The journey towards quitting for good starts with understanding your addiction. Here, we look at three aspects of addiction that will help break your habits and train your brain to live without cigarettes.
Knowing your triggers
The first step of retraining the brain to stay smoke-free is becoming aware of our triggers.
For a person who smokes, days can be filled with triggers to smoke that have nothing to do with nicotine addiction. It could be certain emotions or certain situations that drive your craving for a cigarette. Once we have identified these triggers, we can find the best ways of managing them to stay tobacco-free.
Changing your routines
Many people who smoke find changing their daily routine is one of the most effective ways to break their habits.
Smoking becomes so ingrained in life, that a need for a cigarette may not be a physical thing, but simply a force of habit. To combat smoking, switching up your routine is essential. Find a new habit to replace lighting up a cigarette with, such as going for a walk, or having a glass of water. Davina swapped her morning cigarette with a morning trip to the gym to help her quit.
Managing your emotions
Finding healthy ways to cope without a cigarette is one of the keys to staying smoke free.
Do you smoke when you're stressed? You're not alone. Reaching for a cigarette can become an automatic response to the difficult emotions in life. Once you’ve identified the feelings that are driving the need for a cigarette, you can learn to replace the cigarette with something else. Take a look at our five ways to manage stress without smoking.