Smoking is a dirty habit that destroys your health, makes you stink and costs a lot of money. If you want to stop here is a suggestion on why you may like it so much and a suggestion on how to stop easily yet still get the calming effect smoking gives you.

I have always wondered why people smoke cigarettes so much. It is actually a disgusting habit that can make you very sick and cost you a lot of money, so why do people do it?

Then one day I decided to smoke a cigarette with this question in mind. The discovery I made was surprising.

I am not a smoker, so I don’t know about what a nicotine addiction is like and thus my article is based on nothing but that discovery.

Smokers say that smoking relaxes them and picks them up, the nicotine rush I guess. It has no effect on me that I could notice. I also realize that nicotine stimulates the body chemically, so it’s effect is scientific, all the same, I don’t really believe that is why people smoke.

So, when I did my little experiment I was surprised to discover that the number one element in smoking is that it focuses your attention on your breathing. The steady inhalation and exhalation forced by pulling air in and out is a conscious decision a smoker has to make.

Plus, what is it that smokers say the most?  ”I need a smoke, NOW!”

Whether or not they say it out loud or to themselves, you see it all over the place. The first thing  smoker will do when they step out of a no smoking area, whether it be a train, a plane, restaurant or public building is they light up as if it is an emergency.

The conclusion I came to was that smoking is a way to practice meditation and it brings you into the famous stress relieving ”NOW!”.  What they are actually saying is, ”I need to take time to practice my breathing and focus my mind on the present moment. When I am breathing I am experiencing life in the present moment, and right now everything is good.”

So, I asked myself if I could find a way to practice my idea. So I took a plastic drinking straw, cut it into the size of a cigarette and inhaled and exhaled through it. I was shocked to discover that the resistance from taking air in isn’t caused in cigarettes by the tobacco or the filter, but by the focused shape of the tube and the lips.

Here is what I discovered. When I ”smoke” with this plastic straw I feel the benefit of meditation almost instantly. So my suggestion to smokers who want to stop smoking to try this method out, because I think that what you are doing is simply replacing the thing you are smoking with, and getting the same benefit without having to kick a habit. In fact, continue the habit, just use a straw instead.

Try it out and let me know how it works. Maybe I am full of it, but I definitely feel a relaxation when I do this. Good Luck!

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