- Smoking is altogether hard on your cardiovascular system. It can cause atherosclerosis, which is a condition in which your arteries begin to harden and constrict, causing the bloodflow to your heart to decrease, which in turn, can cause heart attacks and strokes.
Many smokers end up getting cancer, especially of the lungs; smoking can cause cancer in many other parts of the body, though, including the mouth, throat, voicebox, esophagus, pancreas, stomach, kidney, bladder, and cervix. Leukemia is another possibility. A reason that cigarettes can cause cancer is because they contain chemicals that are toxic to your body, such as arsenic, benzene, and cadmium, vinyl chloride, hydrogen cyanide, formaldehyde, and carbon monoxide. A person would never knowingly want to ingest these chemicals, but if you smoke, you are ingesting these chemicals every single day.
It can cause problems with your oral health, including disease of your gums.
Smoking can also cause visual problems and can lead to loss of eyesight altogether.
Lung problems, such as emphysema, are also a common problem with smokers. Smokers are more vulnerable to bronchitis and pneumonia as well, both of which can last longer if you smoke.
As for your digestive tract, you may experience more heartburn if you smoke. You may also get ulcers in your stomach or gallbladder problems, such as stones. Crohn's disease is a greater possibility for smokers as well.
If you are trying to get pregnant, smoking may decrease your chances, seeing as it can cause problems with fertility in both men and women. In men, it decreases the sperm count. In women, it can cause harm to the ovaries, possibly causing you to lose eggs and go into menopause much sooner than normal. It may interfere with estrogen production and "cause a woman's eggs (oocytes) to be more prone to genetic abnormalities" (American Society for Reproductive Medicine in Resources below). You may be more at risk for a miscarriage or tubal pregnancy if you smoke.
Quitting smoking can reduce or even reverse your risks for many of these conditions. - Not only does smoking risk causing damage to your own health, but it risks the health of your family and those closest to you. They are breathing in second-hand smoke, which can be just as dangerous to their health. Your children will be more vulnerable to disease, and your babies have more of a risk for sudden infant death syndrome. They too can become ill with cancer, heart disease, and respiratory disease. Ear infections and asthma are more common in children who breathe in secondhand smoke as well.
Ensuring that your children are as healthy as possible is a key reason to quit smoking today. - If you are a woman who is expecting a child, it is recommended that you refrain from smoking. If you smoke while you are pregnant, you are more at risk for placenta previa, which means you may have to undergo a C-section. You and your baby are also more at risk for placental abruption, which could cause your baby to die. Premature labor and birth are a great possibility, in turn leading to the baby having a very low weight when born. Smoking can also cause problems with the baby's lungs.
- Smoking also carries with it many cosmetic disadvantages or drawbacks. The smoke can cause you to have more wrinkles, and your teeth can become stained a brownish color. You also will carry a distinct odor with you, since the odor is all over your house and all over your clothes. Your breath also carries the unmistakable, foul odor of smoke.
Physically, you might not be able to taste or smell as well, because your senses have been damaged by the smoke. - The cost of cigarettes can wreak havoc on your family's financial situation. If you smoke about one pack per day, and each pack costs around $4.50, then you are basically spending about $31.50 on cigarettes every week, which is a cost of $1638.00 per year (MSN Money in References below).
If you were to quit smoking, this money could be saved for bills or even be used to pay off debt. You could even take a small family vacation with that amount of money. It would be wise to consider the long-term benefits quitting smoking would have on your family's financial status. - Many smokers take frequent smoking breaks, whether they are at home or at work. If you spend an average of ten minutes smoking one cigarette, at a rate of one pack (or 20 cigarettes) per day, the total time spent smoking for that one day is approximately 200 minutes, or around three and a half hours. There are a lot more important things that could be accomplished in all of that time. You would have approximately three hours added to your day, in which you could spend more time with your children or family, spend more time with friends, or have even more time to accomplish that project you've been wanting to do but kept putting off.
All in all, the reasons to quit smoking are clear, and there are so many. Ultimately, it is your choice.