Learning how to quit smoking is a significant first step in overcoming a crippling addiction, even if you decide not to smoke your final cigarette just yet. Anyone can say that they know they should quit smoking – most smokers do – but those who begin to research smoking cessation are actually taking charge. As anyone who has kicked the habit will tell you, the road to becoming a non-smoker is paved with such unsuspectingly significant moments.

Choose Your Weapon
If you have decided that you are ready to quit smoking, setting up a plan is the most important part of the process. Withdrawal symptoms can be intense, which means that someone who is not prepared is more likely to try to temper that discomfort with one little puff of a cigarette. That one little puff often leads to another and the habit has won out.

There are many tools that can help you reduce the effect of withdrawal symptoms. Among the most popular are:

• Nicotine Replacement Therapy: NRT includes some of the most commonly associated anti-smoking tools. Nicotine gum, lozenges, medication and patches help your body adjust to life without cigarettes and many do so in incremental steps to reduce the amount of nicotine in your body.
• Hypnosis: Some who have successfully quit smoking swear by the mind-altering act of hypnotherapy. While in a hypnotic state, the mind is more open to suggestions; the patient awakes and does not want cigarettes.
• Acupuncture: Many alternative medicine practitioners say that the use of acupuncture will reduce a patient’s physical impulse to smoke.

Set a Date, Gather a Network
Once you know how you want to quit, the time comes to put your plan into action. Set a quit date and share the news with friends and loved ones. Given how difficult the process is, having people actively cheering you on can make a huge difference and cut down on the impulse to cheat. If people know that you are quitting, they also will be more understanding if you are exhibit some of the signs of nicotine withdrawal, which can include crankiness and confusion.

Three Days, Three Weeks
When preparing to quit smoking, you can understand the challenges to come, but it’s entirely different when you are experiencing them firsthand. It is important to understand the significance of the first three days and the first three weeks:

• Three days: Nicotine withdrawal is at its most intense during the first 72 hours without smoking. During this period, nicotine is still leaving the body, so the physical need to smoke will be most severe.
• Three weeks: It takes three weeks for a habit to completely develop. Just as it took about that long for your body and mind to get used to smoking, it will take about that long for your body and mind to start to adjust to that of a non-smoker.

The Tomorrow Approach
There will be times that cravings set in, whether physical or psychological. When a craving comes up and it feels as if you can’t possibly make it through the next hour without a cigarette, adopt the Tomorrow Approach. Tell yourself that, no matter what, you can make it through today. Tomorrow is another story, but today is something you can and will handle. When tomorrow comes, you will have another smoke-free day to your credit. Each day of living without the shackles of nicotine will make you feel that much better and the life of a smoker that much more inconceivable.