Supporting A Quitter

Quitting smoking is not something that should be underestimated. It’s an addiction and a habit which is hard to shift and if you’re partner, relative or friend wants your support, there are many ways you can help them out. It doesn’t matter if you’re extremely anti-smoking or a smoker yourself, you can definitely find a way of supporting them in their journey.

There are lots of ways you can support someone who is quitting smoking. The most important point to keep in your mind at all times is remain positive, if you can be positive of all their little achievements then it gives them a further reason to keep going. Initially, when the decision has first been made to quit smoking, discuss their habit with them, talk through the amount they smoke, why they smoke and whether they want to set an achievable date to work towards. If they’re fully committed this discussion should be welcomed rather than ignored.

Secondly, once they’ve set their goals and made the big move towards giving up, encourage them to talk to professionals who can help and see what supplements can support them. There are plenty of free phone lines with counsellors who are more than happy to help. You can also remind them of how much money they’ll be saving by quitting the cigarettes. The cost of cigarettes is huge so rather than looking for discounts and freebies, they can splash out on a gift for themselves every now and again. You could plan a big shopping spree for a few weeks time to show them exactly how much money they’ve saved from not smoking.

When someone is quitting smoking they need to be kept busy. Smoking is often a habit that people do when they’ve got nothing else to do or aren’t busy so this can really help stave off cravings. When supporting someone who’s quitting you can plan days out and nights out with them, avoiding trigger areas like bars and clubs. Places like the cinema and the gym are great ideas are you couldn’t smoke there even if you wanted to. You could help them find a new hobby or join a new club together so you can keep their mind focussed on other things and eventually the nasty smoking habit won’t even enter their thought process.

It’s also important to not put too much emphasis any little mishaps that happen along the way. It’s perfectly normal and not the end of the world for smokers to slip up once or twice and rather than admonish them, you should be there to support their continuation along the right path to giving up. Giving up smoking makes a lot of people edgy and even snappy, so you have to be prepared to deal with some rough times. Your friend or relative may find it hard to stay upbeat so as part of their support network, it’s important you do that for them. Providing encouragement and support whenever they need it is a really nice way of showing you care and helping them along their way. It could be as simple as a text message or quick phone call to stop your friend reaching for their cigarettes.

In addition to moral support and helping your friend to fill their social calendar, you could introduce them to Quit Tea. With simple natural ingredient, Quit Tea is blended to help you quit smoking and it even helps reduce nicotine withdrawal symptoms. To help your friend to fully break their habit, Quit Tea is a great suggestion as it helps your friend combat their habit in many ways. From reducing anxiety levels and stress to suppressing future cravings, your friend will be forever grateful you suggested Quit Tea.

Supporting a friend or relative who is trying to quit smoking isn’t going to be an easy ride but if you know they can do then your support could be all they need to make it. Sometimes all they’ll need is someone to talk to and encourage them along their way. You’ll need the patience of a saint and nerves of steel but imagine putting yourself in their shoes with the endless cravings and soon you’ll understand things from their point of view. With your help, they’ll have no trouble quitting.

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SNL Chantix Parody



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Year End Donations 2011

It is our second year of operation, hard to imagine. In keeping with the spirit of our company we have made donations to organizations that support smoking cessation and cancer research. Although we did not make a profit this year, mostly due to the astound amount of free samples that have been sent to date, we thought it was important to give anyway.

The list of organizations we supported this year is shorter. We decided to support smaller organizations with larger gifts. And we did NOT donate this year to Americans For Nonsmokers’ Right because they blocked us on Twitter!  Here is the list:

American Legacy Foundation LogoAmerican Legacy Foundation – dedicated to building a world where young people reject tobacco and anyone can quit.

The Consumer Advocates for Smoke-Free Alternatives Association – a non-profit organization that works to ensure the availability of reduced harm alternatives to smoking and to provide smokers and non-smokers alike with truthful information about such alternatives.

National Lung Cancer Partnership – to decrease deaths due to lung cancer and to help patients live longer and better through research, awareness and advocacy.

Action on Smoking and Health – a prime mover in domestic and global tobacco control through advocacy, communication, the force of law and our essential partnership with the Framework Convention Alliance for Tobacco Control.

The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University – a science-based, multidisciplinary organization focused on transforming society’s understanding of and responses to substance use and the disease of addiction.

That is our list for this year. With all the new exciting distribution and brand awareness building for Quit Tea, we hope to grow the amount and list of organizations we support.

Have a wonderful New Year!

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New Box Design

We have redesigned our box.  Don’t worry, the tea is still the same, and there are still 20 tea bags per box.  There was anything wrong with the looks of the old one… but we changed the size of our tea bag so we had to redesign the box anyway.  Here it is:New Quit Tea Box Design

What do you think? We were going for a clean, simple, cosmetic style box. If you have a moment please comment and let us know if you like the new design.

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Smoking Is The Stuff Of Work

Time to share a personal story from my college days when I still smoked.  One day I had to take an online test.  I remember thinking to myself ‘I need a cigarette to pass this.’  I was pretty nervous about it, so I walked outside into the freezing cold Maine winter and had a cigarette, maybe even two.  Then I sat down at my computer and started the exam.  This was a timed logic and reasoning exam that I should have passed, but I didn’t!  Maybe the buzz from the cigarettes got me too hyped up, or maybe my feet were too cold to concentrate.  Looking back on this day I realize I had the same false beliefs that most smokers have; that smoking helps me concentrate and not smoking will harm my cognitive ability.

Dr. Sigmund Freud SmokingOne famous, intellectual smoker was Dr. Sigmund Freud who believed his cigars were “the stuff of work.”  If you don’t know, he was an Austrian psychiatrist that developed the discipline of psychoanalysis and was one of the most influential and ground breaking psychotherapist in history.  Dr. Freud smoked, despite battling cancer of the head and neck for a decade.  When he finally quit he was over 70.  Dr. Freud too, a very smart man, was also victim to this false-belief system that comes from the emotional and chemical dependency to nicotine.

If you smoke you probably believe something similar.  You probably believe that you need that smoke break at work or else you will not be able to get anything done, you won’t be as productive, or you will fail to accomplish your tasks.  These beliefs are absolutely FALSE.  Everyone who has quit smoking resumes a productive work life, without cigarettes.

There is a reason companies will typically buy smoking cessation aids for their employees, and some times even pay them to quit smoking. You quitting smoking saves your company money and makes you more productive, a saving to cost of $5:$1!  That is really big.  Everyone dollar spent on a corporate wellness program to help you quit, saves your company at least $5 in reduced insurance premiums, reduced absenteeism, and increase productivity.  There are many companies that buy Quit Tea for their employees.  You should ask your HR rep if they will buy smoking cessation aids for you.  Thank about it, if smoking made you more productive, wouldn’t you company encourage you to smoke?…

A study was done recently comparing the memory and cognitive abilities of smokers, former smokers, and non-smokers.  The study specifically tested “retrospective memory,” the ability to remember and perform tasks accurately.  The researchers wanted to test “real world” memory abilities.  Skipping over the boring procedural stuff, the results showed that non-smokers scored 37% better than smokers.  But even more impressively, former smokers (quit over 2.5 years ago) scored 25% better than smokers!!  That difference is statistically significant in showing that memory and mental abilities are better without cigarettes.

Although it is unclear exactly why smoking interferes with memory, research shows that habitual smoking leads to atrophy of the brain.  Imaging of the brain shows that smoking breaks down areas such as the prefontal cortex and hippocampus, areas linked to memory.  Researchers admit that studies have been small and inconclusive as to the exact cause of memory loss from smoking, and other factors such as alcohol consumption could not be  ruled out, but there is enough evidence to determine a strong link.

Carbon monoxide in cigarette smoke deprives the brain of oxygen, which is essential for peak performance.  Maybe oxygen deprivation is why I didn’t pass that test!  Whatever the cause I determined (as current smokers will need to determine for themselves) that smoking does not make you any smarter or more talented.  You will need to disconnect work from cigarettes.  Then quitting will be a no-brainer :-)

 

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Positive Self Affirmations To Help You Quit Smoking



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President Obama’s Great American Smokeout Message



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What Do You Really Know About Electronic Cigarettes??

The newest trend in quitting is these electronic cigarettes. You may have tried them.  There are reports of celebrities using them. But what do you really know….

Almost daily, I receive emails from factories in China wanting me to resell their version.  They think that because Quit Tea is a smoking cessation product that I would be interested in reselling these horrid devices.  Here is an example of one such email I received just today:

Email From E-Cig Manufacturer In China

Email From E-Cig Manufacturer In China

If you can’t read the text in the image of this email I will post it here:

Hi,
Hope you everything goes well!
We manufacture soft cartridge e-cigarette, it uses special material on the cartridge that makes  you feel more like  traditional cigarette.
Details:
  •  battery :280mah,length 80mm
  • Packing: Clear PVC Tube/Blister package,G.W: 30g
  • E-cigarette size: 9.2D x 125Lmm
  • Height of Tube: 134mm (plug included)
  •  Height of Tube: 129MM(plug not included)
  • At least can somke 600 mouth puffs
  • You can change the sticker what you want
  • Paster on the tube can be customized easy DIY
If you have any interested in, please let us know and we will provide you with a quotation.
In the meantime, should you require any further information about either our products or our corporation, please feel free to contact me.
We are looking forward to your earliest reply!
Best Regards,
Shirley
2011-10-20

Shenzhen Sendy Electronics Co.,Ltd
4 Building,High-tech Industrial Park,1Rd Fuyuan,Fuyong District,Baoan Area,Shenzhen,P.R.China(Factory)

I don’t know about you but if the Chinese make poisonous dog food and children’s toys with lead paint, then I am NOT going to trust them to make something that I inhale!  I am certainly not going to resell something that gives “600 mouth puffs” of nicotine and anti-freeze.

Most of these electronic cigarettes are made in China and under go no testing.  I find this trend troubling. Here is some more information you should consider if you are thinking of using them.

Recently a shipment of electronic cigarettes being brought in from China was seized by the FDA. Testing of two of the major brands found them to contain several cancer causing chemicals such as anti-freeze.  Not only that but the nicotine delivery was inconsistent meaning you could be getting very high doses at some points and no nicotine at others.

Electronic cigarettes, although not marketed as such, are essentially a new form of nicotine replacement therapy. They are now competing with the other available forms of NRT by presenting themselves as a new kind of cigarette, and without going through all the usual product safety and effectiveness testing required by the FDA. This means they do not have to adhere to any quality control standards, except those imposed by the consumers. So buyer beware.

Smokers may be able to make the transition to e-cigarettes more readily than they take to established stop smoking therapies. Inhaling nicotine vapors directly into the lungs from e-cigarettes may be more rewarding, for example, and may make them harder to stop down the line. This bodes well for the bottom line of industries built on the premise that it’s impossible to stop.  They are just as addictive as cigarettes!

Another consideration is that e-cigs are like toys, something children would play with (which was probably intentional on part of the manufacturers) and will keep you hooked.  Getting hooked on e-cigs may mean you are going to look stupid walking around with a light up toy in your mouth for the rest of your life.

 

 

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Included In Spa Week Gift Bag

This year’s Spa Week Media Gift Bag included Quit Tea!  We were so happy to provide 250 boxes of Quit Tea for this event.  It was a great opportunity to spread the word about Quit Tea to people involved in the front lines of health and wellness.

If you are unfamiliar with Spa Week, it is a week when spas offer specials such as $50 massages or other discounts on spa treatments.  It is a great way to promote new spa services or spas in general.  Spa Week happens every year in early October, in major cities all over the United States.  The products that were included and sponsoring the events for Spa Week in New York City were all unique health and beauty oriented products, and this is first time ever that a product like Quit Tea was included.

Health and beauty are completely connected in that beauty is dependent upon health.  Looking good requires you to feel good.  That is why the new slogan on our box is “Happy, Healthy, Smoke-Free & Beautiful.”

You can see all of the products listed here:  Spa Week Blog

And here are a couple pictures from Spa Week of the items that were included.

Spa Week Gift Bag

And here is another:

Spa Week October 2011 Media Gift Bag

We are excited to help make the connection between health, spas, and beauty because it is so important.

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Nicotine Cravings Chart

If you are quitting smoking and the occasion spikes in cravings for nicotine are getting you down, it is important to remember the general trend:  Your cravings for nicotine are going down!  The spikes in cravings are completely normal and there is nothing you can do about them except manage them and get through them.  As your body withdraws from cigarettes there are mental and physical triggers that will make you crave the nicotine more some times than others.  But as your body detoxes from the nicotine and you relearn habits without cigarettes and nicotine, your cravings will decrease.

Here is a chart of the typical smokers cravings for nicotine.  Notice, spikes in cravings but a downward trend.

Nicotine Cravings Chart

Nicotine Cravings Chart

The length of time is not specified because it is different for everyone.  Some smokers who are severely addicted to nicotine may never reach the zero cravings mark.  Most smokers though will get to that point some where between 3 weeks and 9 weeks.  It is just helpful to remember that your cravings for nicotine are continually decreasing.  When things seem difficult that positive note will help you get through.

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