Smokers. do yourself and your kids a favor
A 6-year old kiddo, with a chopstick in between his little fingers, mimicking someone lighting up a cigarette and puffing away. It is not funny at all. What alarming is the fact that the little ones are picking up the bad habits of their smoking parents. Monkey see, monkey do. What more frightening is the fact that these kids are exposing to the risk of cancer-causing chemicals such as carcinogens while inhaling the second-hand smoke.
Believe it or not, scientists have actually detected the presence of cancer-causing chemicals associated with tobacco smoke in the urine of half of the babies of smoking parents based on a research. Source : ScienceDaily.com.
As a non-smoker, I sometimes find it really hard to understand why smokers are willing to burn their hard-earned money to damage their own health and the health of their loved ones around them. All I know from my own checking in google search is simply because of addiction to nicotine, a very addictive drug. It can be as addictive as heroine or cocaine. If quiting is so hard, why get into it in the first place? There must be hundred and one reasons!
The recent announcement in Budget 2007 of an increase of excise duty of 1 sen per stick does not help much too. In fact, regardless of how much tax government imposes, regardless of how much price increase, regardless how many of those TakNak campaigns, nothing is as strong as your own strong will to quit. That is, just decide to quit for your own reasons and let’s hope that it is does not need some life-threatening reasons to do so.
I can’t comment much about quitting smoking, I know nuts about that. What I can only share here is only what benefits you would get within 20 minutes of quitting: extracted from US National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.
20 Minutes After Quitting
Your heart rate drops.
12 hours After Quitting
Carbon monoxide level in your blood drops to normal.
2 Weeks to 3 Months After Quitting
Your heart attack risk begins to drop.
Your lung function begins to improve.
1 to 9 Months After Quitting
Your Coughing and shortness of breath decrease.
1 Year After Quitting
Your added risk of coronary heart disease is half that of a smoker’s.
5 Years After Quitting
Your stroke risk is reduced to that of a nonsmoker’s 5-15 years after quitting.
10 Years After Quitting
Your lung cancer death rate is about half that of a smoker’s.
Your risk of cancers of the mouth, throat, esophagus, bladder, kidney, and pancreas decreases.
15 Years After Quitting
Your risk of coronary heart disease is back to that of a nonsmoker’s.
Isn’t that good reason enough to at least try to quit?
