This blog post I will dedicate to quitting smoking. I have smoked cigarettes since I was 14. It started off in the 1st year of gymnasium and I kind of kept on going from there. Today I am 35 years old and have been smoking most of that time. I have had periods when I have quit, sometimes just for a few weeks, a longer period was at about 25 years old, when I quit for about 3 months and at 29 years, when I quit for 6 months. The moment I heard the term “chain smoker” in English class I knew that I fall into that category without a doubt. I have an on/off switch so I either smoke 1-2 packets / day or I don´t smoke at all. There is no in-between for me and my smoking habits. In the past my main motivation for quitting was better performance at half-marathons and sports in general, but I would quit 2-3 weeks before a run a few years ago when I was running on sports events quite often. I also quit smoking for 4 months this year, on 2 January, since I simply did not feel comfortable smoking as it really started to affect my lungs and coughing.

I always remember a medical checkup I had at 30 years old, which was a routine examination paid for by the state for people. Part of this examination is also a lung capacity test. At that time my lungs were perfectly fine and being a chain smoker I had no problems running 21 kilometers run with my 100+ kilograms of weight even due to smoking. But I remember the nurse telling me that the time to quit is really now at that age, as the future with smoking does not look bright – especially because of the disease called the  Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) . you can read more about it here on this Wiki page.

So cancer is just on of the things that you risk when smoking, but COPD is a widely spread deterioration of the lungs. That means that at older age as your lungs become practically dead, you have problems catching your breath even when walking. This later on puts more strain on the heart as it needs to work harder to pump oxygen in the body and of course heart failure is often an outcome of that burden. So, definitely not a good thing.

So I started smoking again around the beginning of May this year and have been a really good chain smoker until recently. Since in Germany you can get the big packet with 27 or sometimes 29 cigarettes, I was able to off 1 – 1,5 packets a day, that being cca. 40 cigarettes daily on average. Mostly in the morning and evening hours before I would go to or return from the office.

I have quit again now, due to not feeling well and I really knew I overdid it again with the smoking. A cold finally got me and I had to lay in bed for two days, not being able to smoke (even though I wanted to as a true junkie), I took the chance to quit again. I felt much better after the first two days (as always) and I managed to push through the first week, which is usually the hardest to keep away from cigarettes. What always motivates me are the WHO (World Health Organisation) data on what happens with your body when you quit – I am always driven by small goals towards the big one – if that´s your thing as well, check the WHO statistics out here.

Ok, so far, for me, nothing new. But what really got me thinking was this. In my former company I received the FitBit Charge 2 bracelet as a parting gift from my colleagues and it measures your sleep, heart rates, etc. I keep it on me most of the time and it gets me thinking a lot – how much I move, what my heart rates are, about my exercise and calorie consumption. So changing my life broke my sports routines and I am really not living as healthy as I would like to. What really sobered me up on smoking, was the heart rate at rest that the FitBit measured. This chart told me everything and it is giving me true perspective on why I really should not start again. I am posting it below, so that you may understand what I am talking about.

So to keep it simple. My resting heart rate dropped (I quit smoking 14 days ago) from about 65/66 to 55, which is a decrease of about 15%! 15% is a lot if you look at it long term. Taking into account that I really don´t do as much sports as I would like to (but have started running and workouts again in Ljubljana and Munich) it is a huge difference. Also of course after about 10 days I usually start sneezing and coughing out all the junk that got stuck in my body from the smoking and I must say having that sense of smell and taste again is wonderful. Not to mention the feeling of taking a really deep breath without that burning feeling in the lungs or inducing a cough.

So, yes, I really hope that this was the last time I quit and even if I slip up again that I will be able to refrain myself from becoming a chain smoker once more, as I clearly am affected by smoking.

Wishing you all the best if you are on the path to quitting this expensive and senseless addiction. Keep it up, you know it´s worth it.