The benefits of stopping smoking start within 20 minutes of quitting


What is in a cigarette ?
Every cigarette you smoke introduces thousands of harmful chemicals into your bloodstream. There are over 7000 chemicals in each cigarette*, all of which damage your health.
The main components of tobacco smoke are nicotine, carbon monoxide, toxic chemicals and tar. These substances all affect the human body and cause diseases.
If you are pregnant and smoke, these chemicals are transferred to your baby through the placenta.
*https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD013522.pub2/full#CD013522-abs-0002
Smoking is expensive
... but because you don't buy all your cigarettes or tobacco in one go, you may not realise the cost to you.
If you smoke 20 a day (costing £12.71 on average*), you could be spending:
£88.97 a week
£386.60 a month
£4639.15 a year
Which is £23195.75 over 5 years and £46391.50 over 10 years.
*Source: https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/timeseries/czmp August 2022
Stopping smoking is one of the best things you'll ever do for your health.
Quit for your body...
... one in two smokers will die of a smoking related disease.
Smoking harms nearly every organ of the body. It causes cancer, breathing, heart and circulation problems.
Smoking reduces fertility and increases your risk of developing type 2 diabetes, eye disease and dementia.


Quit for your mind...
People with mental health problems are much more likely to smoke than the general population, smoke more heavily and die on average 10 to 20 years earlier than those who don't experience mental health problems . If they use antipsychotic medicines and antidepressants, they may need higher doses of some because smoking interferes with the way these medicines work.
Most smokers believe that smoking helps them relax but smoking actually increases anxiety and tension. Also a smoker is more lilely to develop depression over time, than a non-smoker.
Shisha and other types of tobacco
Shisha (hookah) smoking is a way of smoking tobacco through a bowl and hose or tube.
Chewing tobacco (betel quid, also known as "paan" or "gutkha") is a mixture of ingredients that are all wrapped inside a betel leaf.
Bidi (also 'beedi' and 'biri') are thin cigarettes of tobacco wrapped in brown tendu leaf), kreteks (thin cigarettes rolled in banana leaf)
Snus is tobacco in either moist powder form or packed in small bags that are put under the inside of the bottom lip.
