It may sound crazy that anyone would intentionally make quitting smoking any harder than necessary.

It may sound crazy that anyone would intentionally make quitting smoking any harder than necessary. But Ican guarantee that if you want to know a secret about how to quit smoking, then just stop making it so hardfor yourself.

Henry Ford once said, that if you think you can or you think you can't, then either way you are right. Here inlies the problem. Many smokers think they can't, or think it will be very hard.

They say things like:

1. Cigarettes are my friend: Wow talk about a lousy friend.

2. I'll be lost without them: Nothing quite so comforting as lighting a toxic cigarette.

3. I need my cigarettes to think: Nothing like 4000 toxic chemicals flooding your brain to help cognition.

4. Cigarettes help me when I'm stressed. Nicotine causes an adrenal response, flooding your system withadrenalin and cortisol, nothing good about that.

5. Smoking helps me relax. Again the nicotine does no such thing. It's taking time out that is relaxing.

6. I like smoking when I eat. Just wait until your food tastes like food and not an ashtray.

7. I always smoke with alcohol. Have a look around, notice the non smokers are doing just fine, withoutsmoking.

8. I put on weight if I quit. Smokers are no less thin or fat than any other group in society. Smoking actuallymakes it hard for your liver to break down fats properly.

In fact one of the best pieces of advice I can give to a smoker is to just observe non smokers going abouttheir day. See them when they are relaxed, stressed, busy, thinking, bored, eating or drinking.

The non smokers are managing just fine without any assistance from cigarettes. Focussing on all thereasons you think you need to smoke is just making it very hard for you. You can't quit when you think yourlife is so dependent on smoking.

The first thing to do is to look at the list and just think about it. Start to realise that smoking doesn't makeanything better. It doesn't help you to relax or thing, or drive better or hold a better conversation on thephone.

All it does is cost you a lot of money, make you smell like an ashtray, and strip away 14 years of life onaverage. And did I mention the slow painful lingering death.