It has been known for many decades now that smoking is harmful to your health. It can cause fatal illnesses, and aside from that, can have an effect on your fitness and overall quality of life by inhibiting your sense of taste and smell and making it harder to breathe when engaging in aerobic exercise. Smoking also has other downsides – it is very expensive, and can leave you isolated from friends when you need to take your smoking breaks given that smoking inside is not permitted in just about any public places around the world.
Of course, these are just some of the reasons why it makes sense to quit. You may also want to quit to create a healthier environment for your children, or to improve your fitness. Nicotine is a highly addictive drug, however, and quitting is not easy – especially if you have been a smoker for a long time.
Vaping as a Means of Quitting
Nicotine replacement therapy is a well established way to help people quit. It allows them to stop smoking cigarettes, but to avoid the unpleasant withdrawal symptoms that come with stopping using the drug by gradually weaning them off of it. Conventionally this was done using gum and patches, but in recent years more and more people have been using items like electronic cigarettes and nicotine e-liquids to help them quit. Using e-cigs is generally known as ‘vaping’, because what you inhale is water vapor. While there is still research that needs to be done into its long term effects, it is widely accepted to be healthier than smoking tobacco, and a very good way to help you quit.
Why is Vaping an Easier Way to Use Nicotine Replacement Therapy?
Using e-cigs to help you gradually reduce your nicotine intake over time and get you over your addiction may on paper seem no different from using gum or patches with decreasing amounts of nicotine. However, for smokers one of the hardest things to overcome, alongside the nicotine addiction itself, is the smoking habit. Vaping feels a lot more like smoking than using gum or patches, so it means you won’t miss that after dinner smoke or that first cigarette in the morning quite so much. For some people, vaping can mean you don’t need to give up the habit at all – you can break the nicotine addiction and continue vaping with nicotine free e-liquid if you really need the habit as part of your daily routine.
Different Approaches
Some people try fully replacing all of their cigarettes with vaping, and then gradually reduce their nicotine intake or how much they use their ecig. Others begin replacing just some of their cigarettes with the ecig and start to cut down that way. There are lots of different ways you can tackle your smoking with vaping, but the key thing is that whenever you vape instead of lighting up, you are taking the healthier option.
If you have struggled to quit smoking in the past, an ecig could well be the thing that finally helps you achieve your ambition of being tobacco free!