again. After just one day, therefore, giving up smoking will already have helped the heart. And that considerably reduces the risk of a heart attack.
Two days after quitting, we begin to smell better, and I don’t just mean our body odour, but also, more importantly, our sense of smell. At the same time, our sense of taste begins to regenerate, which increases our quality of life immensely. The taste of ripe Italian tomatoes can now really blow your socks off!
After two weeks, our lungs begin to perform better, and even after just a month, the cilia will have regained their pre-smoking functionality. This means much less coughing to expel mucous and dust from our breathing apparatus. The result is that we suck more fresh air into our lungs with each breath we draw.
Once six months have passed since that final cigarette, the risk of suffering a heart attack will have sunk by half. And if an ex-smoker holds out for another six months — so, a whole year in total — then his or her risk of dying due to the effects of smoking will be about half as high as it was immediately after that last cigarette. Then the worst is over, although the danger of slipping back into old ways remains present for years.
I know this from personal experience. In my final years at high school and during my paramedic’s training, I no longer smoked. But when I went to Vienna to study, one single drag on a cigarette was all it took to put me back where I was at the time I stopped smoking. Unfortunately, we humans have an excellent memory when it comes to addictions. Even years after we quit, our body remembers how great the feeling was when we indulged our addiction. By contrast, the negative effects are soon forgotten. The simple fact is that our brains are greedy for dopamine.
Luckily, human beings also have the capacity to conquer their urges. For those who manage to quit permanently, their risk of suffering a heart attack will fall to the same level as a non-smoker within 15 years. It really is worth doing more than just thinking about quitting.
There’s also no reason to be afraid of withdrawal symptoms after quitting smoking. It is true: lack of concentration, increased irritability, and often bouts of sweating and nausea make life difficult at first; but, when you think about it, these are positive signs! They show that the body is adjusting to the new, altered circumstances it now finds itself in. So the best thing to do is simply grin and bear it, and to make sure you never have to go through it again!
Bomb Shots for the Heart
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