Is your attachment to tobacco taking a toll on your health and burning a hole in your pocket, but you are yet to figure out the best way to quit smoking? Take the family route to success. Believe us, your desire to ensure safety and well being of your family can give you the most powerful reason to live a tobacco-free life. Once you learn about the many ways that exposure to secondhand smoke (SHS) may hurt your family members, you will surely be compelled to give it up for good. If you are keen on playing this card with yourself and opt for a ‘family therapy’, first educate yourself on how your smoking habit impacts your loved ones. Next, assess how your decision to quit benefits them.
Adverse Effects of Secondhand Smoke on Adults
Over time, passive smoking can cause a number of health problems for non-smoking members of your family, including the following:
- Heart disease
- Breathing troubles
- Irritations in the eyes and sore throat
- Cancer
- Difficulties in conception
Health Effects of SHS on Pregnant Women
Exposure to secondhand smoke can be seriously detrimental to the health and well being of pregnant women. The likely health dangers include:
- Slow fetal growth
- Increased chances of miscarriages and premature deliveries
- Delivering babies with low birth weight
- Having babies with sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)
- Having babies with poor health, low immunity and slow learning abilities
Effects of Passive Smoking on Children
Children exposed to secondhand smoke are at great risks of developing certain diseases through their growing-up years and they include:
- Severe asthma
- Various types of lung infections
- Ear infection
- Coughing and wheezing
- Bronchitis and pneumonia
Other Ways Your Smoking Habit Affects Your Family
It is not only your loved ones’ health that gets affected by your tobacco addiction. Believe it or not, your smoking habit comes into the way of your family’s happiness in more way than one:
- Parents that smoke set bad example before their kids. Children that grow up seeing their parents smoking are more likely to become smokers themselves in later life.
- When you spend your money buying your addictive stuff, you are actually making a dip in the family income, and depriving your loved ones from things you could have otherwise bought with the money wasted on cigarettes.
- Smoking severely cuts down on stamina and prevents you from spending quality time with your near and dear ones.
Lifestyle Benefit of Going Smoke-Free
Giving up on cigarettes not only makes you healthier, your family gains from your decision in a variety of ways:
- Your kids will have a role model right before them, getting first hand example of will power and mental strength
- Your other family members will have a strong reason to be proud of you
- You will have healthier and happier children around
- You will feel more energetic, and therefore more inclined to participate in a lot of fun activities
- You will have more money to spend on your loved ones and also to plan a more secure future for them
If you treasure your family, utilize the positive power of love to free yourself from the grip of tobacco, because love for your family is by all means the best way to quit smoking. Make a list of what you can gain from quitting and what you can lose by going on smoking. Hang the list in places where you can see it often – in your bedroom, in your car, in your desk at workplace, and last but not the least, in the place where you keep your cigarette packets. Whenever you feel the urge to light up, the list will remind you of your duties toward your family, helping you stick to your resolution.
