Quit Smoking

Quitting smoking is hard. You need be both your own biggest fan and biggest critic. Here's 5 helpful tips to get you going.

Keep your thoughts and your language positive - it may be a large part of what has prevented you from quitting. Recognize smoking for the addiction it is.

Cancer Control may seem far out of reach, but the facts show differently. Consistent, early detection and prevention could reduce cases by up to 66%.

To begin a smoking habit, all one needs to do is pick up a cigarette and light it, so why is quitting so much harder than simply not picking it up? There are many emotional, mental and physical changes that course through the body when smoking cessation is happening. Most of this has to do with the nicotine addiction that induces the withdrawal symptoms in those attempting to quit. Many find that when they overcome the mental obstacles to quitting, the rest is fairly simple.

To the smoker, the cigarette at break time or at the end of the day is a kind of reward and is looked forward to much more in that aspect than the feeling of smoking the actual cigarette.

A way to overcome the feeling of deserving a cigarette for accomplishing something is find another, less harmful, reward system. Indulging in a favorite meal, seeing a movie, or taking a long bath are all excellent examples of good rewards. Continue Reading

Tragedies always seem to capture the attention of the American population, the most recent one being the earthquake in Haiti that claimed between 217,000 and 230,000 lives on January 12, 2010. The natural disaster was covered by every news media outlet and had almost the entire nation’s full attention. Millions of organizations collected billions of dollars to donate to those affected by the disaster, many of which were publicized or initiated by celebrities.

There are many examples of vast tragedies such as this, where so many lives were lost and even more were affected by these events. Some examples of these are The Vietnam war that claimed 58,209, the sinking of The Titanic with a toll of 1,517, the 9/11 terrorist attacks that took 2,973 victims’ lives, and the Tsunami that hit India and surrounding countries resulted in the loss of 169,752 people.

All of these events received a great deal attention and continue to be marked events in the minds of Americans, yet each year 400,000 humans pass away from the one cause and few seem to even notice. Wyclef Jean has yet to set up way to donate to the cause via cell phone and there is no update every few minutes on any major news networks of the ever-increasing death count. Continue Reading

Most say yes, some say it's intrusive to private property to try to regulate it. This post weighs in with both sides of the argument. What do you think?

We see warnings on nearly everything we consume these days. We're used to seeing them. But there's something different about the warning on cigarettes.

Are we so desensitized to the dangers of cigarettes that we think this is funny? A teenage mother gave her baby a cigarette and shared it on Facebook.

The Surgeon General is now up to four warnings that they require to be cycled through on tobacco cigarette packages. Electric cigarettes still at zero.

Nicotine tests are now a mandatory part of Memorial Health Systems job applicant screening process. Could this be the start of a new trend?