When you’re working towards something challenging, like quitting smoking, it’s natural to compare yourself to others who seem to be doing well.
We’ve all been there—picture this: you’re in a café, and across from you is an old friend who’s just celebrated a year without smoking.
They’re full of energy, thriving, and it suddenly hits you: if they can do it, there’s no reason why you can’t.
While it’s normal to compare progress with others, remember that your choice to quit is the first step on your journey.
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From there, it’s all about consistency—that’s what will determine whether or not you reach your goal.
Now, you might be thinking about going cold turkey, but you must manage your expectations and figure out how to make it work for you.
Stick around to discover how you can pull it off and the immediate benefits of taking that brave leap.
The Benefits of Immediately Stopping Smoking
Quitting smoking can actually be quick and straightforward, especially when you focus on the immediate benefits that can give you a real lift as you kick the habit.
Below are a few perks you might experience right away.
Immediate Psychological Benefits
You might think that cigarettes help you deal with stress, but they just make it worse and can increase your anxiety.
Keep in mind that smoking is a stimulant, so it can disrupt your sleep patterns, making it uncomfortable or too short.
When you quit smoking, you’ll often find that your sleep gets better. Many people who have quit say they fall asleep more easily and enjoy more restful nights.
Improved Breathing
After quitting smoking, you might notice straight away that your breathing has improved.
That’s the power of getting those nasty cigarette smoke chemicals out of your system. Even just a few hours after you stop, your body starts to heal.
Your bronchial tubes relax, and your airways open up, allowing air to flow more easily and increasing your lung capacity. As a result, you’ll find it easier to breathe and feel less breathless.
Healthy Cardio and Lower Blood Pressure
Smoking puts you at serious risk for heart problems. But when you quit, your heart health can improve quickly.
A few days without smoke in your body can reduce your risk of having a heart attack and improve your blood circulation.
Saving Money From Day One
Smoking isn’t just bad for your health; it’s also a costly habit.
As soon as you quit, you start saving money that you would have spent on cigarettes. Those savings can add up and can be used for things that make you happier and more fulfilled.
Give our quit-smoking calculator a try to find out how much money you could save by kicking this costly and unhealthy habit.
Increased Energy Levels
Nicotine is a stimulant, and if you’re a smoker, you probably rely on it to feel alert and full of energy. But, it also raises your heart rate and blood pressure.
Once you quit smoking, your energy levels will become more balanced and steady. You’ll get better oxygen flow to your body, which means you’ll feel more energetic and less fatigued.
While knowing these benefits is a great reason to quit, it’s essential to keep in mind that stopping isn’t always easy and doesn’t guarantee immediate success on your first try.
Going cold turkey can be quite challenging and may not suit everyone.
It takes a strong mindset, along with plenty of patience and acceptance of setbacks, but sticking with it can lead to a successful outcome.
Major Difficulties of Cold Turkey Quitting
Cold turkey is about stopping smoking immediately without any assistance and moving on with life trying not to think about having a smoke. While this is an admirable and cost-effective method, it doesn’t come without its major challenges.
Higher Risk of Relapse
Cold turkey feels quite easy an hour after you smoke. Once you start going through half of the day or for a few days without ciggies, you’ll start to feel anxious, distraught, and nervous as your body tries to tell you it needs nicotine.
The first two weeks are the hardest part of cold turkey quitting – a period in which many smokers fail to stop smoking and run to the corner shop. While it has a higher risk of relapse, it’s important to recognise that failure is part of the cold turkey quitting process.
If a smoker does relapse during this period, it’s important that they recognise it and set another date again to try quitting, repeating this process as often as necessary, and possibly with the help of a quit-smoking GP.
Nicotine Withdrawals
Withdrawal symptoms happen when your body is cut off from its regular supply of nicotine.
During this period, you may experience nausea, mood swings, irritability, and an extreme need to light up a cigarette.
As cold turkey quitters might not use any NRT tools to soften the blow of nicotine’s absence, they can feel much more intense withdrawals, which are enough to wake up some motivated smokers during sleep.
Demotivation and Poor Expectations
It’s great that motivated smokers are pushing themselves through the cold turkey process and want to get the benefits of immediately quitting as listed above. However, if they expect to quit successfully after their first attempt, this might demotivate them to push on quitting later on.
Again, going through cold turkey (and essentially other quitting processes) requires determination and picking one’s self back up once again if they fail to quit on their current attempt.
Uncomfortable Symptoms
Removing smoking and nicotine from your life brings plenty of benefits, but the extreme withdrawals some motivated smokers experience can cause strong anxiety that can bring about various psychological and emotional side effects.
When you experience uncomfortable symptoms during cold turkey, even if you’re highly determined to push on through the process, we highly recommend seeing a quit smoking GP to help you.
GPs have helped many patients successfully quit smoking and improve their lives altogether. They can also advise medication and NRT tools that can give you relief from uncomfortable quitting symptoms. Furthermore, another person to share your experience helps anyone to recover from the mental and emotional strain of quitting.
So, Is It Possible to Quit Smoking Fast and Easy?
While it’s not impossible for any motivated smoker to just wake up one day and say, “I’m going to stop smoking today,” and actually quit on their first attempt, it may not be a sustainable method for some people.
So, can you quit smoking fast and easy? We have to say that it’s possible to do so, but we don’t recommend it as a goal.
What we suggest is going through a steady process with an experienced GP to help you quit for good, not just for a while.
The Right Way: A Steady Process
Quitting Smoking is Good
We commend any motivated smoker who has recognised the need to quit. Change begins from the inside, and motivation is always a good sign that they can successfully quit.
Maintaining this motivation to quit is crucial in helping a motivated smoker go through the process, even if it takes months or years to kick the ciggies out for good.
Failing to Quit is Also Good
Failure can be part of any cold turkey or other quit smoking journey. Even if the world today values successes over failures, a motivated smoker should recognise that failure brings lessons that help them get better at quitting after each attempt.
Recognising these lessons, especially during terrible withdrawal periods, can be challenging to discover, which is why working with a GP ensures they keep their eye on their goals and keep their motivation up throughout.
Seek the Help of a GP
As mentioned, GPs have helped many motivated smokers successfully kick their dangerous habit. They can design a customised smoking cessation journey for you, evaluate your withdrawal symptoms, and help you handle them.
GPs can also help you recognise the lessons of failed attempts – you won’t face any judgements from these medical professionals. Instead, you’ll receive empathy and understanding with their advice and recommendations until you’ve successfully stopped smoking for good.
Create a Helpful Environment for Quitting
It’s a good thing that Australia’s smokefree laws give many motivated smokers access to smoke-free spaces, which have been proven to help motivated smokers quit for good.
Aside from your external environment, having the household and your circle of friends help you stop smoking is a good thing – many motivated smokers would say they couldn’t have quit successfully on their own.
Use Strategies for Quitting
Quitting smoking cold turkey or otherwise is all about keeping your motivation on high. Most successful motivated smokers have found new hobbies and ways to occupy their time and keep their minds off of smoking. Journaling and ‘surfing over your urges’ are other great methods.
On the GP side of things, your GP can provide the right NRT dosage to help wean you off nicotine, the primary cause of your withdrawals. If that doesn’t work, they can use second-line solutions like nicotine vaping products (NVPs) sold in pharmacies, which can maintain the familiar gestures and throat hit of a cigarette without the harms of cigarette smoke.
Here are more strategies to help you cope with quitting and withdrawal symptoms.
Summary
So, it’s clear that the answer to “Can you quit smoking fast and easy?” isn’t a straightforward ‘yes’. While possible in some cases, overnight quitting isn’t always sustainable and also lacks the learnings and impactful successes from your failed attempts in trying to quit – all crucial factors in keeping you smokefree for a lifetime.
If you need help in stopping smoking, that’s what we’re always here for.
Smokefree Clinic gives you access to many medically reviewed and trustworthy resources that can inform and aid you in your path to wellness, so have a look around!
If you’re ready to get started, Smokefree can connect you to friendly Australian healthcare professionals who excel in helping patients quit smoking for good.