Why It’s Worth Giving up Smoking

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Why It’s Worth Giving up Smoking
It’s widely known that smoking leads to a great number of diseases, such as lung
cancer and other chronic lung diseases, strokes, and even heart attacks. Despite all the antismoking campaigns, there’s still a great number of chain and heavy smokers all around the
world. Imposing laws that prohibit smoking in public places seems to be quite ineffective, in
that many people choose to ignore such regulations.
What makes smoking so harmful? Surely, it is the number of chemicals contained in
the cigarettes. There are around 4,000 chemicals that are considered to be rather toxic.
Among them are: acetone, ammonia, arsenic, benzene, cadmium, carbon monoxide, cyanide,
formaldehyde, shellac, and tar – all of which are typical ingredients found in cigarettes.
Needless to say, all these chemicals are highly poisonous and toxic. About 70% of them are
left in the smoker’s lungs, causing a wide range of serious lungs illnesses (Sifferlin 1).
Even though today, consumers are well-informed about the harmful consequences of
this bad habit, people hardly know about all the advantages of not smoking. Giving up
smoking actually has a great number of benefits. For one, stopping smoking at any age is
likely to increase one’s life expectancy (Sifferlin 1). Even if the individual already has some
kind of disease, the body will have more strength to fight it after the person stops smoking.
That is because the body will experience less stress and, thus, have more energy. Also,
smokers who have suffered from previous heart attacks can decrease the possibility of a
second heart attack by no longer smoking. Another decrease in health risk involves lung
cancer. An ex-smoker’s risk of lung cancer is decreased by 30-50 per cent over a ten-year
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period after quitting smoking. Those smokers who stop before the age of 35 have the same
life expectancy as non-smokers (Reilly 1). These are great health incentives for quitting the
habit of smoking.
The financial benefits of quitting this habit are also convincing. By making the
important decision to quit smoking, the individual’s monthly budget will improve, greatly.
The average packet of cigarettes costs about £6. So, a non-smoking individual might save up
to £42 each week. That’s an extra £126 a month! This sum will accumulate with each month
and can reach the amount of £2184 in a year’s time.
The physical benefits of stopping the habit of smoking will also be noticeable (Kirby
1). As the former smoker’s circulation improves, his hair will not smell of stale smoke
anymore. Also, the skin will look brighter and the eyes will be less red. Moreover, the former
smoker will easily avoid early aging and, instead, will look young and fresh for a much long
period of time. In addition to this, the person who is able to quit smoking will soon be in
better physical shape. It will be much easier to play volleyball with friends or jog in the
morning. Another physiological difference is that the person’s sense of taste and smell will
improve as well. An additional benefit is that the teeth will get whiter as soon as the person
rids himself of this harmful habit. On top of all this, the reformed smoker will have a couple
of extra hours a day to spend on something more enjoyable than smoking (based on a
calculation of 10 minutes per cigarette smoked).
It’s wrong to think that smoking just one or two cigarettes a day won’t lead to any
serious consequences. The most harmful habit looks pretty innocent at first but later turns out
to be a horrible habit that is hard to kick. People who smoke should make the right decision
by giving up such a habit that can easily destroy their good looks and ruin their health.
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 Works Cited
Kirby, Jess. “It’s worth quitting smoking – even after developing lung cancer.” Cancer
Research UK, scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/2010/03/16/it’s-worth-quittingsmoking-–-even-after-developing-lung-cancer. Accessed 16 Mar 2016.
Reilly, Rachel. “It really is never too late to quit: Giving up smoking even after your 50s
reduces the risk of heart attack and stroke by more than 40%.” MailOnline,
www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2282708/Giving-smoking-50s-reduces-risk-heartattack-stroke-40. Accessed 22 Feb 2013.
Sifferlin, Alexandra. “Why it’s never too late to quit smoking.” Time,
healthland.time.com/2012/06/13/its-never-too-late-to-quit-smoking-study-finds.
Accessed 13 June 2012.