What is the Single Best Thing You Can Do to Quit Smoking?

Dr. Mike Evans is founder of the Health Design Lab at the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, an Associate Professor of Family Medicine and Public Health at the University of Toronto, and a staff physician at St. Michael's Hospital.

This video was made possible by the Canadaptt Project (The Canadian Action Network for the Advancement, Dissemination and Adoption of Practice-informed Tobacco Treatment), Prinicpal Investigator Dr. peter Selby. Canadaptt was funded by Health Canada, Tobacco Control Programme. The views do not necessarily reflect those of Health Canada.

Written and Narrated by Dr. Mike Evans
Executive Producer, Dr. Mike Evans
Illustrations by Liisa Sorsa
Produced, Directed, and Photographed by Nick De Pencier
Editor, David Schmidt
Story/Graphic Facilitator, Disa Kauk
Whiteboard Construction, James Vanderkleyn
Production Assistant, Chris Niesing
Script Consultant, Hilary Cousins

©2012 Michael Evans and Mercury Films Inc.

[SilentCheechGaming]

Trying to quit right now, its hard as balls. Do your selves a favor and never start.

[nitrobass]

"It's gonna be a challenge now, and it's gonna be a challenge in 5 years. So why not do it now?" That's an extremely good point.

[scarbuny]

one day I decided to wake up as a non smoker, no therapy, nothing, only by will power now it's been 8 months since my last cigarette! Best decision I've ever made.
edit : it's been almost 2 years since I quit. my bodyweight was 44 kg when I was a smoker, my appetite increases a lot, I eat like an animal. I balanced it by doing weight training and now my bodyweight is 64 kg. I've never been this fit before. I also used to have anxiety, now it's gone. to anyone reading this and planning to quit, I wish you good luck and a happy life.

[eddiepigg]

I recently quit smoking and for some reason it wasn’t that hard. I told myself, “I wasn’t born a smoker. I started smoking by choice. Now my choice is to stop.” I find it strange myself but it worked. I also decided to make sure that whenever I felt the need to smoke, I would do something positive instead. That worked for me, too.

[oldblg]

I'm on my 8th day, i have some cravings and i'm writing this just to encourage myself to not return to that shit. Smoking is slavery and it weakens my personality and damages my health mentally and physically. I will never return to smoking, not even one puff.. because i'm a superhero, i'm a fucking superhero!

[ratman]

I smoked heavily for 45 years. A few weeks ago, I'd been feeling bad for a week so went to my primary doctor. My doctor discovered that my blood O2 saturation was at 70 which is very dangerous. Huge risk of sudden death. Doctor sent me to the hospital. I was diagnosed with pneumonia and COPD. I knew I had COPD for years. It got so bad that I struggled to breathe when I laid down and my heart would pound. I couldn't walk 30 feet without breathing hard. The pulmonologist told me that if I continued to smoke, I'd be dead in 2 years. He also said that if I quit smoking now, I can expect significant healing and live a long life. The antibiotics, steroids and breathing treatments I got in the hospital really helped. After 4 days without smoking in the hospital, I have kept going. I feel so much better. My cardio has increased about 500%. I wear a patch when I'm at work and munch hard candy all day. The candy is what I used to replace the cigarettes. I've only been smoke free for 15 days, but that's something I was never able to do before. I know I will never smoke again. I almost passed the point of no return. Fast forward to 2022. What a trip reading what I wrote in 2017. It's been 4 years and 11 months now and I haven't smoked. I'm alive and feeling much better. In 2017, I told myself I would just have to endure the withdrawal and I did. I only used the patches for a few days. The hard candy helped a lot, but with or without it I will never smoke. If you make up your mind to do it, nothing can stop you. The cravings started to lessen after a couple weeks and I felt stronger. If you think you can't stop smoking, you're wrong. I did it. You can do it too.

[Reflex]

Day 2-3 is the worst physically.
Day 7-10 is the worst psychologically.

Same goes for people whos trying to stop weed.

Also dont let relapse make you give up.

I relapsed weed smoking alot, but i didnt change my perspective about it.

I just hated it more and more, which lead me to learn more about it.

Eventully i got educated in knowing about whats going on with my condition.

What helped me is that i prepared for it, then i isolated my self for 30 days.

I kept my self moving, sweating, drinking 7-8 liter water a day, and followed vloggers talking about their condition while also stopping.

Hearing that people is going through the same, and understanding that its natural detox symptoms was great help.

Your body is getting clean.

Eat healthy during your detox, because you are teaching your brain a new life style.

Irritation, anxiety, insomnia, and loss of appitite is the main widrawal symptoms.

Appitite will slowly get better after day 2. Same goes for insomnia, the more your appitite comes back the better you can sleep.

Irritation will fade slowly after day 7-10.

Anxiety will stick on a little longer.

You know one gets same symptoms when losing someone close. Or a dog!

Its normal, natural, and (not) dangerous like when quitting alcohol or heroin.

Lastly! Its alright to be with the moment.

Some people prefere to do it alone (thats what i did), some people need someone to talk with.

Personally i dont like anyone to see my weaknesses. It would have made me relapse!

Day 7-10 is mostly when people relapse.

But also dont underestimate it, because many also relapse after 6month even tho they are over all cravings and widrawal symptoms.

Thats because life can be tough in periods.

So learning how to cope like you did before you started to smoke, is very important.

In a sense you are getting born again.

Day 14-30 is when you are over all widrawal symptoms and cravings.

Thats when you feel like been reborn. You smile and proud of your self. You start to enjoy life!

But as i said learn how to cope with problems and stress, as you did before you started to smoke, because life is full of surprices.

Good luck

[lesedimongale]

this is probably my first time commenting on a YouTube video, and it is for good reason! I've been smoking since i was 11 or so and recently I've been thinking of quitting and slowly reducing intake. Today I'm making this decision here to quit cigarettes and i will regularly come to this post to give updates.

Wish me luck.🤗

[AbhishekBhal]

"Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I've done it thousands of times." - Mark Twain.

[pallasathena]

I quit cold turkey 3 years ago, (edit: 4 years) still come back to this and other smoking related videos to reinforce the best decision that I ever made

[GrumpyYank]

NOv2022. This video was what i needed right now. I’m 6 weeks in to my liberation from cigs and was having a really hard day. I parked outside the cig shop and started listening to this. I ended up driving away w/out buying any. Thx.

[ayyonmichaels]

i didnt start smoking until my 30's and i hate that i did... i started after my divorce and man it is hard af for me to quit but i embrace the challenge and will conquer this demon..

[LGBarealltheletters]

I've been smoke free for six months now :)

[prajwalgowda]

“Cigarettes reduces your nicotine stress, not your real stress” - HOW TRUE IS THAT.

[mandieharvey]

Ive smoked since i was about 14 years old regularly, im 28 now, i quit for one year while i was pregnant, the only thing that ever seemed to push me to do it. I quickly started again as soon as i knew it wasnt directly affecting my baby. Now 9 years later, my son asks me to quit all the time and ive finally gotten to the point where i want to do it . This video has been SOO incredibly helpful. Thank you so much.

[parzival]

I quit smoking for a girl i loved, she told me to
And so I listened, i convinced my self that im doing this for her
And then i realized actually i did it for myself, i did a huge favor for my future self
And I wont smoke again even if i break up with her

[ohyesitsyouagain]

That’s how I was feeling, trapped in the schedule of “smoke after meals, smoke while walking, smoke when I’m stressed, smoke when I’m bored” I got tired of it

[vividreplic]

Who else is quitting bad habits during quarantine?

[michaelbelley]

With your video, I quit smoking with no patch and no pills. Its been 6 months 13 days ago and its the best decision of my life !
Thank you !

[TopV]

Started my journey of quitting 5 days ago and can already see the difference in my breathing. The next couple of weeks will be tough with the cravings and physical side affects but I’m powering through for good this time, even if I have to cut off friends for a while. Done with smoking.