How to quit smoking

 

It’s never too late to quit smoking and there are many benefits to be gained no matter what age you are when you give up. Here are some quick tips to help you kick the habit:

1. Believe in yourself: Believe that you can quit. Think about some of the most difficult things you have done in your life and realize that you have the guts and determination to quit smoking. It’s up to you.
2. Write down why you want to quit: Live longer, feel better, for your family, save money, smell better, find a mate more easily, etc. You know what’s bad about smoking and you know what you’ll get by quitting. Put it on paper and read it daily.
3. Plan ahead: Plan ahead for situations in which you are likely to be tempted to smoke, such as parties, drinking or going out for coffee. Try to avoid these situations in the early stages of your quitting program, or try sitting in the non-smoking section at restaurants, drinking your coffee standing up or with the other hand, or keeping something in your hand when you’re talking on the phone.
4. Cut back on cigarettes gradually: Ways to cut back gradually include: plan how many cigarettes you will smoke each day until your quit date, making the number you smoke smaller each day; buy only one pack at a time; change brands so you don’t enjoy smoking as much; give your cigarettes to someone else, so that you have to ask for them each time you want to smoke.
5. Know the triggers: Learn what triggers your desire for a cigarette, such as stress, the end of a meal, arrival at work, entering a bar, etc. Avoid these triggers or if that’s impossible, plan alternative ways to deal with the triggers.
6. Find another smoker who is trying to quit, and help each other with positive words and by lending an ear when quitting becomes difficult. Visit Forums and Chat Room on the internet to find a "quit buddy".
7. Ask your family and friends to support your decision to quit: Ask them to be completely supportive and non-judgmental. Let them know ahead of time that you will probably be irritable and even irrational while you withdraw from your smoking habit.
8. Do Not Skip Meals: Each puff of nicotine was your spoon releasing stored fats and sugars into your bloodstream. It allowed you to skip meals without experiencing wild blood-sugar swing symptoms such as an inability to concentrate or hunger related anxieties. Don’t add needless symptoms to withdrawal but instead learn to spread your normal daily calorie intake out more evenly over the entire day. Don’t eat more food but less food more often.
9. Drink lots of water: Water is good for you anyway, and most people don’t get enough. It will help flush the nicotine and other chemicals out of your body, plus it can help reduce cravings by fulfilling the "oral desires" that you may have.
10. Begin an exercise program: Exercise is simply incompatible with smoking. Exercise relieves stress and helps your body recover from years of damage from cigarettes. If necessary, start slow, with a short walk once or twice per day. Build up to 30 to 40 minutes of rigorous activity, 3 or 4 times per week.
11. Reward Yourself: Set up a plan for your rewards. Definitely reward yourself after the first day, and the second, and the third. Make them good rewards that you’ll look forward to: CDs, books, DVDs, T-shirts, shoes, a massage, a bike, a dinner out at your favorite restaurant, a hotel stay, whatever you can afford.

If You Fall, Get Up and Learn From Your Mistakes. Yes, we all fail. That does not mean we are failures, or that we can never succeed. If you fall, it’s not the end of the world. Get up, brush yourself off, and try again.

Turmeric for cancer?

I have always believed that the cure for most of the deadly diseases on earth are available with nature itself. This finding is sure a leap in that direction. I had a personal experience with work of Ayurveda for cancer treatment. Though it was not effective in curing the Cancer, it did reduce the suffering a lot.

Synthetic molecules derived from curcumin, main ingredient of Indian spice turmeric, can help kill cancer cells and stop them from spreading, say researchers at Ohio State University.

Curcumin has long been known for its multiple disease-fighting features, including anti-tumour properties. “Newer evidence describes how curcumin interacts with certain proteins to generate anti-cancer activity inside the body. We’re focusing on the pathways that are most involved in cancer and trying to optimise for those properties,” said James Fuchs, assistant professor of medicinal chemistry and pharmacognosy at Ohio State University and principal investigator.

While presenting his study results, Fuchs described a selection of the 40 compounds developed to date, emphasising the synthetic molecules that appear to have the most potential to serve as the basis for anti-cancer drug development. Fuchs and colleagues are continuing to refine compounds that are best structured to interact with a few overactive proteins that are associated with cell activity in breast and prostate cancers.

Blocking these molecular targets can initiate cell death or stop cell migration in the cancers. With the help of structure-based, computer-aided design, a relatively new technology in the drug discovery field, scientists can make manipulations to computer-designed molecules and observe simulated interactions between molecules and proteins to predict which structural changes will make the most sense to pursue.
[ Original Source ]

Cancer Update from Johns Hopkins

UPDATE : As one of my readers pointed out this email seems to be hoax and Johns Hopkins has got nothing to do with the information given below. This is what Johns Hopkins have got to say about these emails -

Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center
Office of Public Affairs
March 2007

EMAIL HOAX REGARDING CANCER

An email falsely attributed to Johns Hopkins describing properties of cancer cells and suggesting prevention strategies has begun circulating the Internet.  Johns Hopkins did not publish the email, entitled “Cancer Update from Johns Hopkins,” nor do we endorse its contents.  For more information about cancer, please read the information on our web site or visit the National Cancer Institute’s web site at www.cancer.gov.

Another hoax email that has been circulating since 2004 regarding plastic containers, bottles, wrap claiming that heat releases dioxins which cause cancer also was not published by Johns Hopkins.  More information.

-JHM-

That said, nobody seems to be specifying that these points are false. This may not be endorsed by the premium institute. But, that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. So, I am not pulling down this post.

1. Every person has cancer cells in the body. These cancer cells do not show up in the standard tests until they have multiplied to a few billion. When doctors tell cancer patients that there are no more cancer cells in their bodies after treatment , it just means the tests are unable to detect the cancer cells because they have not reached the detectable size.
2. Cancer cells occur between 6 to more than 10 times in a person’s lifetime.
3. When the person’s immune system is strong the cancer cells will be destroyed and prevented from multiplying and forming tumours.
4. When a person has cancer it indicates the person has multiple nutritional deficiencies. These could be due to genetic , environmental , food and lifestyle factors.
5. To over come the multiple nutritional deficiencies , changing diet and including supplements will strengthen the immune system.
6. Chemotherapy involves poisoning the rapidly-growing cancer cells and also destroys rapidly-growing healthy cells in the bone marrow , gastro-intestinal tract etc , and can cause organ damage , like liver , kidneys , heart , lungs etc.
7. Radiation while destroying cancer cells also burns , scars and damages healthy cells , tissues and organs.
8. Initial treatment with chemotherapy and radiation will often reduce tumour size. However prolonged use of chemotherapy and radiation do not result in more tumour destruction.
9. When the body has too much toxic burden from chemotherapy and radiation the immune system is either compromised or destroyed , hence the person can succum b to various kinds of infections and complications.
10. Chemotherapy and radiation can cause cancer cells to mutate and become resistant and difficult to destroy. Surgery can also cause cancer cells to spread to other sites.
11. An effective way to battle cancer is to starve the cancer cells by not feeding it with the foods it needs to multiply.

Cure for CANCER???

Unlike my usual posts, this is one is quiet on a serious note and with an aim. I hope this post helps some readers somewhere in the world. Not sure whether this is the real miracle everyone has been waiting for or just another gimmick. I got this by mail. I have my own personal experience with ‘the silent killer’ and know that any news could be a ray of hope for your dear ones. Check it out. It’s worth checking out.

If this post actually reaches a needy person and they get any relief from this news it would add more meaning to my life.

Some gentlemen in Erie, Pennsylvania, have discovered a process that kills cancer cells, while leaving healthy cells completely unharmed. So far they have tested it only on cancerous organs taken from patients. But every form of cancer has been killed.

This process is now being researched by a leading researcher, Dr. Steven Curly (sp?), at MD Anderson, one of the leaders in cancer research in America. So far Dr. Curly has tested the process in the same way, and has reproduced the results, and is convinced that it will work as long as researchers can figure out a way to deliver it to the body as a whole.

I would be skeptical about this story, except that it has been validated by MD Anderson, where I and friends have received our cancer treatments. I have been free of cancer almost 5 years now. In fact my doctor, Dr. Hahn, has recently accepted a position at the Cancer Prevention Center at MD Anderson. I haven’t talked to her, but I am sure that she knows Dr. Curly.

If you know of someone who has cancer or someone who know someone that does, please pass this message on. This might be their ray of hope!