Day 5 - Going Strong

[nsd_user663_57796]

Hey All,

So just wanted to share where I am up to in my journey so far with the hope that others will take some inspiration from it.

So as mentioned in my first post, I quit officially at 11pm on a Friday evening. The weekend was jam packed with activities, including a family gathering and lots of couchwork with my gf (who doesn't smoke and hates it when I do as well). I managed to keep myself occupied and withhold from the cravings, anticipating that Monday was going to be the toughest day - working a high pressure job in finance with a smoking culture was really going to test me.

Well, it did! Monday was tough, had 4 major cravings fairly evenly spread apart. I used a number of techniques such as posting here, going and chatting with someone and also eating chocolate to distract me and somehow made it through the day.

Day 4 -was similar to Monday, but perhaps only had 2major and one minor cravings which I managed to fight off. I will admit, my intake of junk food has increased as mentally I am using it as a reward. I am not too concerned about this in the the short term (say first two weeks) as I am comfortable my diet will return to normal due to other forces.

Day 5 now and feeling strong, no cravings so far today (its 10am) and have a full afternoon in meetings so the mind will hopefully not wander too much.

In terms of side effects, luckily mine have been quite mild. I have felt a little anxious particularly on Monday (day3) and also had no focus whatsoever, I just couldn't stop thinking about smoking. Last night (Day 4 evening) I had a little bit of a tight chest and felt short of breath. I have been having a little insomnia, but I get this when my head is focussed on one task for a long period of time regardless of quitting smoking or not. It just so happens that the last few days that has been consuming my mind. This morning however though I had a fantastic result! My first experience of coughing up some of the gunk that is no doubt lingering in my chest. I see this as a really positive event as my lungs are trying to heal themselves, and after only a few days means they are still pretty active! I was very encouraged by this and took great joy in coughing those little chunks of gunk up knowing that I am not simply replacing them with more.

Anyway, hope sharing this helps others out there, I will keep posting as this is certainly helping me with my quit attempt

Cheers

Matt

[nsd_user663_57605]

Sounds like you are doing fantastic -great job!!! Keep fighting the fight!!!

[nsd_user663_57259]

Well done Matt! Sounds like you are doing great! The first week is really quite hard so well done! Chewing gum and water are also useful when the cravings strike.

Sarah