a lifetime away. The sad thing is, by the time the damage is done it can be too late to quit smoking. They can end up dead of a heart attack at forty-five or dying of lung cancer at fifty.How does one succeed in stopping the mind and body from continuing this addiction? You must deal with the body and the mind separately but at the same time. In other words, deal with the physical addiction with one technique and the psychological addiction with another technique all at the same time.It's actually easier to deal with the physical addiction. There are patches, pills, and gums that you can use if you need them. Your doctor will be able to help you in this area by recommending products that can help your body lose the desire for a cigarette.The psychological addiction is more complicated to overcome. Everyone would rather experience pleasure than pain, and trying to stop smoking will produce pain. To the smoker, cigarettes produce pleasure.Some smoke to have something to do, or because they believe it will calm their nerves. They might associate smoking with a pleasurable experience, such as smoking with friends at the bar or while they play poker. They aren't smoking because they feel the need for the nicotine, but because they associate smoking with a good time.So how does one overcome the psychological addiction? Some professionals suggest filling up the time you would normally be smoking with some other activity. The activity needs to be a positive one or it won't work.Have the activities planned out. Know exactly what you are going to do in place of smoking and be prepared for it.Include times of regular exercise, meditation and breathing exercises. Believe you can stop smoking and surround yourself with people who will encourage you to succeed.Most importantly, get rid of the idea that life isn't worth living without cigarettes. That thought must not be allowed. Change that thought to "life is worth living without cigarettes." Instead of thinking that cigarettes are good, replace the thought with something like "cigarettes are killing me."By changing your thoughts about cigarettes from positive to negative you will change your beliefs about them. When your beliefs change, then you lose the psychological craving for them and it's easier to stop smoking.
Article Source: http://www.superfeature.com
Carol Stack enjoys writing. She lives with her husband, children, and several dogs and cats in the United States. She wants to help people stop smoking and has put up a web site at www.onlinestopsmokingtips.com where you can go for encouragement and help to quit smoking. The site is dedicated to Carol's grandmother who smoked for over 45 years before she quit.

To Quit Smoking

2007-01-29T22:13:00.001+07:00

To Quit Smoking You Must be Determined to Succeed
By: Carol Stack

One of the difficulties in trying to quit smoking is that smokers become physically dependant on nicotine. Nicotine causes a lot of different reactions throughout the smokers body (many of them very bad). What it does once it arrives in the brain is responsible for both the good feelings you get from smoking as well as the irritability you feel if you try to quit.That's why most people experience the following symptoms when they try to quit smoking, all arising from the lack of nicotine in their blood stream: Irritability, anxiety, depression, and a craving for nicotine.So if you really want to quit smoking, know in your heart that this time it is for good. Set your date, be committed, and write down your affirmations and scare tactics. This is the first step, and perhaps the most important.Without a set resolve to quit, you will probably fail. If you are completely committed, your chance for success increases dramatically.When you are trying to quit smoking, any method, whether nicotine patches, gum, hypnosis, etc., are only as productive as your willpower allows them to be. Thus, for you the decision to quit smoking must be accompanied by a will that is just as strong, if not stronger, than your current will to quit smoking.The good news is that there are many aids to help you quit smoking. You just need to find out which one will work best for you.If you have a limited budget, there are still many free methods that can help you to quit smoking, including a variety of methods that you can use to help cut down on your cigarette cravings.These include quit smoking groups for men and women wanting to quit. Being in a group of people who are all trying to stop smoking can be a great incentive to stay away from cigarettes.There are also a number of bonafide and medically proven prescription and herbal or natural compounds that can and do often help people to achieve their goal to be smoke free. Calamus and camomile are two natural cures. Ask a health professional or nutritionist for the best dosage and how to use these.Acupuncture is best for those individuals that are heavily addicted to the nicotine, but have clearly made the commitment to quit. Hypnosis is another method, although it is recommended that you use a nicotine patch or gum along with it.No matter what method or aid you use to help you quit smoking, there is nothing that will help more than your determination to quit. Without that determination people fail. With it, you are far more likely to succeed than the average smoker who only wants to "try" to quit.
Article Source: http://www.superfeature.com
Carol Stack has written many articles. She lives in the United States with her husband, three children, and various dogs and cats. Carol has a website dedicated to her grandmother who smoked for almost 50 years before quitting. If you or someone you know wants to quit smoking, visit www.onlinestopsmokingtips.com for tips and encouragement to stop smoking.

Directions on How to Stop Smoking

2007-01-29T22:08:00.000+07:00

Stop Smoking: Directions on How to Stop Smoking
By: Spencer Hunt

Stop Smoking: how to quit smokingSo you want to quit smoking do you? It has been estimated that the average smoker has wasted over $400,000 in tobacco purchases and medical expenses by the age of 35. So imagine what you could do if you did stop smoking! How do you quit? You put your mind to it and you do it.You do not have to pay lots of money for hypnosis or for acupuncture or even some expensive nicotine patch. Just let your friends know that you are now serious about kicking the habit of smoking and get started on a free program.U.S. Surgeon General has reported that nicotine is just as addictive as heroin andCocaine! So you will want to take this seriously, because it is NOT going to get any easier to quit if you procrastinate this.Those once smoking a pack or more a day, who have given up smoking for at least one year, have a death rate less than half that of those who have continued smoking. - American Cancer SocietyOne of the first people that I helped to quit smoking, always said that she really wanted to quit smoking. But when I asked her, she would say that she wanted to start her program once she had finished her current new pack of cigarettes. I asked her how much the pack cost her, and then offered to give her that amount of money to buy the pack from her. I bought her cigarette pack from her, and then I crushed the pack into pieces over the trash can. Even if you do not care about your health, others do, and by you smoking, there is a danger of second hand smoke for others. And the worse part of it is that those that look up to you, may soon be copying your dirty habit. I have worked with lots of people who I have helped to stop smoking, who had been smoking for many years. It is not easy, but I know that it is possible. You will want to remove all the things from your surroundings that make you crave tobacco. This means that you will need to get rid of the smells from your car, your clothes, your carpet and entire home. That could mean that you need to stay away from your favorite porch chair for a while, if that is where you do most of your smoking. Get rid of all of your ash trays. Stay away from the places where you normally buy the cigarettes. Some people like to get candies to put into their mouth, for whenever they feel the urge to smoke. It is recommended that you use cinnamon flavor, since that helps control the urge. Before you start, get some cinnamon flavored candies and cinnamon flavored mouth wash. Orange juice, or even better, grapefruit juice, has shown to be especially helpful, due to the high vitamin C content. Have the juice available in your refrigerator and wherever you go. Get some healthy munchies. For example, maybe put a bag of those mini carrots in your refrigerator. Stay away from high fat foods, coffee, and alcohol, while you are trying to quit. By doing this, you will be fighting some of the natural triggers that have stopped you from quitting smoking in the past.A free program that has been used by over 20 million people, is the Five-Day Plan to Quit Smoking, put together by two Christians in 1964. And it is still being used today! The plan has been recognized by the World Health Organization, the American Cancer Society, the American Lung Association, and the American Heart Association. This plan was put together by J.Wayne McFarland, M.D. and Elman J. Folkenberg. There are some places that will charge you to do this plan, with personal assistance, but you can download a find a free copy on the internet and do it on your own at no cost too.The plan takes you through a five day long, step-by-step program to easily change your daily habits and achieve your goals to quit smoking. Through psychological motivations and physical changes (such as slight dietary modifications), the Five-Day Plan works to break your nicotine cravings and smoking routine.
Article Source: http://www.superfeature.com
Spencer Hunt is a glyconutrients distributor who recommends a low glycemic diet and all 8 glyconutrients. He helps people to buy discount glyconutrients products in Canada, New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom, and other places. www.ifoundhealth.com