Lung Detoxification

What Motivates You To Undertake A Quit Program/Lung Detox?

Determining your motivations, and nailing down exactly why you want to Quit Smoking and/or Detoxify Your Lungs is really important to keep you working towards these goals. The exact reasons vary for each and every one of us, so if you go to the trouble of really understanding your own reasons, and then feeling them – desiring them – you will have a much greater chance of staying smoke-free and cleaning up your lungs – fast!

There are many possibilities, and slight variations – but in some way or form these motivations can be summed up by this basic premise: giving up cigarettes forever, detoxing your lungs and be healthier, feel better and live longer for yourself and your family. Your smoking habit has caused this damage, and has the potential to continue to do so, for up to 10 years after your last cigarette. That is why a Lung Detox is an essential part of any Quit journey.

Reaching That Critical ‘Activation Energy’

Often in any great effort to change, the first hurdle is the toughest. This can be referred to as achieving Activation Energy – that is, making the start that will bring about the improvement in your health (presuming you stick with it – see next section). With most decisions to Quit Smoking and Detoxify Your Lungs, the primary motivation usually comes from a place of anger and fear. Fear of an early, wasting death, possible loss of quality of life for years beforehand, and missing out on seeing your grandchildren, and possibly even your children, grow up. These are all quite rational and sensible fears seeing the dangers of smoking are so well known and publicized these days.

We recognize that motivation through fear has its place. It is sad but true that we humans are far more motivated to flee from danger than we are to move toward things that are good for us. However fear motivation is strong, but short-lived. It can help you reach that critical Activation Energy to get started on your journey to better health, but once this is done it tends to peter out, and those old, short-term cravings seem to have the strong pull they always did. This is because people just can’t maintain a fear response for long periods; we are just not designed that way, and if we try it has considerable negative impacts on both our minds and bodies.

Seeing It Through

So if negative motivation can start us off, but won’t get us there, what do we do then? The answer is to swap to positive motivation! This simple but often overlooked change in motivational methodology can easily be the difference between a successful quit/detox attempt, and waking up one morning with a packet of cigarettes back in your top pocket or handbag. By knowing what your own personal, positive, long-term motivations are to get healthy, and using techniques like Visualization/Positive Forward Projection and Positive Mental Conditioning to keep you feeling those motivations strongly and permeating through all the levels of your mind, your chances of a successful quit/detox attempt will skyrocket!

In fact, we think this is so important, it is the topic of our newest Booklet in the ‘The Complete Lung Detoxification Guide’ Series, Book 1 – The Complete Motivations For Lung Health Guide. Complied over several years, and drawing information from top authorities in the field, this newest addition to the Guide Series will help you stay the course, and reach your quit/detox goals.

3 More Days!

We are getting really close now to the release of the updated Guides for 2011! Over the first six days of the New Year, we’ll have a series of New Year’s Resolution Lung Detox posts, all related to the new release and to starting the adventure to a healthier new you. Check back tomorrow for the fourth topic in the series; Nicotine Dependence – It’ll Get You Back If It Can.

Until tomorrow,

Happy New Year, stay well, stay quit, and lung-toxin free.

William Renolds

Negative Pressure

For most people, stress is a negative pressure that adversely affects our day to day health and happiness.  If it builds up to intolerable levels, it can even stop us doing what we most want to do, and can also bring on all sorts of other mental instabilities, and physical sicknesses to boot.  And when Quitting Cigarettes or undertaking a Lung Detox, it can be the one factor too many that leads you to fail in reaching the goals you set out to achieve.  But what if there was a way to understand stress more clearly, and stop it having such detrimental effects on your life?  It turns out there is…

Stress – It All Starts In Your Head

Stress doesn’t physically exist.  It’s not ‘out there,’ seeping into your life with the pressures put upon you at work, or in the home, or a hundred other places.  It’s all in your head.  Truly.  Stress is YOUR reaction to pressures other’s – and even you – put on you.  Plain and simple.  Sure, the pressure comes from ‘out there’ for the most part, but the stress is all yours.

So what does this little factoid actually do to help you, you may be wondering?  The pressure is still there.  But once you realize that stress is your reaction, it means you have options.  You can learn to control your reaction to external and internal pressures.  You can take your reaction back, and use it to your advantage.

Turning Stress Into Success

Do you know the difference between the stressed out person who burns out and slips back into the smoking habit, and a person who turns that corner, changes their life for the better, becoming healthier in the mind and body?  The relapsed smoker turns pressure into stress, and reaches for that pack, that’s what.  And the other?  Well they learn how to turn that pressure into challenge, what is for many of us a negative into a positive, and achieve their goals.  That is what we all want, after all, isn’t it?

And that’s what the ‘Stress Reduction’ section of our product, ‘The Complete Lung Detoxification Guide’ Series is aimed at helping you achieve, with many ways to reduce and avoid pressure laden situations, and more great advice on turning Stress into Success.

4 More Days!

We are closing in on the release of the updated Guides for 2011!  Over the first six days of the New Year, we’ll have a series of New Year’s Resolution Lung Detox posts, all related to the new release and to starting the adventure to a healthier new you.  Check back tomorrow for the third topic in the series; Motivation – Your Best Friend, Full Stop.

Until tomorrow,

Happy New Year, stay well, stay quit, and lung-toxin free.

William Renolds

Jumping In, Boots And All

Most people wake up on the 1st of January, and once their hangovers clear, decide it’s a New Year and time to make a change.  This is a good thing.  It is a fine time to make this sort of decision.  However, it’s what they do next that decides if they will be successful or not.  Most smokers throw away their last pack and go cold turkey, or at best have nicotine patches to fall back on.  These can certainly help, in part, but they are NOT the be all and end all.  There is much more to know, and much more to do, before starting down the path of a successful quit attempt for the New Year; one that will become a new – and far healthier – lifestyle habit.

Failing To Plan Is Planning To Fail

It’s that simple.  If you don’t have a good plan for your quit attempt, you’ll likely be lining up again next year to try it again. Now I’m not saying that you can’t just stop smoking and ‘tough it out,’ relying on pure willpower to not slip back.  I’m really impressed with people who can do this.  But let’s face it, that’s not most of us.  Most of us are fallible mortals, who need a good plan, and a fair bit of help, to make that life changing move to healthy lungs.  This is what our product, ‘The Complete Lung Detoxification Guide’ Series, is aimed at providing; a complete program to guide you to a successful Quit Attempt, and/or Lung Detoxification.

Our product will give you a tried and tested method to prepare and enact a well-planned Quit Day, utilizing the best methods and tips for your personal situation, including when to actually schedule your last cigarette.

Picking The Right Time – For You

There are many factors that you should have working in your favor to make your next quit attempt your last, and your most successful.  If you spend the time preparing – reducing stress, understanding your short and long term motivations, keeping them in mind, and organizing the right help methods to get you on the path to healthy lungs *takes breath* then you will succeed.  And the important thing is, you might spend a month preparing, but that month is not nearly as much time to expend as you would use with multiple future quit attempts, is it?

Likewise, the actual day you set is important.  Choosing a day that is, for example, NOT during a busy time at work, or not during some other event that will distract you from your goal, is very important.  Your chances of success sky rocket when you have the time to focus on quit techniques and beginning healthy alternatives, like a new exercise program, diet, or the methods presented in our product.

Just 5 More Days!

We are closing in on the release of the updated Guides for 2011!  Over the first six days of the New Year, we’ll have a series of New Year’s Resolution Lung Detox posts, all related to the new release and to starting the adventure to a healthier new you.  Check back tomorrow for the second topic in the series; Stress – A Smoking Relapse Trigger That Doesn’t Physically Exist!

Until tomorrow,

Happy New Year, stay well, stay quit, and lung-toxin free.

William Renolds

WNTD stands for World No Tobacco Day, which is celebrated around the world on May 31^st every year.  It was first suggested by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 1987, when the World Health Assembly passed resolution WHA40.38 calling for April 7, 1988, the 40^th anniversary of the WHO, to be “a world no-smoking day.”  In 1988, Resolution WHA42.19 was passed, calling for the celebration of World No Tobacco Day, every year on May 31^st.  Since then, the WHO has supported WNTD every year, with each year linked to a different ‘ills of tobacco’ related theme. This year, the theme is ‘Gender and tobacco with an emphasis of marketing to women.’

Women Are Being Targeted By Tobacco Companies!

According to the WHO, women constitute one of the biggest ‘targets of opportunity’ for cigarette companies today.  The tobacco industry is constantly and aggressively looking to replace lost users – be they lost due to quitting or the half of all smokers alive today who will die from smoking related diseases.  Currently fewer woman than men smoke or chew tobacco.  Of the world’s over 1 billion smokers, only about 200 million are women!  With women, the industry simply has more room to expand.  And while tobacco use amongst men in some countries is slowly decreasing, use amongst women is similarly increasing.

The following are some frightening statistics.  Currently, over five million people a year die from tobacco related illnesses (but that won’t be you, because you’re doing something about it, right?).  Of that five million, currently one and a half million are women. Worldwide, of the roughly 430 000 adult deaths caused yearly by second-hand smoke, about 64% occur in women.   With less than 9% of the world’s population being covered by comprehensive tobacco advertising bans, and only 5.4% covered by comprehensive national smoke-free laws, that leaves a lot of young women to be bombarded by tobacco advertising, without the benefit of equivalent awareness campaigns on the damage and harmful effects of tobacco products.

To quote the WHO:  “World No Tobacco Day 2010 focuses on the harm which tobacco marketing and smoke do to women. At the same time, it seeks to make men more aware of their responsibility to avoid smoking around the women with whom they live and work.”

So what does this mean for you?  Well I make the presumption that if you are reading this blog post, you’re either are smoker, and ex-smoker looking to reverse damage done to your lungs, or perhaps you are a family member or a friend of a smoker or ex-smoker you are wishing to help.  Tobacco and its ills have affected all our lives. World No Tobacco Day seeks to promote a possible future where every day is a no tobacco day. That what we here at lundetoxification.com want for everyone who visits this site with the aim to give up and get their lungs clean; a long, happy lifetime of no tobacco.

Now the WHO suggests that you abstain from smoking on May 31^st.  I think this is a laudable goal.  Even choosing WNTD as your quit day is very symbolic, but seeing it’s less than 24 hrs away for most of us, and as good preparation is key to a successful quit attempt, let me suggest and alternative.  If you are a smoker, wishing to quit and stay free of the ills of tobacco, why not spend a few hours on WNTD looking for ways to support your quit program.  You can abstain from smoking too, but you need to prepare, possibly for weeks before quitting, so keep that in mind before going cold turkey tomorrow.  And for those of you who have quit and are looking to help repair damage to their lungs, do your research on how to help this course of action on WNTD.  Wherever you are on your journey to better health, pass on what you have learned to those that are likewise working towards better health.  By supporting each other on the lung health trail, we’ll all get to where we want to be sooner, and all live longer, healthier lives.

One great resource for not only quitting, but making every day a ‘no tobacco day’ is The Complete Lung Detoxification Guide. We have information on the physical and the psychological sides of tobacco dependence, the importance of stress management, using positive forward projection to keep the goal of optimal lung health in mind at those weak moments, and a plethora of tips and methods to get your lungs free of the ills of tar far quicker than your body can manage on its own.  You owe it to yourself, on World No Tobacco Day, to check it out.

Until next time,

stay well, stay quit, and lung-toxin free,

oh and happy World No Tobacco Day!

William Renolds

Does where you smoke matter?

Have you ever been in a place, or been doing an activity, at which you have regularly smoked in the past and really felt like lighting up again, even if you’ve vowed to quit?  Then you’ve experienced the effects of Situational Smoking.  The thing is, it’s not just an association in your mind; recent research suggests that it is your brain getting ready for an infusion of your drug of choice – nicotine.

I expect every smoker that has quit feels this way at one time or another.  You are in your favorite chair, or in the car in a traffic snarl, or relaxing after some intimate time with your partner, in general a place or an activity that your mind strongly associates with smoking.  Have a think about it.  You’ll probably find at least one, but more likely several.  A favorite doorway outside work, a food or drink that you associate with a smoke, or a piece of furniture that you‘ve regularly occupied when smoking.  Whatever it is, you have just discovered a habitual queue that tells your mind you are likely to smoke.

So what is happening in your head at times, or in places like these?  To help you understand the effect, I have to tell you a parallel story that you might have never dreamed could be related; that of junkies dying in alleyways.

Ever wondered why so many heroin users die in alleyways?  Perhaps you think the just go there to shoot up, overdose and die.  Not so.  What would you think if I told you that they have no more heroin in that alleyway than they do at home.  They didn’t die from that dosage at home, so why do they die in the alley?  This comes down to the situational effect again.  Here’s how it plays out.

The user injects say 10 units of heroin to get the buzz they need at home.  They go out to dinner.  Their last buzz wears off, and they want it back before they go clubbing.  They sneak out into the alley behind the restaurant, and hit up with their usual 10 units and it kills them.  Why?

This is the Situational Effect, and you know what, it wasn’t the heroin that killed them, it was their brain.  When you mind associates a place or an activity with the intake of a drug, and you are in that place or undertaking that activity, your brain expects a hit of your drug of choice (and don’t kid yourself, nicotine is a drug of addiction).  So what does your brain do?  It’s depresses your neurotransmitters (specifically the chemicals in your brain that make you feel good) to make you ‘ready’ for the drug.  Some researchers think it’s a protective mechanism to prevent overdose.  Sad thing is, when the drug taker is not in their regular drug taking place or doing the drug-related activity, their brain does not depress their central nervous system (CNS), they go too far on the same dose, and OD.

So that’s what happens to our hapless junkie.  A dose that would have given just the right buzz at home kills them in an unfamiliar location.

Now I’m not suggesting you are a junkie.  You’re a regular person who’s probably having a rough time quitting cigarettes.  But one of the ‘why’s’ that cause this rough time is the Situational Effect.

Whatever this place or activity is, if your mind associates it with smoking then it will cause you to really want to light up when you are there, or when you are doing that activity.

Now our Complete Lung Detoxification Guide recommends that you get away from these places and activities to help you break the association.  Problem is, the research I’ve recently been following suggests that as soon as you do the activity again, or go back to the place that your mind associates with smoking, your brain will down-regulate your CNS and you’ll feel crappy, and want to smoke. This happens even if you’ve been quit for quite a while.  And unfortunately, there is no easy way to get around it.

As we so often state: awareness is the key.  If you are aware that this will happen, you can be ready for it.  This effect is only temporary, lasting from half an hour to several hours, depending on your past levels of smoking.  If you know it is coming, you can be ready for it, and can distract yourself until your neurotransmitters recover.

The good news? The more times you put yourself in your ‘Situational Smoking’ locations, or do the related activities WITHOUT smoking, you’re retraining your brain not to do this anymore. Eventually (and the time this takes will vary from person to person) your brain will lose the association of smoking with that place or activity, and the CNS depression of that situation will decrease, and then disappear entirely.

So keep at it!  Put yourself in your Situational Smoking place/activity when you are feeling strong, and wait it out.  When you do so and you don’t feel like smoking, you’ll know you’ve REALLY beaten the habit that kills millions every year!

Until next time,

stay well, stay quit, and lung-toxin free.

~William Renolds