Electronic Cigarettes and How to Quit Successfully
When you think about quitting electronic cigarettes, or e-cigs, you might think it’s a challenging endeavor. A lot of people do e-cigs or vapes, and their reasons are generally along the lines of wanting to quit smoking, finding a healthier alternative, or just loving the experience. There are also organizations that provide information about e-cigs and vaping, such as Ecassoc. In all cases, “quitting” can be an extremely harrowing and scary thought. However, this doesn’t mean it’s impossible for you to do. In fact, reading this article is already in itself a brave first step. In this article, you’ll learn how you can quit e-cigs for the long term.
It might help to get more about e-cigs before pushing through with quitting strategies. For instance, in Britain alone, it’s been found that 2.9 million people vape, marking the first time in British history that more than 50% of its population are not smoking because some people who used to smoke are now vaping. A lot of people also appear to have switched to e-cigs from tobacco smoking in order to help them transition into quitting smoking entirely. As such, if you find yourself in a tricky position with regards to quitting, you’re not exactly alone in this matter.
Quitting Electronic Cigarettes: Here Are the Steps
Nowadays, it’s easy to get help if you want to quit a bad habit or addiction. There are also a multitude of methods that you can do to ease yourself in the process. Here are some examples:
- Join a community to help you: It might help to get in touch with quitting electronic cigarette advocates or other members of the community to help you achieve your needs. While the rest of this article talks about personal ways of quitting e-cigs, it helps to know from the start that quitting isn’t always something you have to do alone. There are people out there willing to listen to your plights and offer you support.
- Have a concrete plan, down to the specifics: When you want to quit the habit of smoking e-cigs, you’ve got to be smart and have a plan. Establish SMART goals – your goals have to be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time bound. This simply means the clearer and realistic the goal is, the more possible it is for you to attain it because it’s something you can actually achieve. For instance, instead of saying “I want to quit,” you can say “I want to quit e-cig smoking in 5 months, and I’ll start by smoking only once a day for the first week.” This at least allows you to have not just a specific goal in mind but also a starting point to and a timeframe.
- Go for incremental changes, and create both short- and long-term goals: Quitting e-cigs doesn’t necessarily have to be a one “big” moment. You can have small sets of achievements that lead up to this moment. For the first few weeks, you could lessen the number of times that you smoke, and in the next months, you could stop buying the oil. It doesn’t matter if the progress is slow; the point is you’re starting to give up the habit in ways that you can handle one step at a time.
- Start developing a new hobby as a replacement: While some would say this is just “delaying the quitting,” this isn’t necessarily the case. If you know you’ve developed e-cigs as a habit because of a particular need, this means you can find another way to fulfill that need that doesn’t involved e-cigs. You can try meditating, having a new passion or hobby, or even exercising – especially if your reason to use e-cigs is to make yourself focused or relaxed.
- Keep track of your progress to continuously motivate you: Another thing people tend to forget is the recording their progress. On your way to quitting e-cigs, be sure to record your progress in a journal, a list, or even an application. This allows you to constantly be on track on how far you’ve come in terms of your journey away from e-cigs.
- Acknowledge the need to quit electronic cigarettes and accept it: Acceptance is the easiest way for you to heal, and it can be the hardest to accomplish. One of the best ways to start your path towards quitting is to acknowledge that you need to quit and that it’s possible. Considering the situation as a problem can worsen the situation for you, so instead treat it as a “normal” thing to do.
The Takeaway: Quitting Is Possible with Proper Care and Planning
When it comes to electronic cigarettes, always remember that quitting won’t exactly happen in just a snap of a finger. As with developing any sort of hobby or habit, e-cigs and vapes are things that can be stopped given enough time and patience. Always remember the tips above, and come up with goals that will slowly – but surely – make you quit e-cig smoking for good. It just takes a bit of creativity, care, planning, and commitment to be successful.
