Today Is The Great American Smokeout

(KNSI) – The American Cancer Society’s Great American Smokeout is today, and CentraCare has some tips to help you begin your process to quit.

Specialist Meghan Bown says her group treats conventional cigarettes and newer vaping products similarly.

“Anything that you’re inhaling into your lungs is going to cause damage to your health, and so, from a healthcare stance and within the Great American Smokeout…let’s not be inhaling things into our lungs because the long-term health effects are definitely detrimental.”

Bown says quitting cigarettes is rewarding, no matter your age, but also incredibly tough. She explains what makes it so enticing.

“That roller coaster of what it does to your brain. You know you’re feeling down and then you take that puff and you get that great feeling and you just want to have that great feeling all of the time.”

Bown says your brain can easily identify what produces the good feeling and naturally wants more of it. Bown says you shouldn’t expect to kick the habit cold turkey but today is a great day to start the process. You can learn more here.

Bown says the programs address two factors. The first is the addictive nature of nicotine and the second is the behavioral aspect of smoking.

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