The First 2 Days After You Quit Smoking

When you quit smoking, the health benefits begin within minutes of your last cigarette. According to the Surgeon General, physical improvements in your body begin within the first hour of smoking cessation.

It may take time for your body to heal itself from the damaging effects of smoking, but it's important to know that you'll start to experience health benefits almost immediately after you smoke your last cigarette. Every day that you stay smoke-free, you'll build up even more positive effects.

Your Body Within the First 2 Days of Quitting

Once you decide to put down your last cigarette, the health benefits that you'll start to enjoy begin within just 20 minutes. By the end of the first day, your risk of having a heart attack begins to drop.

After 20 Minutes

Your heart rate and blood pressure drop back to normal, and the circulation in your hands and feet starts to improve. The longer you stick with your quitting smoking plan, the more improvements you be able to enjoy.

After 12 Hours

Cigarettes contain thousands of different chemicals, including carbon monoxide (CO). Carbon monoxide affects your body's ability to utilize oxygen and high CO levels in your blood play a role in cardiovascular disease. 

Within 12 hours after you quit smoking, the carbon monoxide levels in your blood reduce, and the oxygen level in blood increases to normal. As oxygen levels in your blood increase, the tissues of your body begin to receive more oxygen as well.

After One Day

The lower levels of carbon monoxide and increased oxygen in your body also help improve your cardiovascular function. This means that your chance of having a heart attack decreases.

Levels of nicotine in your body also drop dramatically. As nicotine levels drop, you will also begin to experience symptoms of nicotine withdrawal and cravings. Having a good quitting-smoking plan in place can help you resist cravings, cope with withdrawal symptoms, and stay smoke-free.

Quitting smoking also lowers blood pressure and the chance of having a blood clot, so your risk of having a stroke also begins to decrease.

After Two Days

When you smoke, it causes damage to the nerve endings that are vital for taste and smell. By day two of being smoke-free, these nerves will start to repair themselves.

Your sense of smell and taste improves as your nerve endings start to heal. You may notice that the air smells fresher and food tastes better within a couple days of quitting.

The Immediate Benefits of Quitting

The chemicals in cigarettes affect you in more ways than you realize. When you quit and start to see changes in the discomforts you've been living with, like headaches, chronic sinus irritation, and fatigue, for instance, you start to put two and two together.  

That's not to say that every physical ailment can be traced to tobacco use, but you will probably be pleasantly surprised at some of the changes that take place once you stop smoking. Best of all, this is just the beginning. You can look forward to many additional improvements in the days and months to come.

The benefits of quitting smoking continue to build the longer you stick with it. 

• By the third day, breathing will start to become easier as your lungs begin to heal. 
  
• By the end of the first week, carbon monoxide levels will have decreased to normal levels.
  
• Within two weeks, your lungs will function approximately 30% better than they did while smoking and will continue to improve in the months and years to come. 

Making the Decision to Quit

It takes courage to put down that last cigarette. Most people feel an intense combination of fear and excitement leading up to their quit date. Feeling afraid to quit smoking is completely normal and is a by-product of nicotine addiction.

Breaking the Dependence

Years of associating smoking with everything you do creates powerful links in the chain of psychological dependence you had on nicotine.

• You thought you enjoyed smoking.
• You convinced yourself that smoking calmed your nerves and helped you think more clearly.
• You thought of cigarettes as a friend, a companion, a buddy.
• You thought smoking helped you have more fun and enjoy life more fully.

Logically, you knew better, but addiction can make people rationalize and justify all kinds of crazy notions. You (understandably) like the feeling of relief you get when the nicotine level in your bloodstream is replenished.

The more time between cigarettes, the more severe the withdrawal, resulting in edginess, inability to concentrate, and even feelings of depression. It's a vicious, never-ending cycle.

That is an addiction, not enjoyment. You don't think of smoking as self-destructive when you first start, but over time addiction quietly teaches you that you are weak and powerless. Most people want to stop long before they are actually able to quit.

Support for Your Quit Smoking Program

Once you decide to quit smoking, it's important to decide how you'll quit.

• Make a plan: Choose when you will quit, how you will quit, and how you will manage cravings.
• Find support: Join a quit-smoking support group and enlist the help of friends and family.
• Try a quit aid: Nicotine replacement therapies (NRTs), such as nicotine gum, lozenges, and patches, may help you quit successfully.
• Try medication: Talk to your doctor about medications that can help you quit successfully. Zyban, Wellbutrin, or Chantix may be helpful.

Support is a key ingredient to a solid quit-smoking program. A smoking cessation support forum is a place to meet people who are going through what you are, or have been there and can offer constructive advice. Your resolve will be bolstered more than you can imagine just by being around others who have the same goals you do.

Keep in Mind

Remember that quitting tobacco is a process. It takes time. Your courage to take that first step and throw the butts away is a choice you'll never regret making. Your life will improve a thousandfold when you have kicked tobacco out, once and for all. You'll have even more benefits from two weeks to three months of quitting.