Fri, May 15, 2009 - 7:33:31

Could Your Dog Help You Quit Smoking?

It might come as a surprise, but your furry, four-legged friend just might hold the key to helping you break your addiction to nicotine.  That’s because recent medical findings show that secondhand smoke doesn’t just hurt humans, it affects animals in strikingly similar ways.

Unfortunately, according to Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s recent report on CNN, approximately one-third of American pet owners are also smokers, meaning that every day, more than thirty percent of domesticated animals are needlessly exposed to heightened cancer risks.  But, with the release of these findings comes new hope and motivation for smokers looking to give up the habit.  Instead of concentrating on their own health, they can look to their dogs and cats for motivation.

It’s a small shift in thinking that can lead to an enormous change in your health.

That’s because smoking is as much a psychological addiction as it is physical.  While quitting smoking initially results in unpleasant symptoms like headaches, dizziness, and increased appetite, those physical side effects are significantly easier to cope with than the psychological and behavioral aspects, as smoking is a habitual, often social behavior that entrenches itself deep into your psyche.

When faced with the monumental task of quitting smoking, how can you harness the power of small to make real changes?  It’s easier than you think.  The answer is to shift your thinking from the big picture and concentrate on your problem one small pixel at a time.  Whether you quit for your dog, quit for your family, or quit for yourself, instead of telling yourself “Today I am quitting smoking forever” just say to yourself, “I’m not smoking right now.”  It sounds overly simplistic, but it really works.  Just ask Jim, who after 15 years of smoking a pack a day, gave it up cold turkey:

“I was in the Coast Guard living in Okinawa and had just come home with a big carton of duty-free cigarettes.  But, before I could open up the box, I came down with the stomach flu and was sick as a dog for days.  Now, when you’re sick, you don’t want to smoke, but normally after you’re feeling better, you light one right back up.  The next morning, I woke up and looked at the unopened carton of cigarettes and stopped myself and said, “I’m just not gonna smoke right now.”

Every few hours, Jim would look at the carton, and make the same small choice: he was not going to open it just yet.  Soon, the hours turned to days, the days turned to weeks, weeks into months, and months into years.  More than 30 years later, Jim has still never opened up that carton, and it all started by thinking small.

So, next time you feel the urge to light up another cigarette, look over to your loyal pet, put down the box, and say to him, “Not right now.”

Posted by Linda and Robin