insideSUSSEX Magazine Issue 08 - October 2015 | Page 57

your motives, and ask them to check with you on a regular basis to find out how you are during the process. 3. What are your smoking triggers? Try to identify them (perhaps you enjoy a cigarette after a meal, or with your morning coffee. Maybe it’s your habit to have one whilst waiting for your train, or when you’re bored). Once you’re aware of them, it will be easier to ignore them. 4. Organise some activities and days out that mean you can’t smoke. The cinema, a restaurant with non-smoking friends, a day out with the kids… 5. Speak to your GP if you are on any medication. Some medicines are designed specifically for smokers, and yours may need to be changed when you’re not having your cigarettes anymore. Prepare before 1st October, and you’ll be ready and raring to go by the time Stoptober comes around. And just in case you weren’t sure whether you should quit, the British Lung Foundation has these facts about smoking to persuade you: • It’s the nicotine that makes cigarettes so very addictive and it’s the most well-known chemical related to smoking, but tobacco smoke actually contains over 4,000 different chemicals and poisons, and more than 70 of them can cause cancer on their o