The best motivation for you if you want to give up a smoking addiction is to know what happens when you stop smoking. You will begin finding the effects of quitting smoking as soon as you take the last puff of your final cigarette. The following is a timeline of what happens when you stop smoking:
The positive results will begin to show just within twenty minutes of having your last smoke. Your pulse rate and heartbeat will return to normal. Due to this, you will feel that you can begin to breathe easier. In fact, increased blood pressure increases the rate of a seizure. So, simply within twenty minutes of stopping smoking for good, your chances of a heart attack will have reduced commendably.
After eight hours, the levels of two of the most dangerous ingredients cigarettes introduce in your body – carbon monoxide and nicotine – will have almost halved. Carbon monoxide is a toxic gas. It seriously impairs the body because it interferes in the proper assimilation of oxygen in the blood. With carbon monoxide almost out of the body, your breathing will certainly improve highly. Nicotine is the main addictive ingredient of the body. Since it begins to go out from the system, you can expect some symptoms of cold turkey beginning to show up. This is when you have to build up your defenses.
When the first day is over, carbon monoxide and nicotine will be completely eliminated from the body. This will make two significant things happen. First, your breathing will have almost returned to normal. Second, the cold turkey will have set in completely. You might even get depressed and have hallucinations, especially if you were a chain smoker until one day ago. But the golden lining to this dark cloud is that if you pass through this phase, you will have got rid of your smoking habit for ever. You may even face vomiting and stomach upsets during this period. However, that is simply a sign that the nicotine is gone out from your body.
Within a few weeks, your cold turkey will be over, and you will no longer feel the urge for smoking again. But that depends on your resilience actually. Your circulation will be almost back to normal and risks of all circulatory diseases will be mostly gone.
It will take a little more while for your heart to return back to its normal functioning. Within one year, your heart will have almost repaired to the halfway point, which means the risk of heart attacks would become half of that of a smoker. However, it will take fifteen years for your heart to become as healthy as a nonsmokers heart.
One risk that will not eliminate completely will be the risk of lung cancer. Since the tar from the cigarette settles within the lungs, it is difficult to get rid of it. Still, in ten years, your risk of lung cancer will fall to half. If you take herbal therapies, this risk can be still further reduced.
That means, it will take as long as ten to fifteen years to return back to an almost healthy life. But what happens when you stop smoking immediately is that you feel the zest for life and you gear up for a healthier and enriched existence.