Benefits of Stopping Smoking.

After 20 minutes: Your blood pressure and heart rate will start to drop back to normal levels.

Two hours: Heart rate and blood pressure have now decreased to normal levels. Circulation in the small blood vessels that feed your skin, arms and legs begins to improve. More oxygen starts to get to your fingers

and toes. It may surprise you to know that this is also the peak time for nicotine cravings. How many times have you gone for two hours without a cigarette? This is as bad as it gets.

Eight hours: Nicotine levels in your body have already reduced by 90%.

The blood is starting to get rid of the highly toxic chemical carbon monoxide, which binds very strongly to red blood cells and reduces the amount of oxygen that they are able to carry.

24 hours: It’s only been a day and already the risk of having a heart attack is dropping.

Smokers are 70% more likely to have a heart attack than non-smokers, but the risk is now starting to decrease.

48 hours: Smoking kills the cells involved in smell and taste, but after two days, they start to regrow, meaning you will appreciate your food more.

72 hours: By now the nicotine has left the body and there may be mild withdrawals, which from now on will get easier. That’s because every day from now your nicotine receptors which keep you hooked, are being slowly destroyed, because you’re no longer using them.

Four days: There might be a slight cough,, but this is only the lungs clearing themselves and trying to bring up all the debris that’s been in them for years. It’s irritating, but will only last a week or two.

Five to eight days: The body continues to repair itself. On average people have three pangs of withdrawals a day, lasting a maximum of three minutes each. They are a sign that the body is returning to normal.

Ten days: By this time the average person reports only two mild withdrawal pangs a day. Smile!

Exercise tolerance and fitness is now significantly improved and your breathing is better. The skin also starts to improve around this time.

As the cilia in your lungs continue to regrow, so the risk of chest infections decreases.

Three months: The average life span of a red blood cell is three months, so at this point after quitting, all the red blood cells that have been damaged by the carbon monoxide in cigarette smoke have been replaced with healthy new ones. Your lung capacity increases by up to 30%.

The smoker’s lungs are repairing themselves and the cilia are now fully functioning.

One year: A year after stopping smoking, the risk of heart disease has decreased by 50% compared to a smoker.

The risk of having a stroke is now back to the level of someone who has never smoked.

Ten years: The risk of dying of lung cancer is now half that of a smoker.

15 years: The risk of heart disease is back to the level of someone who has never smoked. The risk of pancreatic cancer has also dropped to that of someone who has never smoked. So from just a few minutes after you stop smoking, the body is already starting to repair itself.

I find it incredible that the body can do this- and all we have to do is allow it to get on with it.