Stop smoking in 6 steps
become a non-smoker
Quitting smoking is supposed to be easy? So why do so few succeed? What does all this have to do with Pilonidal Sinus ? The answer to these questions and how you can successfully implement the most important project of your life, you will learn on this page.
Understand: How does one become a smoker? Why does one remain a smoker?
You might smoke your first cigarette out of curiosity. Or because you want to belong, to be grown up and cool. The first cigarette never tastes good. The second one doesn't either. Why is that? Because the smoke bites into the lungs and eyes, because the unaccustomed body rebels with palpitations, dizziness and nausea. Because nicotine is a nerve poison that does not kill as quickly as Novichok, but attacks the autonomic nervous system in a similar way. Why do people still go back to cigarettes? You don't touch the hot stove top a second time.
Neurobiology: Chemistry of our brain
Nicotine activates the "reward system". This part of the brain makes us feel good when we have done something useful for survival. We want that feeling again and again. This is an essential mechanism that keeps us addicted to anything. Nicotine affects the release of numerous neurotransmitters, such as dopamine, serotonin and GABA. The associated receptors are subsequently down-regulated, so that the dose necessary for the brief feeling of happiness increases.
"Unfortunately", with a half-life of 1 - 2 h, the pharmacological effect of nicotine wears off again after a short time and the brain cries out for the next cigarette. So the smoker is actually most of the day in withdrawal and unhappy, interrupted only by brief moments of happiness when the nicotine floods in.
The smoker has the feeling of reward ahead of the non-smoker. The non-smoker cannot indulge himself so easily. If a smoker and a non-smoker crash a plane over the Arctic and miraculously survive, the non-smoker is distraught because he knows he will freeze to death, starve or be eaten by a polar bear. The smoker is happy because the cigarettes stayed dry and first lights one up.
Sophisticated seducers: suggestion by the tobacco industry
I learned about the extremely effective instrument of suggestion in my hypnosis training. Words have an effect on the subconscious. This even influences vegetative body functions. It is known from anaesthesia and emergency medicine that the choice of words by the emergency doctor or surgeon has an effect on blood pressure, blood loss and complications.
The tobacco industry wants to sell cigarettes. That is why it makes advertisements. These advertisements show young, good-looking happy people in pleasant life situations. The multitude of brands are positioned so that there is something for everyone. Global mainstream can be found with Marlboro, the adventurer with Camel, the bon vivant with Gauloises and those who like pure nature smoke the peace pipe with American Spirit.
But it is not only classic advertising on billboards that influences smokers and future smokers. Product placement in feature films and series has a much more subtle effect: The man abandoned by his sweetheart hides behind whisky and a cloud of smoke in the bar.
Lucifer in the series of the same name, young, good-looking, successful with women, healthy and well-trained, smokes at every opportunity.
At the live concert, you can see in close-up when the guitarist sticks his butt under the strings on the neck of the Telecaster ("Until the guitar smokes").
Even in editorial newspaper articles you will read in reports about managers, politicians and artists from time to time in a subordinate clause that they light up a cigarette.
And so, in the subconscious mind, certain situations are linked with the need to smoke. To solve these nodes takes time and will.
Consistency: The power of habit
People do not like to change a path once they have taken it. It is easier to invent reasons for the previous decision than to admit that one was wrong. New decisions like to be guided by how one has decided in the past. This psychological phenomenon is called consistency. People remain on the wrong track even if they knew better.
Smokers are especially good at making up reasons why they can't quit (right now).
- I'm under so much stress right now.
- Right now I finally have time to relax, and smoking is part of that for me.
- I can concentrate better with a cigarette.
- Smoking inspires my creativity.
- If I quit smoking, I would gain weight.
- I do smoke, but otherwise I live a healthy life.
- I'm just a smoker (fate?)
- ... (What is your reasoning?)
Insight: 16 good reasons why you want to quit smoking now
Smoking and Pilonidal Sinus
Why am I telling you facts about smoking when all you really want to do is get rid of your Pilonidal Sinus ? Because smokers
- More often develop complex coccygeal fistulas
- suffer more frequently from acne inversa in the area of the buttock crease
- get wound healing problems more often after operations
- suffer more frequent recurrences (relapses) after coccygeal fistula surgery
Johnson advises against performing flap surgery while the patient is still smoking.
Make it easy on yourself...
Banish bad words from your plan. You don't have to quit, you want to start living a healthier life. Not because your doctor says so, your parents, the state or anyone else - no, because YOU WANT to!
You don't want to never smoke again either, that sounds awful, like dying. No, you don't want to smoke at the moment, until further notice, as long as it feels good. If the decision not to smoke turns out to be a bad one, you can always start again! Zero risk!
You don't think it's mean that you can't smoke anymore, you want to be good to your body now. It's only fair, he's always been good to you too.
And don't think about the risks of smoking, think about the benefits of not smoking. In one week you will sleep more restfully again, the food will taste better, in one month you will breathe better again and the risk of a heart attack will decrease. The body forgives you your sins, after 10 years you have almost the risk of a non-smoker again.
And by the way, you will become rich: If you start smoking at the age of 16 , smoke until you retire at the age of 65 - if you reach that age at all - and smoke an average of one pack a day at today's prices, you will have spent the proud sum of 125,195 € in that time. For that you can treat yourself to something nicer than ruining your health.
You know yourself that smoking is not healthy
This is not a new insight. Everyone has read the warnings on a pack of cigarettes. In a nutshell, do you want to smoke
- Pulmonary emphysema (COPD) suffocate
- die from a heart attack
- get lung cancer
- get cancer of the throat
- get tongue cancer
- get cancer of the oesophagus
- get bladder cancer
- get kidney cancer
- contract leukaemia
- get anal cancer
- lose a leg or both legs
- go blind
- become a nursing case after a stroke
- get purulent, smelly fistulas in the groin, armpit on the buttocks (acne inversa)
- become impotent
- get a wound healing disorder or a recurrence after Pilonidal Sinus surgery?
No? Then forget this list of horrors as soon as possible. This truth only causes stress, and a smoker in stress must continue to smoke. Just remember the bottom line: every day that they quit smoking earlier, improves the chances of a long and healthy life.
Determine: The best time to quit smoking
The best time does not come by itself. In any case, do not choose a symbolic date such as New Year's Eve, their birthday, final exams or starting a new job. After all, if such a date has passed and they were not successful, you will have to wait for the next milestone of their lives.
That's why I recommend a trivial Monday. Do not take the coming Monday, because we need some preparation for your project non-smoking. Longer than one month lead time I would also not recommend, otherwise the good intentions are gone again.
Should you announce your good resolution to those around you? I advise against putting yourself under so much pressure. Otherwise you will fall into the consistency trap again. If you are "caught" in a meaningless relapse, paradoxically you will have to keep smoking to at least make sense of the embarrassment.
Prepare: How autosuggestion helps you become and stay a non-smoker
Smoking in itself is not a pleasure. It burns your throat and eyes, you have to cough and you feel sick. The heart pounds and the body clearly shows you that you have just ingested poison. Why smokers still like to smoke? Apart from the drug effect of nicotine, it is mainly the effect of suggestion. Smoking the cigarette has been subconsciously linked to nice things. Advertising and fellow smokers have instilled in you when and why smoking is nice, even necessary in some situations. And now the good news:
What worked once will work again. With a substitute satisfaction. The fact that you have become a smoker proves that you are amenable to suggestion. So find a new ritual. And give this ritual a meaning. Drink a glass of water calmly in small sips? Delicious! No wonder, water is the basis of all life, covers ⅔ of our earth and accounts for ⅔ of our body weight. Clear, pure and refreshingly healthy, everything you want to be in the future.
Give yourself a break. Take a deep breath in and out. Much of the relaxing effect of smoking is based on slow inhalation. It's not for nothing that relaxing breathing is part of almost all relaxation techniques from meditation to hypnosis. This also works great without a cigarette. Enjoy the glass of tap water like a special drop that you have fetched from the cellar for a special occasion. Chateau aquatique speciale 2021 - delicious!
This tastes great and is soo good!
Repeat this ritual, as if for practice, until it becomes second nature to them. Often you will no longer have any desire for a cigarette. If you have then rehearsed your replacement ritual perfectly, like Robert De Niro a difficult role, you are ready for the step into a healthy and happy non-smoking life.
When, predictably, on the first day of your new life, the desire for the cigarette will come, and that desire will come and seem overwhelming, you are forearmed.
Then you don't have to frantically think about what you can do against the ever-increasing cravings. You just routinely and calmly do what you have trained again and again. And it will work again. Do not rely on willpower. It's not enough. Trust only in what you have trained.
Hang in there: Why relapse is not a problem
So, now they are non-smokers. A day, a week, a month, a year go by ... Not much can happen now. Can't it?
Yes, the relapse is almost as certain as the Amen in the church. The boss was nasty to you, your wife left you or the party was just too good? Suddenly you see yourself with a cigarette in your hand.
And now? Pure frustration!!! For so long I had myself under control and now I'm a smoker again? And that, although the cigarette no longer tastes at all. They remembered the pleasure of a cigarette much better. More frustration!!! Not only endangered health, but didn't even enjoy it.
And, what does the smoker do with frustration? Keep smoking, what else. The second cigarette still doesn't taste good, the third is already going. But now I'll tell you the surefire antidote: knowledge is power.
The relapse is normal. Otherwise it wouldn't be here. That's not a problem either. After all, you have now realised that smoking is not a pleasure at all. This will confirm your decision to remain a happy non-smoker. Only, the next day after the relapse, you must not smoke at all. NO GO!
Celebrate: you did it!
You have earned it:
You can make one day a year your personal holiday. This is the day when you can be really proud of yourself and your wise decision. Doesn't healthy living feel so much better?
Perhaps you will also think of this website on this day, which has given you an important and correct impulse.
Pilonidal Sinus healed and become a non-smoker?
Then I would be happy with you if you emailed me your success story. You would not be the first!
