What are the immediate health benefits of quitting smoking?
In the first one to two days when you quit smoking, which is when most people find it most challenging to stay quit, you should stay focused on these positive things that are happening. First, as soon as you take that last puff on a cigarette, your carbon monoxide levels start falling, and they'll fall over the next couple of days to a near non-smoking level, which means your oxygen levels increase. You will start to have a drop in your blood pressure, because every cigarette you smoke creates a little peak; so since you aren't having another cigarette, your blood pressure will be able to assume a normal level. In fact, the temperature in your fingers and in your hands start to assume a normal level because they are no longer being constricted any from the effect of nicotine; so your blood vessels are starting to dilate in the first one to two days. For a few lucky people, even a few days into quitting smoking, your sense of smell will return, but often that lasts into the first or second week before you notice that. And because of the chemical effects, the stimulant effects, of nicotine on the heart, the risk of a sudden death because your heart quits beating and you drop dead - the risk of a sudden heart attack - diminishes 50 percent in the first 24 hours and continues to drop as you no longer have those high levels of nicotine, and your body begins eliminating nicotine from your system over the next week. So I would encourage you, if you always get stuck in the first couple of days, to say, "Hey! I don't need to wait a long time to start enjoying those benefits."
