How To Relax Without Cigarettes

How can I relax without cigarettes?

There is one subset of smokers who use cigarettes when they feel stressed, when they feel uptight, when they feel nervous and irritable, and they're trained to stimulate the chemical release in the brain to create the sensation of relaxation. Now if you've been doing that since you were twelve, fifteen, seventeen, you never really learned all through adolescence and your young adult life how to relax without a cigarette in your hand. So you've got a challenge, and you've got to be creative. Think of ways that you can learn to relax by doing deep breathing exercises, in through your nose, out through your pursed lips. Do something where you're listening to calming music, whatever calms you. Do some exercise. Perhaps read a book and learn about techniques for relaxation. Think about what it is that just set you off, what was that trigger, that makes you want a cigarette and learn how to fix the trigger. But people who don't know how to relax without a cigarette and who have serious cravings, that combination together really trips people up and is a set-up for relapse. So if you know you're someone who uses a cigarette to calm down and relax spend some time before your quit date practicing all these new techniques, and you will find it much more helpful the next time a stressful event hits you won't need to just reach for a cigarette, you've got a technique in place.