Why Smoking Damages Your Skin

Beauty and the Beast - otherwise know as smoking, love them, hate them, our skin provides the answers to what they are doing to our health and why I didn't listen to my mum years ago I will never know!

When I first started smoking I never listened to anyone's advice including my parents who both smoked and who are both now no longer with us.

During the Christmas period after my yearly visit to the cemetry to pay my respect to both of them I found myself gazing at a picture of my mother placed in the hallway at my sister's home.

What a beautiful woman she had been, her complexion had been so clear and bright and youthful, no dry skin or wrinkles just pure beauty.

Smoking in my mothers case did her no favours, her beauty was stripped from her, smoking I believe from the age of 12 until she died, and using no moisturisers, also sitting in the sun whenever she got the chance took it's toll.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that smoking ages the skin, and for any young ones reading my hub take my advice stop now before it is too late and before your skin shows the signs that my mothers did.

The beast is smoking if you had not already figured that out!

Anytime is a time when you can get help from others including your own doctor.

Many people are encouraged through advertising to give up smoking and if approached during this period you will find that there is plenty of help and advice to be had.

Punch stoptober into Google and bags of advice from health professionals and the general public becomes available to you.

OK, no one is going to say that it is easy to give up smoking least of all me but three years on and I have not touched a cigarette.

Firstly I wrote this hub about my parents and the effect that smoking had on them. Then I with my sister decided that enough was enough and they had to go!

By setting a date and agreeing that we would contact each other whenever it got tough and talking about the reasons we were giving up, the challenge became slightly easier.

I used nicotine patches from the onset which were provided to me by my Doctor for the first three months. I also chewed an awful lot of chewing gum and sucked a fair few lollies!

The main thing is that I have never smoked again and I feel that my health has improved tremendously.

Give it a go, if your unable to succeed the first time, then just keep trying until eventually you will realise that you really can do it.

Another thing that happened to me prior to me giving up was that when I inhaled on a cigarette I told myself that they were disgusting and effecting my health over and over again, until I think eventually I couldn't bring myself to pick one up again.

Prepare a date, stick to it and chew gum and suck lollies to your hearts content, eventually the challenge will be easier and you will reach your goal!

Good luck from an ex smoker!

Smoking does not only age our skin it also causes wrinkles around our mouth. Now once these wrinkles take hold there is absolutely nothing we can do about it. The action of picking up a cigarette and putting it into your mouth and sucking or inhaling whatever way you want to picture it as makes you pierce your lips and the skin around the lips tightens and the more you do it, the more wrinkles that will appear.

O.k. not when you are young but later on in life they appear, they just appear. You think that you may have got away with it but unfortunately this is not the case.

Normally it is not because of the effects on your skin that gives you the reason why you have decided to give up smoking in the first place, I would say that in most cases it is the cost of the cigarettes in the first place and secondary a smoker thinks about their health.

That said, if you have a family member that has died from smoking then I think there can be no other reason other than the fact that you have listened to your own heart and listened to what your family member may have said themselves about smoking and the dangers that it can cause.

I personally took heed and although my skin was important to me the fact that I had watched someone die after a severe stroke and the possibility that it was caused by smoking was brought to my attention by medical professionals was enough for me to give up and never return.

Once you have made your mind up to quit and once you have taken the first steps and found that you have continued to stick to your decision it does, believe me, become easier.

Although you do find that you don't know what to do with your hands and maybe you gain weight the fact that you have made the decision to quit and stuck to it far out ways the other problems that you may feel a little bit uncomfortable about.

I have written another hub about exercise and what exercises I do to try not to gain too much weight which you may want to look at, click on the link and start them now alongside giving up smoking.

With regard to eating try not to compensate with food because the pounds will pile on as your metabolism changes and for some unknown reason you slow down. Everything seems to take longer than when you smoke.

This link below is about keeping a diary about what you put into your mouth and makes you think about it before you eat it.

It's not until you do give up smoking that you realize the effect that the tar has on your teeth. It doesn't take long before you see a completely different color to your teeth. The enamel becomes whiter and brighter and your breath doesn't smell.

DON'T GIVE IN

You can find more of my thoughts at http://www.motorbikesandme.com