Day 13 – Katie

Woo-hoo! Day thirteen of Smoke Swap already! I can’t believe it’s gone by so fast. I’ve had my moments of doubt and the obvious pangs for cigarettes but this has been an incredible journey for me. I know I’m still at the beginning stages. I’ve smoked for ten years but Smoke Swap has allowed me to revaluate my life and break the strangle hold that cigarettes have had on me. I feel more confident and free without cigarettes. I can’t believe how I was subtly seduced by cigarettes until I was a slave to the nicotine.

Today I met Perry at King’s Cross; he was looking very tan having just returned from Barcelona. We went to BUPA Wellbeing were he had a Carbon Monoxide test.

After Perry had his first blow into the machine and while he went outside to have a cigarette, I had time to talk with the doctor about my journey to stop smoking.

I didn’t have to go today but just having a chat with the doctor has clarified a few thoughts for me and reinforced my new beliefs to stop smoking forever. I’m not giving anything up but I’m claiming back what is rightly mine. My life, free of addiction, yep I’ve got a healthy new me.

I would encourage and recommend everyone to stop smoking. If you are thinking of smoking for the first time or if you are under a lot of pressure to start smoking I would say resist it at all costs. It just isn’t worth it. Only chavs smoke! It’s dumb, and you’re better than that.

Follow these links for more information on youth and women smoking...

Youth on Smoking

Youth Workers join Anti Smoking Battle

Fashion Cigarettes Exploit Women

Resourses to Stop Smoking Now.

Hypnosis to Stop Smoking Now.

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There is a new FREE app to download to help you stop smoking if you have an iPhone or iPhone touch. It’s called the ‘NHS Quit Smoking app’ and is available from the iTunes app store.

The NHS iPhone app helps make it easier to stop smoking.

* Provides daily support and instant stop smoking tips.

* Keeps track of the money you are saving.

* Shows how many days you’ve been smoke free.

* Includes a direct line to the NHS Stop Smoking helpline.

* Provides links to local NHS Stop Smoking services

Download the iPhone Stop Smoking app.

Check out more FREE Stop Smoking tools from the NHS including:

* Quitwidget – smoking support on your desktop

* Smoking cost Calculator

*Addiction Test

* Quit Kit

* Free NHS Stop smoking support material

* My Body – Risks from Smoking

* Timeline – Benifits of stopping smoking

*Make a Promise

The Inside Man recommends Fresh Start Hypnotherapy to Stop Smoking.

Other Stop Smoking apps…

MyQuitLine

Quitters

Find the right Stop smoking App for you. Read more information on the Top 5 Stop Smoking Apps including – Quitter, Smokeless, Fixnixer, Quit Smoking with Andrew Johnson and MyQuitline.

Don’t have an iPhone or want an App? Get hold of the best selling book – Allen Carr’s Easyway to stop smoking from the Stop Smoking Now Store.

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Today is No Smoking Day!

Facebook have a Stop Smoking App to celebrate National No Smoking Day -- it’s called WeQuit.

A recent survey reported that around 2 million people will be trying to stop smoking today.

The star of Dragon’s Den, Duncan Bannatyne is backing the campaign. Bannatyne said: “We feel that quitting is a challenge that should be inspiring and enjoyable rather than a chore, and it’s this attitude that makes WeQuit unique.”

Be inspired and enjoy a life without cigarettes. Follow this link ‘No Smoking App’ to get your FREE Facebook app now.

Join the Facebook No Smoking Day Group here.

To read the Duncan Bannatyne interview click here:

How My Fathers Death Made Me Stop Smoking

Get help to stop Smoking here:

Helping smokers to Stop Smoking

Online resoureses to help you stop smoking

Stop Smoking Store

The Stop Smoking Man Store

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DAY 13 Perry – Kings Cross

Listening to: Jarvis – Don’t Let Him Waste Your Time

Emotion: Relaxed

>>Make a Fresh Start -- Stop Smoking<<

Watch this video and tell me why would you still want to smoke!

I’m waiting outside Kings Cross Station for Katie. A bus passes reminding me that England goes smoke free on 1^st July. Bring it on!

We walk the short distance from the station to BUPA Wellness were I have an appointment with Dr. Peter Mace. We meet the crew in the reception area and eventually we are escorted to the good doctors’ surgery.

I’m here to have a Carbon Monoxide breath test. I wanted to arrange to do this test before commencing the experiment but having spent the best part of three weeks contacting a great deal of doctors, professors and hospitals to no avail, I had to press on and change tact. BUPA got back to me towards the end of the first week. They didn’t view this experiment as unethical. They treated it as an interesting experiment and research project.

Prior to my visit to see Dr. Mace I stopped smoking for twenty four hours and enjoyed a good thirty minute run around my neighbourhood the night before. The only reason I went for a run was because I had been so busy for the last few weeks I hadn’t had time to exercise. It wasn’t a requirement for the test.

The carbon monoxide test in question involves me taking a deep breath and holding it for ten seconds. I then slowly and under great control, I breathe out into a device that resembles a breathalyser used by the police to test for alcohol levels by the side of the road.

I blow into the apparatus and no change registers on the light meters. The doctor shows me a colour chart that indicates that my breath has normal levels of carbon monoxide in it for someone who lives in London were diesel engine vehicles are plenty.

I immediately head outside the building and spark up an Embassy #1 cigarette. The pack indicates that these cigarettes have 10mg of carbon monoxide when smoked. (at least the factory machine that tests these claims reads 10mg, but machines can not really emulate how a person smokes).

I smoke this cigarette a little faster than usual but this is because of the stress of having three cameras in my face. I feel light-headed and head back in to the building to have a second test. At least here, if I faint or vomit I’ll be in good hands.

I repeat the procedure, take a deep breathe, hold it for ten seconds and then slowly breathe out into the apparatus. The light immediately changes from green to orange. This change of colour on the chart indicates a considerable increase in the levels of carbon monoxide in my blood.

So why is this bad? Well we need oxygen to live. We take oxygen from the air we breathe and this is moved around the body in our blood to all our vital organs. Carbon monoxide masks itself as oxygen by attaching itself to the haemoglobins or oxygen carrying cells in the blood. A habitual smoker is essentially starving themselves of oxygen. This is one of the reasons why smokers find themselves short of breath, the other being the damage they do to their lungs.

I was fortunate enough to visit Professor Gunther von Hagens Bodyworlds exhibition some years ago in the East End of London at the Truman Brewery.

As a part of this amazing exhibition was the display of the heart and lungs of a smoker and a non-smoker. The differences in size and colour had a big impact on me. The smokers’ lung was about a third of the size and black in colour compared to the healthy comparison. Both owners of the lungs were dead, their was no denying that but what got me thinking was the quality of life the two owners must have had would be dramatically different.

Stop Smoking Today with Hypnotherapy -- it works.

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Book Your Health Assessment with BUPA -- UK and save £100 before 19 March 2010

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Day 12 – Kate

Tomorrow I’m going to meet Perry at Bupa when he has his smoking carbon monoxide tests done. I don’t really need to be there. If fact I don’t have to be there at all but I’m finding it more and more interesting the longer I’m on this journey to stop smoking for good.

I feel better everyday, I wonder how Perry is? He’s been smoking for nearly two weeks now. It will be ironic if he continues to smoke and I stop smoking.

See and Read more Smoking Related news here…

Smoking Tax Rise Report from ITN

Obama Tries to Stop Smoking

Man Jailed in Smoking Row

Smoking Killed me Wreath

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By

Dying

Don’t be the next one

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DAY 12 Perry – Barcelona to Bermondsey

Listening to: Amaury Perez -- Andes Lo Que Andes

Emotion: Excited

I’m heading back to Barcelona airport, a fifteen Km drive from my hotel. I open a pack of Consulate Menthol cigarettes and my colleague riding shotgun beside me tells me that these are really bad for me. Mind you, it doesn’t stop her from smoking one of mine though.

Last night or should I say the early hours of the morning, while returning to our hotel she confided to me she was quitting smoking as she had developed a bad cough and smoked too many cigarettes that night. But that’s what I found with a lot of smokers, they are always just about to quit. As the Spanish say ‘manana, manana, manana’. That or they’ve quit many times before. As Mark Twain once quipped ‘It’s easy to quit smoking. I’ve done it dozens of times before’.

I don’t want to sound pious but where is their back bone, the will power or the strength of character in these people? Are there that many people so insecure and weak who can’t stand by their own convictions?

Reading that back now, I that it sounds harsh but really the easy option is just to carry on and blame everyone and everything around them for their problems. If change is going to come it has to come from within. That can be a scary place to look for some people. It’s easier to loose yourself in drugs, shopping and celebrity bullshit than start a journey of the self. But I believe the journey is worth starting. You owe it to yourself. You owe it to your self to stop smoking! Not your kids, not your partner or your boss. You owe it to yourself to stop smoking. You are a beautiful person.

Rant over -- The menthol cigarettes taste minty fresh, like toothpaste and are more pleasant than the other brands I’ve been smoking. The mint flavour comes from an application of menthol essence in the form of a spray to the silver foil in the pack of cigarettes not buy adding sprigs of mint leaf to the tobacco as many people believe. This odour seeps into the cigarette, adding a few more chemicals to the already heady mix.

I know of people who started smoking menthol cigarettes when they were children because firstly they are very smooth to smoke and secondly they thought their breaths would smell of Polos. Of course their breath didn’t smell of Polos and their parents busted them for smoking. The truth is because they are easier to take the smoke down, they are more harmful than ‘normal’ cigarettes.

I remember being told at Philip Morris that sales of Marlboro Menthol would rise during the winter months as some people were under the illusion these cigarettes were healthy cigarettes! Hello -- there is No such thing as a healthy cigarette!

I’m sure many children start smoking Menthol, the alcho-pop of cigarettes as their first cigarettes. Perhaps the tobacco companies could also manufacture chocolate, strawberry, vanilla or even Mc.Chicken Nugget flavoured cigarettes to get the kids hooked early. Sounds far fetched? I wish it was as this has already been done.

Now I’m really finding it easy to smoke ten cigarettes a day. It’s quite frightening how easy it is in from my first experiences to twelve days down the line.

I’ve got two days left now in this experiment and it would be easy to carry on smoking as the worst of the side effects are over but I know this would lead me down the road to addiction and I don’t won’t to be dependent on these little things that kill. I could even smoke more than ten a day now, I’ve hit the groove, I’m thinking like a smoker. But ten is more than enough for me, thank you very much.

I must admit, I like the social aspect of this anti-social action. Hanging about, having a chat, a cup of tea and a cigarette is fun but the reality is I can do all that without cigarettes in my life.

SMOKES TODAY – 10 out of 10

One Thousand Americans Stop Smoking every Day -- By Dying!

Read more here…

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Katie Piper -- Smoke Swap Day 11

It has dawned on me, just how much time I have wasted everyday of my life when I smoked. Instead of spending my days and nights puffing away on cigarettes I could have done just about anything else. Promote myself and my career, got fitter, learnt a new skill, spent the money travelling or see more of my friends and family. Instead I’ve been procrastinating and shortening my life expectancy.

The Smoke Swap experiment has already changed my life for the better. I’m in a more positive place and looking forward to getting on with my life as a non smoker.

I look at people addicted to smoking in a whole new light. Smoking is dumb and chavy. If I can stop smoking anyone man woman or child can. Sometimes it takes a big life changing event to make you realise how stupid it really is. Sometimes it is just allowing your self the time to question your actions and habits and then make a decision. Then, if you want to change them, have the convictions to follow them through to the end.

Life isn’t easy, it never is but I now believe there are no easy answers or solutions to be found when smoking a cigarette.

Stop Smoking Opportunities

Reasons to Stop Smoking

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