This document discusses the many health risks of smoking and benefits of quitting smoking. It notes that smoking causes numerous cancers and can lead to amputation of limbs due to reduced blood flow. Half of all lifetime smokers will die in middle age due to their smoking habit. However, within 20 minutes of quitting, blood pressure drops to normal levels, and after just a few years of not smoking, risks of cancer and heart disease are greatly reduced. The document provides tips for quitting smoking in three steps: preparing to quit, quitting, and staying quit.

1. Today is World No Tobacco Day

2. What do you think Smoking is cool? Well it is not! READ One in two lifetime smokers will die from their habit. Half of these deaths will occur in middle age . Tobacco smoke also contributes to a number of cancers . The mixture of nicotine and carbon monoxide in each cigarette temporarily increases heart rate and blood pressure, straining the heart and blood vessels . This can cause heart attacks and stroke . It slows blood flow, cutting off oxygen to feet and hands. Some smokers end up having their limbs amputated .

3. Tar coats lungs like soot in a chimney and causes cancer . A 20-a-day smoker breathes in up to a full cup (210 g) of tar in a year. Changing to low-tar cigarettes does not help because smokers usually take deeper puffs and hold the smoke in for longer, dragging the tar deeper into their lungs. Carbon monoxide robs muscles, brain and body tissue of oxygen, making whole body and especially heart work harder. Over time, airways swell up and let less air gets into the lungs. Smoking causes Emphysema, an illness that slowly rots lungs. People with emphysema often get bronchitis again and again, and suffer lung and heart failure.

4. Lung cancer from smoking is caused by the tar in tobacco smoke. Men who smoke are ten times more likely to die from lung cancer than non-smokers. Heart disease and strokes are also more common among smokers than non-smokers. Smoking causes fat deposits to narrow and block blood vessels which leads to heart attack. In younger people, three out of four deaths from heart disease are due to smoking. Cigarette smoking during pregnancy increases the risk of low birth weight, prematurity, spontaneous abortion, and perinatal mortality in humans, which has been referred to as the fetal tobacco syndrome.

5. What actually happens at one Smoke? The heart speeds up, from 10 to 20 beats per minute The blood vessels constrict, or tighten, so that blood pressure goes up 5 to 10 points. The temperature of the skin drops by 6 degrees Fahrenheit (that's because the blood is rushing to the heart, where it would be needed in a real crisis) The level of blood sugar, the body's store of energy, falls, because the blood sugar is being burned up in a stressed out reaction. The hypothalamus, which regulates hunger, gets a “speed-up” message, so the appetite falls too.

6. Benefits From Quitting Smoking The American Cancer Society lists some of the immediate and long-term health benefits of quitting smoking: After 20 minutes, blood pressure drops to normal. After 8 hours, the carbon monoxide level in the blood drops to normal. After 48 hours, nerve endings start regrowing and the senses of smell and taste are enhanced.

7. In one to nine months, coughing, sinus congestion, fatigue, and shortness of breath decrease and cilia (tiny, hair like cells that move continually to clean air that is breathed in) regrow in the lungs. After five years, the chance of dying from lung cancer decreases by almost half. After 15 years, the risk of heart disease is equal to that of a nonsmoker, and the risk of dying from lung cancer is only slightly higher than that of a non smoker. Smoking takes an average of at least seven years off every smoker's life, which works out to five and a half minutes per cigarette.

8. The risk of lung cancer drops considerably after five years of not smoking. People with emphysema who have smoked still lose some of their breathing capacity but the rate of loss goes way down once they've stopped smoking. Even People in their 60s who have lots of smoking related problems live longer if they stop smoking. Quitting smoking substantially lowers the chance of esophagus, mouth, pancreas, bladder, and cervix. If you quit, you've got a lot less chance of getting some other major disease, including coronary heart disease and cardiovascular disease.

9. Quitting is made easy in three steps!

10. Step 1: Preparing to Quit

11. Set a date for quitting. Ask someone to keep a check on. Notice when and why you smoke. Change your smoking routines: Don’t go to regular places of smoking or mingle with non smokers. Smoke only in certain places, such as outdoors. Avoid the thought of smoking, keep yourself busy in other things. Reduce the number of cigarettes and choose the brands you do not like to smoke.

12. Step 2: Quitting - Seems like choking but you could make it!

13. Dispose your cigarettes. Keep yourself busy. If you feel like smoking either have a chewing gum or mint. Reward yourself at the end of the day for not smoking. Have an Ice Cream! Go for a movie. If someone is keeping a check on you then ask them to join you and encourage you more.

14. Step 3: Staying Quit

15. Drowsiness and irritation is part of quitting process. Try to workout and maintain physical fitness. This also helps you keep the frustration at bay. Keep stressing at the positive side of quitting, like good health, general well being of the family. Realize smoking will not solve problems. Solve them yourself. Save the money that you would spend buying cigarettes and reward yourself with that money. Let others know that you have quit smoking and encourage others. If you happen to smoke again, don't be discouraged. Its a long process.

16. Smokers, smoking not just kills you but your loved ones too!! Please… Quit smoking!