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The smoking statistics in the UK for 2009 as revealed by the NHS for the Health and Social Care Information Centre is quite encouraging. The report shows hopeful trends in the behaviour and attitudes of people towards smoking following the smoking ban in public places. According to the 2008/09 statistics, amongst the 16 year olds and over in Great Britain, 67% of the current smokers want to give up smoking, while 75% have even tried to give up smoking at some point in the past. Around 69% of adults report that they do not allow smoking at all in their home. This figure shows an increase of 61% as reported in 2006. The majority of people, 81% agree with the smoking ban in public places. However, there was a drop in the number of smokers who want to quit smoking in 2008/2009 to 67% from 74% in 2007. These trends show growing awareness amongst people about the harmful effects of smoking. It indicates that people are more than willing to quit smoking. A little encouragement and support can help them to become ex-smokers.

One of the biggest challenges that people face while trying to stop smoking is their addiction to nicotine. Just after a few hours of quitting, you may experience nicotine withdrawal symptoms that will weaken your determination to quit and you’ll be tempted to go back to smoking again. Nicotine withdrawal symptoms are one of the key reasons why many people fail to quit via the cold turkey method.

How to break the nicotine habit?
These days, a lot of quit smoking aids are available that can help you break nicotine addiction and stop smoking forever. For instance, you may make use of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) based lozenges, chewing gum, inhalators or patches to break your nicotine addiction. This therapy aims at providing nicotine to your body externally so that the craving for nicotine is taken care of and you can work on breaking the psychological habit of smoking. Besides, you can take help from quit smoking medications such as Champix (varenicline). Developed by Pfizer pharmaceuticals, Champix is by far the most popular quit smoking aid. It not only helps you break your nicotine addiction, but it also makes cigarette smoking less pleasurable for you so that you are not tempted to smoke again. Studies show that Champix quadruples your odds of quitting as compared to quitting via the cold turkey method.

Smoking is one of the most harmful activities a person can adopt. It affects all aspects of a person’s life such as health, fitness, social status and even family relations. Excessive smoking over long period of time can even kill you due to a smoking related disease.

There are more than 4,000 chemicals in the human body including tobacco, tar, carbon monoxide, metals, nitrogen oxides, ammonia, hydrogen cyanide and radioactive compounds. Smoking may cause you life threatening diseases such as various types of cancers, lung diseases and heart ailment. Pregnant women who smoke are likely to deliver low birth weight or even still born babies.

Further, smoking affects your kids and other family members as second hand smoking is considered equally bad. For this reason your friends and family members may also avoid you. Smoking makes you get tired easily and may also cause erectile dysfunction. Besides smoking affects your taste buds and makes your breath and clothes smell bad.

Smoking Cessation Treatment
Smoking is easier to start but very hard to quit as it is an addictive habit. Nicotine starts controlling your brain, so that if you do not get the used to dose of nicotine your brain starts giving you painful nicotine withdrawal symptoms. For this reason many smokers are scared to even make an attempt to quit and many who do dare to quit cold turkey often fail in their smoking cessation attempt.

To help people get rid of their smoking habit successfully, a number of smoking cessation treatment methods are available. Some popular smoking cessation treatment methods include –

• Use of Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) – These attempt to provide the body with nicotine minus other harmful products in the cigarette through nicotine patches, nicotine gums etc. Since NRT contains nicotine a certain risk of re-addiction is involved.
• Use of nicotine–free Quit Smoking Medication – These are the novel and most effective smoking cessation treatment method. These do not contain nicotine and hence are not addictive. Popular quit smoking medications include Champix (Varenicline) and Zyban (Buproprion).

Champix to quit smoking
Developed by Pfizer, Champix is the newest and most successful smoking cessation treatment medication. The reason why Champix is rated better than other smoking cessation treatment medication is that it offers two-way actions to help smokers quit smoking. Its active ingredient Varenicline provides relief from nicotine withdrawal symptoms and also makes smoking less pleasurable. Research has shown that Champix quadruples your odds of quitting as compared to a placebo.