What will you gain by giving up smoking?

If you haven’t done the proposed reflection before, you can bring to mind now the intrinsic harms of tobacco: the loss of time, money, health, strength and physical fitness, and other more specific ones that make sense in your current situation.

A list of reasons why you are quitting smoking also often helps, and they should be as personal as possible. If you’re short of examples, we’ve added a list written in the first person:

• I’m going to feel healthier; I’ll regain my sense of smell, taste, energy, and lung capacity.
• I’m going to fight addiction and the process of tolerance to the drug, which happens when I feel I need more of the substance or need it more often.
• I’ll have whiter teeth and better breath. Discolouration and stains will be reversed. I won’t smell of tobacco. If I kiss people, it won’t taste like an ashtray.
• The health of my skin will improve. I’ll avoid stains caused by tar consumption.
• I’ll reduce the risk of developing or worsening cancer, respiratory or cardiovascular diseases, since tobacco use is the world’s leading cause of preventable premature death, and 8 million people die each year due to smoking. Half of the people who smoke will die due to the effects of tobacco.
• I’ll stop consuming up to 43 carcinogenic substances: tar, nicotine, carbon monoxide, cyanide, nickel, arsenic, lead and radioactive substances such as polonium 210, potassium 40 or radium 226.
• I’ll stop consuming poison. Nicotine is an insecticide. The tobacco plant developed that defence, an insecticidal poison, instead of growing thorns.
• My organic ageing will be reduced and my biological age (my body’s age) will move closer again to my chronological age (the years I have lived). It is estimated that 1 cigarette shortens life by about 20 minutes. It has been shown that tobacco obstructs skin oxygenation, which causes premature wrinkles.
• I’ll reduce the generational gap compared with younger people: fewer and fewer people smoke conventional tobacco.
• My social image will improve.
• Smoking is a determinant of poverty: disadvantaged groups smoke more.
• My children, relatives, friends will be healthier. Quitting smoking is protecting boys and girls and all passive smokers. I’ll be a good example.
• My surroundings may feel proud of me.
• I will feel proud of myself; I’ll feel that I have greater control over my life. Quitting smoking can increase my sense of agency, of control over other areas of my life in which I want to make a change.
• I’ll be more resilient in the face of the difficulties, problems and crises inherent in life, because when they appear, I’ll draw on my personal and social resources instead of turning to cigarettes.
• Until now, in the face of many different difficulties or problems, I used the same resource: tobacco. Now I’m going to diversify and expand my responses to crises, and that will lead me to get to know myself better.
• My life can change. I’ll feel freer.
• Smoking doesn’t make me free; it makes me dependent. Quitting smoking will set me free.
• Quitting smoking will mean taking control and choosing. Continuing to smoke would mean losing control.
• I’ll be able to exercise more: the blood that supplies the muscles will arrive sooner and more oxygen-rich.
• I’ll have more money.
• I won’t have to worry about the need to smoke when I can’t (meetings, travel, the cinema, around people I don’t want to see me).

The health reasons for quitting smoking are usually well known. But do you know the social, economic and environmental reasons for quitting? Here are some:

• I’ll stop contributing to climate change. Each year:

  • 600 million trees are felled for tobacco products (≈ 1 tree per 300 cigarettes).

    Work it out: how many trees have to be felled for you to smoke the cigarettes you smoke in a month?

  • 200,000 hectares are used and rendered infertile for its cultivation.

  • 22,000 million tonnes of water are used for its production.

  • 84 million tonnes of CO₂ are emitted, one fifth of what the aviation industry emits.

  • 4,500,000,000,000,000,000 (4.5 trillion, that is, 4.5 million billion) filters end up in the world’s waters. Cigarette butts are the most littered item on Earth, and they contain 700 toxic products that leach into the environment. A cigarette butt takes between 8 and 12 years to decompose.

  • Climate change, deforestation and global warming demonstrably worsen the health of all living beings. Tobacco not only directly affects the health of its consumers, but also has an indirect negative effect on the planet and on the health of all its inhabitants.

• I’ll stop contributing to a socio-economic epidemic that impoverishes people and countries: public health spending due to smoking burdens and worsens public health systems. The WHO estimates that smoking has a healthcare cost of about €47 per person per year.
• I’ll stop contributing to what has been reported as child exploitation practices in tobacco-producing countries. A WHO report states that around one million children work on tobacco plantations. Between 10% and 14% of these children do not go to school. We link an 8-minute video on the topic, in case you’re interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OF77XsvucYk
• I’ll stop contributing to what has been reported as labour exploitation of women farmers who grow tobacco. According to The Guardian, they earn about €244 a year. According to the WHO, 7 out of 10 people who work on tobacco plantations are women. The risks they are exposed to relate to the harshness of the work and exposure to nicotine and to toxic pesticides and fertilisers. Symptoms include dizziness, vomiting and nausea, among others.

There can be many more reasons, phrased in a more personal way and applied to your daily life.

The good news is that the body recovers very quickly and your biological age (your body’s age) can recover and match your chronological age (the years since you were born). We share the short-term health benefits of quitting smoking:

Short-term benefits

• 20 minutes: blood pressure and pulse return to normal.
• 8 hours: oxygen levels return to normal.
• 24 hours: the risk of having a heart attack decreases and you stop smelling of tobacco.
• 48 hours – 5 days: smell and taste improve and nicotine is eliminated from the body.
• 72 hours: you breathe better and regain energy.

You’ll have the long-term benefits available in the next module!

Quitting smoking is the most effective thing a person who smokes can do to improve their health.

We believe that, for every achievement and step forward you make, you can feel grateful and proud of yourself. If progress brings you satisfaction or joy, we explain that the need associated with that emotion is sharing it, so we encourage you to do so!

Emotional framework:

Situation → Emotion → Need

In the following example we show how the achievement of the first few days or weeks without smoking can be experienced:

Achievement → Joy → Sharing the joy