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Monday, September 14, 2009

Quit smoking three days and counting

Smoking cessation timeline – the health benefits over time
In 20 minutes, your blood pressure and pulse rate decrease, and the body temperature of your hands and feet increase.
Carbon monoxide in cigarette smoke reduces the blood’s ability to carry oxygen. At 8 hours, the carbon monoxide level in your blood decreases to normal. With the decrease in carbon monoxide, your blood oxygen level increases to normal.
At 24 hours, your risk of having a heart attack decreases.
At 48 hours, nerve endings start to regrow and the ability to smell and taste is enhanced.
Smoking cessation timeline


Well, that sums up where I am right now, but today I hid as much as possible in bed, away from everything I normally did. I guess a cigarette was a lot bigger part of my life than I noticed. It just grew on me to the point where I couldn't remember what it was not like to light a cigarette as soon as I got up in the morning and at the end of the day. Changing a routine is nearly impossible, so I got into bed, watched TV and tried to fall asleep as much as possible. I can't believe it's actually harder today than yesterday.

I also don't like myself very much. I feel angry but I don't know what I'm angry at or who. Maybe I'm just angry at me for smoking all these years, or am I angry I stopped? Not sure on that one right now. My negative, drained attitude is my biggest concern right now. I hope this ends soon because it's really hard to get past it. Maybe that also comes from not being able to sleep at night?

What I'm going thru right now is much like what PTSD veterans go through only they are not trying to detox nicotine from their bodies. They are trying to detox the war and all that came with it. They can't sleep. Nightmares break in. They can't get over feeling drained. Lack of sleep and feeling angry with themselves can do that. Trying to find hope when they feel this bad, seems like a waste of time. Do we give up on them? Nope. We just wait for a better day, when they're in a better mood and you try to break thru to them all over again. It would be great if they could come up with a chart like the one above for PTSD, because then we'd know how close we are to detoxing the war out of them.

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