Craving a Cigarette - How Long Will it Last?

Craving a cigarette is, of course, one of the main worries about quitting smoking. How long the cravings for cigarettes are going to last after you have had that last cigarette is probably the main concern any smoker feels when they stop. It is such an overwhelming fear, that most smokers doom themselves to failure because they become obsessed with the little facets of the difficulties of quitting, like the ongoing cravings.

I do not mean to say this is a demeaning way. Smokers who want to quit (and by some research, that could be as many as 80% of them) usually try to quit smoking with a lot of pre-conceived ideas about how difficult it will be - including worrying about overwhelming cravings! The solution to these difficulties lies in education and knowledge.

There is absolutely nothing unusual in having pre-conceptions about how difficult it will be to quit, but by being so 'certain' of the pitfalls beforehand, you close down opportunities to make it easy.

So how long do cravings really last? Well, the first three days are always the worst, with day three often reported as the tensest. After that, cravings will subside rapidly and are often non-existent after a month to six weeks. But this is irrelevant in terms of taking your quit attempt from a plan to real success.

Let me explain with an analogy.

If you were to give a speech at a wedding, there are two ways to go about it; confidently or fearfully right?

If you are confident it will go well, you automatically dismiss lots of fears about a deadpan audience, worries and anguish over your jokes falling flat and so set about preparing you speech in a confident and positive mood. The result is very likely to be a confident and positive speech, packed with laughs and applause! Well done you!

If you are fearful, you start by preparing our speech in a fearful and fretful manner. You are not confident of your jokes and when you deliver your speech, you are filled with trepidation which reflects in your delivery. The result is a silent but polite audience and a lot of commiseratory comments after the speech as you search for a shovel with which to dig yourself a big hole to go and hide in!

The thing is, if you start out confident of success, you stand a damned good chance of getting the success you desire. If you start out fearfully and lacking in confidence, there is a good chance this will be reflected in your experience on the day. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

So what has this got to do with cravings I hear you ask? Well my response is who cares about how long the cravings last? If you have decided to quit smoking, you should be so steely and determined, that piffling little cravings will be mere bumps in the road, not rock-falls and landslides blocking the way.

When you decide to quit smoking, you should understand that you will have cravings for cigarettes but you should have already decided that these cravings are a price that you must pay to enjoy the bounty on the other side - a smoke free you. Your health and well-being and confidence will all improve once you have achieved you goal and the reward will be great if there was effort involved.

How you view and perceive that effort depends greatly on you mindset and attitude to what you are trying to achieve. If you enter into trying to quit smoking, fearful, crestfallen and lacking confidence, your result will more likely failure. If you take a positive, determined and unswerving attitude, your success will readily manifest itself.

Having said that, don't make 'not craving for cigarettes', your goal. Your cravings are merely a measure of your success. Your goal is to know that you have overcome you dependence on cigarettes and that requires you to change your pre-conceptions on smoking as much as anything else.

If you would you like to learn more about changing your mindset before you quit smoking so you can make it a walk in the park, then the EasyQuit System might just be for you. You don't need willpower or effort to quit, just understanding with this remarkable approach. Available online to download right now at http://easyquitsystem.net with a full 60 day money back guarantee.