1. Increased Mental Capacity
Non and ex smokers have increased cognitive function than their smoking counterparts. A study of 20,000 smokers at Sheba Medical Center at the Tel Hashomer Hospital in Israel recently, show that the heavier the smoker, the lower the IQ.
2. More Dollar
Smoking an average of twenty cigarettes a day will cost you £2231.00 ($3535.00) per year, and that figure increases with every price hike. What could you buy with that amount of extra money each year? If you smoke for fifty years, providing you live that long, you will have spent upwards of £111,566.00 ($176,798.00), that’s a HOUSE over your lifetime!
3. Better Sex
The blood flow to your body improves once you have stopped smoking. This will improve sensitivity, and men can experience longer erections (longer = time Not: longer = length, sorry guys!). Women may experience better orgasms and become aroused more easily. Non smokers are on average three times more appealing to the opposite sex, we know pheromones affect attraction, so smelling like an ashtray obviously works on the same basis.
4. Senses Improve
Your sense of smell and taste improve when you’re no longer bombarding them with the toxic chemicals found in cigarettes.
5. Breathing becomes less laboured
Stopping smoking increases your lung capacity by 10% within nine months of quitting smoking. In younger people this may not be as noticeable; however, lung function naturally degrades as we get older so having the maximum lung capacity in later life can mean a more active middle and old age.
6. Clearer and younger looking skin
Toxins in cigarettes alter the oil secretions in your skin and can delay the onset of wrinkles. Non smokers have more oxygen reaching their skin, and therefore more nutrients meaning no pallid looking skin.
7. Better Fertility
Getting pregnant is made easier for women as the lining of the womb improves when a woman stops smoking. For men their sperm becomes livelier and more potent increasing the chances of conception. Not smoking also reduces the chances of miscarriage and means your baby is more likely to be born healthy.
8. Whiter teeth and healthier gums
Stopping smoking reduces the yellow staining on the teeth and improves your oral health all round. Gum disease is lower in non smokers and the chances of oral cancers reduce greatly.
9. Make friends and influence people
If you quit smoking your spouse or partner is 67% more likely to stop smoking too. Your friends are also 37% more likely to be inspired by your achievement and stop smoking, you’ll be considered a trend setter, and be the reason your friends become more healthy. Well done you!
10. You’ll sleep better
Smokers are more likely to snore than non smokers, meaning you and your partner will experience less broken sleep, and you’ll feel much better during the day with all those extra Zzz’s. 11. Staying abreast of the situation Female smokers have a 25%-32% greater chance of developing breast cancer than that of non smoking females.
12. Hair today gone tomorrow Although gray hair is predominantly determined by the genes you carry, there is some evidence that you may go gray quicker should you smoke tobacco. It’s the same with men and baldness, it’s mainly down to your gene pool, but there is also some evidence to suggest that men can lose their hair more quickly if they smoke cigarettes.
13. Passively Smoked Pets It’s not only your friends and family that could be breathing in your second hand smoke, increasing their chances of developing smoking related diseases, it’s also your friendly lovable pets. Your cats and dogs breathe too you know.
14. Confidence Building As quitting smoking is deemed and considered a difficult undertaking to achieve, your confidence will take a massive boost should you manage to succeed. This confidence can be carried into other areas of your life, and be a positive grounding to launch other taxing accomplishments.
15. Feeling Energised Between two and twelve weeks after stopping smoking your bodies circulation will improve, making it much easier to complete physical tasks such as walking, running and working out. Your breathing will also have improved so a feeling of being more energised will fill you with invincibility. You’re a superhero in comparison to your old smoking self.
16. Stress Be Gone The myth that smoking helps with stress is just that, a myth. This feeling of stress relief is brought on by quelling the withdrawal pang when you light up a cigarette, you’re not relieving stress you’re just satisfying your craving for nicotine. Stress levels in people who stop smoking decrease as a result and increased oxygen to the brain maintains a mental status quo.
17. Early Menopause Women may experience early menopause brought about by smoking cigarettes. The chemicals in cigarettes can speed up the menopause by killing egg cells made by the ovaries, reducing the egg cell reserve. Since the timing of the menopause is decided by the size of a woman’s egg cell reserve, which is stocked with around a million eggs at birth and vanishes by menopause, anything that speeds up its loss could logically lead to a much earlier start of the menopause.
18. Dem Bones, Dem Bones, Dem, Weak Bones Smoking can cause bone density to diminish, smoking weakens the body’s scaffolding and is a serious risk factor for osteoporosis. Smokers’ bones may also heal less quickly than that of non smokers.
19. Burning more than the end of your cigarette Smoking can cause havoc with your digestive system, and could be the reason you suffer with heartburn or peptic ulcers, or possibly even gallstones. There is also an increased risk in smokers, and former smokers, of developing Crohn’s disease.
20. Longer Life Yeah, we all know about this one, people who have never smoked, live on average, ten years longer than people who do smoke.
21. If I dodge lung cancer I’ve made it, right? Obviously lung cancer and bronchial cancers are right at the top of the cancer list for smokers; there are also other cancers which, although less common, are still worth knowing about. Stomach, pancreatic, kidney, urinary bladder, and cervical cancer are all possibilities.
22. Erectile Dysfunction A Chinese study of 5000 men who smoked tobacco showed that they are 60% more likely to suffer with erectile dysfunction, more widely known as impotence, compared with 12% of men who never smoked. If you want it to stay up, stop lighting up.
23. You might go blind You are four times more likely to go blind in later life from age related Macular Degeneration, than those who have never smoked. This is a medical condition which usually affects older adults that result in a loss of vision in the center of the visual field (the macula) because of damage to the retina.
24. Your Social Life Improves More and more countries are becoming 100% smoke free in bars and restaurants, it won’t be long before the majority of the world follows suit, leaving you out in the cold if you want to light up. Always having to nip outside for a cig means less time spent with the people you went out with.
25. Warmer Interactions Do you wonder why your hands and feet are cold all the time? Smoking reduces circulation and the extremities are the first to suffer, quitting smoking rectifies this problem almost immediately.
26. Reduce your caffeine intake We all know too much caffeine isn’t good for you; well you could reduce the amount you take into the body if you quit smoking. Smokers clear caffeine from the body 56% more quickly than non smokers, so when you decide to stop smoking, make sure you reduce your caffeine intake to avoid sleepless nights with insomnia, and irritability.
27. Think about switching to condoms Oral contraceptives (The Pill) carry an increased risk of blood clots, heart attacks and strokes, so smoking increases that risk even further. You should think about stopping using one of them, the pill or cigarettes.
28. I’ll puff and I’ll puff and I’ll burn my house down Around 55% of all residential house fires which involve a fatality are caused by a cigarette. You are over 6 times more likely to suffer an injury by fire if you live in a smoking household, and that goes for your kids too, hard to hear right?
29. Fewer visits to the hardware store If you smoke you will have to re-decorate your home a lot more often than if you didn’t smoke. Those tell tale yellow walls and ceilings are a dead giveaway you’re in a smokers home. Decorating is expensive, so keeping your house fresh and smoke free will save you bags of cash.
30. Scrubbing your fingers You know the fashionable yellow finger look? Well it’s no longer in fashion; someone needs to tell you, it’s not a great look. Nicotine stains are near on impossible to scrub off, and the chemicals on your fingers transfer onto everything you touch.
31. How depressing is smoking? There have been studies which now state there may be a link with smoking tobacco and depression.
32. Life Insurance The premiums you pay to the company who insure your life with a policy will fall dramatically if you decide to give up the evil weed.
33. Timewaster If you smoke twenty cigarettes a day you spend approximately twenty five full days a year smoking cigarettes, that’s nearly a whole month of your time spent puffing away. What could you do with those lost days if you quit smoking?
34. Crash and burn You’re one and a half times more likely to crash your car if you smoke cigarettes, according to a study published by the Canadian Journal of Public Health. No more reaching for your smokes and trying to light up when you’re driving on the roads.
35. Protecting your child’s future If you smoke your child is twice as likely to start smoking when they get older, inheriting all the smoking related health issues which you face now.
36. Reduce tooth decay Smoking cigarettes reduces the amount of saliva produced in the mouth. Saliva is essential for keeping tooth decay at bay by cleaning the teeth and inside the mouth. More visits to the dentists also means more money and time, which if you’re a smoker, you have in short supply already.
37. Losing your mind A Dutch study of 7000 people showed that people who currently smoke have an increased risk of dementia, where as ex smokers have no increase in the chance of this illness.
38. Join the club Around 22% of the male adult population in the UK now smoke and this figure is decreasing every year; compare this with 82% in 1948 when smoking records began. 41% of women smoked in 1948 which has now reduced to 21%. It’s only a matter of time before these figures reduce further leaving you in the severe minority.
39. Operation Smoke Free Non smokers are less prone to post operative complications when leaving surgery, compared with that of smokers. Some surgeons refuse to operate in certain situations unless you stop smoking prior to going under the knife.
40. Diabetes Onset There seems to be some evidence to suggest that heavy smoking can bring on diabetes. Together with genetics and obesity, smoking is one of the risk factors for insulin resistance. Insulin resistance often leads to diabetes. This list is not meant as a scaremongering technique, I was pretty astounded at some of the risks when researching quitting smoking myself, and thought it would be helpful to share some of the findings with you. There are many more reasons to give up smoking and I welcome any additions to this list. This concludes my first seven days as a non smoker, I’ll have more on this series weekly and then monthly. Happy non smoking…
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