Battle Plan to Quit Cigarette Smoking

As we know smoking is a leading contributor to heart disease, high blood pressure, emphysema and many different forms of cancer. Quitting smoking can decrease these risks dramatically.

Many patients come into my office asking for the latest fad or the latest pill to quit smoking. Usually the request will come at the end of the patient visit as, " By the way doc, Can you give me a prescription for that new pill that will stop me from smoking? " To my patient's surprise, my answer is almost always "No, not right now." I usually get a quizzical look and then a "Why not doc? Don't you want to help me quit smoking?"

Let me explain:

It is not that I want you to continue smoking. I just want you to fully prepare for the battle that lies ahead of you. I want to help you to succeed, not set you up to fail. There is no pill or patch that alone, will stop you from smoking. To quit smoking you need to set up a battle plan as if you are in a war.

Here are a few questions you must ask yourself when you decide to try to quit smoking:

· Do I enjoy smoking?

· Why do I smoke?

· Where do I smoke?

· When do I smoke?

· Who do I smoke with?

· How much do I smoke?

· How much do I spend on cigarettes per day, per week, per month and per year?

· Do I get sick more often due to smoking?

· Do I miss work or school due to smoking?

I always ask my patients to think about these questions, devise answers to each, and then develop a plan of attack to combat them. Once the plan is set, I ask my patients to come in to my office to review their plan. If the plan sounds reasonable we then review the different pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical options available that might help. But please let me repeat myself. I have never seen a patient quit smoking just by taking a pill. Every patient who has been successful at quitting smoking first devised a plan of attack and also had the courage, motivation and true desire to quit.

I encourage all my patients who smoke to please utilize all resources available in your effort to quit. When you feel you have developed a plan and need my help, the chances that you will succeed will be much greater!

Below are some resources that you may utilize to develop your battle plan:

www.NJQuitNet.org
www.Chantix.com
http://www.gsk-scrc.com/ (Smoking cessation resource center)
www.quit.com

Good Luck and I hope to see you in my office with a well developed battle plan soon!!

Steven Horvitz, D.O.

Board Certified Family Medicine

Founder of The Institute for Medical Wellness

Cigarette Smoking Causes Sleep Disturbances

February 12, 2008

This medical news about health and wellness is brought to you as a service from Dr Steven Horvitz and The Institute for Medical Wellness.

Below are excerpts from an article in Medscape concerning smoking and your health.

Cigarette Smoking Causes Sleep Disturbances

February 7, 2008 — Smoking cigarettes impairs sleep quality, possibly due to nicotine withdrawal, according to a study in the February issue of Chest, the journal of the American College of Chest Physicians.

• The results of this study could represent "yet another motivating factor" to convince smokers to quit the habit, said Dr. Punjabi. "From a preventive health perspective, I think it's very important that we now add sleep disturbance to the armamentarium of issues related to smoking."
• Smokers spent more time in light sleep and less time in deep sleep than their nonsmoking counterparts.
• The study shows that cigarette smoking "can alter sleep architecture independent of factors such as age, gender, race, anthropometric measures, caffeine and alcohol consumption, medial comorbidity, and mental health status," the authors conclude.
• The direct effects of smoking on sleep seen in this study should provide further ammunition for public health campaigns to reduce smoking. "The people who smoke are not getting a restful sleep, and that has ramifications for them on a daily basis; they're tired, they're going to be tired the next day, and most likely they will have diminished level of alertness," said Dr. Punjabi. "Those are direct effects that poor sleep quality will have on their daily living."

Chest. 2008;133:427-432.

Pauline Anderson is a freelance writer for Medscape.
Medscape Medical News 2008. © 2008 Medscape

We are learning more and more every day that people that do not get restful sleep, have more medical issues than those who get the necessary sleep. Sleep apnea, another medical disorder that causes non restful sleep, has already been linked to high blood pressure and heart disease. We have known for years that cigarette smokers have a higher risks of both these illnesses. Whether cigarette smoking directly causes high blood pressure and heart disease, or whether it may be secondary to poor sleep quality as possibly implied by the article above will stir much future debate.

But we can leave the debating to the scientists and the politicians. What we need to take from this article is that cigarette smoking causes many effects on the body, very few of which are healthy. I will again advise all my patients to refer to my battle plan for quitting smoking. It can be found by clicking here.

Steven Horvitz, D.O.
Board Certified Family Medicine
Founder of The Institute for Medical Wellness