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When a loved one takes on any challenging task, it is your responsibility to encourage them and understand what they are going through. If it’s about quitting to smoke, besides encouragement there are a lot more things which you can do to support them.
Offer advice:
Based on few researches, it has been proven that even 3 minutes of brief advice based on risks of smoking, rewards of stopping and roadblock to smoking can increase the rate to quit smoking by 1.3 to 1.7. But, that advice should be done in a systematic and diplomatic manner.
It’s not just about you:
We have seen people threatening or giving an ultimatum to their loved ones to quit smoking. Threatening is not going to help at all. Remember, it’s not about you. A person is only going to quit smoking when he/she is ready. It is easier to quit when you actually want to quit than because of someone else.
Learn what works best:
Different feedback works for different people, in different situations. For most of the people, optimism is enough to get rid of smoking. Obviously, it’s motivating to tell someone that you believe in them and you are proud of them and all those things. However, there are few people for whom you have to use other methods instead of just being optimistic.
For example, there was a program in which smokers were asked to deposit some amount of money, which will be reimbursed if participants successfully quit smoking. The result of which was that 3 out of 6 participants successfully quit smoking.
So, learn what feedback works best depending on the situation and use methods wisely.
Don’t try to take over:
Most of the people figure what works for them should work for everyone. However, this thought is nothing but just a myth. Don’t try to push things about what to do and what not to do. Try to give more suggestions and support. Let them decide what they want to use as a method.
Create a smoking trigger free zone:
It has been seen that smoking temptation depends more on the surroundings. Try to create an environment that doesn’t let that person even think about smoking. Few of the things which one can do to create a smoking temptation free environment are:
- Try not to give him/ her a hard time if he/ she is tired or irritable.
- Try to keep that person away from smoking triggers such as bars.
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