For some it can be a very personal choice, however, your loved ones and others around you will also benefit from you quitting.
Not only is smoking bad for your general health, but it can cause gum disease, oral cancer, staining of the teeth and bad breath.
It is not just smoking cigarettes that is harmful but also cigars, pipes, chewing tobacco.
People using chewing tobacco especially are far more likely to develop oral cancer, this due to the carcinogens being so close to the soft tissues in the mouth.
Five-to-ten years after quitting the added risk of cancers of the mouth, throat, and voice box drops by half. If you can quit smoking for twenty years, the risk goes back to the levels before you started smoking.
The heart can also be affected by smoking. It can raise blood pressure, and narrow the arteries increasing the risk of stroke, heart attacks and cardiovascular disease.
Inhaling second-hand smoke can also affect those who don’t smoke in a similar fashion.
The great thing about quitting tobacco smoking for your heart is that after only one to two years the risk of heart attack drops sharply.
Then after three to six years, the added risk of cardiovascular disease drops by half.
It is common for smokers’ lungs to often be affected. This has led to the well-known condition of a smoker’s cough.
Tobacco smoking especially can increase the risk of lung cancer as the chemicals affect the wide surface area of the lungs.
Smoking can lead to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which incorporates bronchitis and emphysema, and pneumonia.
After one-to-twelve months of quitting, coughing and shortness of breath decrease and the risk of lung cancer drops by half after ten to fifteen years.
In the UK, you can get help to quit smoking from an NHS Stop Smoking Service.
Small changes like quitting smoking can help lead you to a healthier, longer and in many ways richer life.
