Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Breathe Free ...


I got a calendar invite few days back in my office mail to a ‘Lifestyle Seminar –Breathe Free’ that would be hosted by experts with practical discussions. I accepted the invite assuming the discussion would be about fitness, yoga or more specifically pranayama. Maybe it would motivate me to go kill the fat that has been adding on me past few years. The afternoon of the discussion came and I pulled along my team mate-cum-good friend to the café where the seminar was going to take place. The screen for the presentation slides was there. Also present were two ladies from the organization that conducted the seminar. The audience though was merely a handful. Six in total: the girls being just my friend and I. The lady began to speak, and we heard her say- We will be talking about the bad effects of smoking and how to overcome it … Okay! That second, embarrassment flushed my face! Maybe the other men were smokers and they were coming to get self motivated and quit smoking. Seeing the number of people present certainly didn’t make me feel any better. It made me think to myself- Breathe FREE. They were not talking about having a cold and your nose being blocked for which Yoga could help. They meant FREE- no smoke!! What was I thinking??? I reacted quickly, and genuinely said “Sorry, I do not think this would be relevant to me. I’ll probably leave.” The organizer answered that it would be relevant as we will learn some facts about smoking and its effects. And we could probably help people we know to quit smoking. Ok, that made sense, but … My friend signaled we could stay and then the others too mentioned that they all thought it was related to fitness. Phew! I felt better!! They were all non smokers. So the lady began to speak the slides and very clearly mentioned many details about smoking that most of us do not know. It was great to know those facts and in fact, I enjoyed the session. It made me feel proud of my dad who quit smoking two years ago.

I would like to share some of the facts that I got to know from this seminar and I really hope everyone who smokes realizes that it is just not a clichéd statement. Smoking really is injurious to health, and consequently to your happiness.


Some facts about smoking:

*Every cigarette that you smoke reduces 6 minutes of your lifespan.

*When we are asked about the bad effects of smoking, we only think of heart attacks or cancers that are long term effects. These hardly convince smokers who are too stubborn to quit a minute’s pleasure of smoking for something like a heart attack which is too far ahead in their lives. What most of us do not know is the short term and immediate effect of smoking like Hair loss, Decreased libido and Tiredness. Smokers hate it when being nagged about quitting smoking. They give excuses like mental stress, frustration and other actually trivial matters as their top reason to smoking. A smoker needs to understand that problems and stress can be and should be dealt differently and that Smoking is never the right thing to do for anything that it may seem as giving comfort to.


Smoking nicotine has short and long-term adverse effects on health, finance and family. Quitting smoking is a powerful way to increase lifespan, improve one’s lifestyle and have a healthy and happy life. Once one quits smoking:

8 hours later:

-Carbon monoxide level in the blood drops to normal

-Oxygen level in the blood goes up to normal

24 hours later:

-Chances of heart attack starts going down

48 hours later:

-Nerve endings start growing again

-Ability to taste and smell begins to improve

2 weeks to 3 months later:

-Blood circulation improves

-Lung function improves up to 30%

1 month to 9 months later:

-Decrease in coughing, sinus congestion, tiredness and shortness of breath

-Cilia (small hairs) grow back in lungs to better handle mucus, clean the lungs and reduce infection

1 year later:

-Risk of heart attack is half that of smoker

5-10 years later:

-Lung cancer death rate goes down by half

-Risk of stroke becomes the same as non-smoker

-Risk of cancer of the mouth, throat, oesophagus, bladder, kidney and pancreas go down

15 years later:

-Risk of heart attack comes becomes same as a non-smoker


Quick Tips to help quit smoking:

Four R’s:

Review your reasons for change and think of all the benefits to your health, finance and family.

Remind yourself that there is no such thing as one cigarette or one puff.

Ride out the desire. It will pass.

Reward yourself for not smoking.


Four A’s:

Avoid people and places where you are tempted to smoke.

Alter your habits (Switch to juices, take a brisk walk)

Alternatives – Use alternatives to tobacco (clove, cinnamon, gum, carrot)

Activities – Keep your self busy.


Four D’s:

Deep Breathing.

Delay when you feel tempted to smoke.

Drink water.

Discuss with a friend.


Websites that help you to quit Smoking:

www.smokefree.gov

www.whyquit.com

www.surgeongeneral.gov/tobacco/

3 comments:

Suganya said...

Nicely written.. hahaa.. Even i was sorta unsure what to do when they said its about smoking.. Anyway feeling good that we stayed. My main takeaways were

1. Every cigarette reduces 6 min of ur life span
2. 40% of cancers in India are lung cancers.
3. Smoking causes wrinkles, decreased libido and hair loss.

Had a smoker attended the seminar, he (or she) would have given a thought about quitting.

A suggestion: You can invite as many people as possible to read this post and lets use this as a forum to discuss anti smoking..

The Star said...

Great Suganya! thanks a lot for the nice comments and for adding onto the stuff learnt from the seminar!

Siva said...

Superb work Shwetha!!! I feel bad that I have missed such an interseting seminar:( I always wonder what makes people smoke and what is it in a single puff? why don't people quit smoking ?

Surely smokers reading this blog will think atleast a second to quit smoking.