Stop Smoking

Smoking harms nearly every part of the body.

It can cause:

• Cancer
• Heart disease
• Stroke
• Lung disease (like COPD)

It can also make you:

• Get out of breath more easily
• Get more chest infections
• Heal more slowly after illness or surgery

Smoking can impact your appearance:

• Causes skin aging, wrinkles and appearing tired and dull
• Yellow staining to teeth, fingers and nails
• Hair thinning and weakening as well as make your nails break easier
• Make acne worse

When you smoke, the smoke goes into the air around you. Other people can breathe it in. This is called passive smoking (or second-hand smoke). It can still harm health, even if they do not smoke.

Why it matters

Breathing in other people’s smoke can raise the risk of:

• Chest infections

• Asthma getting worse

• Heart disease

• Lung cancer

Babies and children are affected more

Children’s lungs are still growing. Passive smoke can make them more likely to:

• Get coughs, colds, and ear infections

• Wheeze or have asthma symptoms

• Need GP or hospital visits more often

Pregnancy and smoke

Breathing smoke during pregnancy can increase the risk of problems like:

• Low birth weight

• Premature birth (born early)

• Breathing problems for the baby

Simple ways to protect your family (while you work on stopping)

• Make your home smoke-free (no smoking indoors)

• Make your car smoke-free (even with windows open)

• If you do smoke, smoke outside, away from doors and windows

• Wash hands after smoking, and change your top before holding a baby

Smoking is expensive because you pay for it every day. Even “a few a day” can turn into hundreds of pounds a month.

A pack of 20 cigarettes is often around £15–£18.

Using an average price of £16.60 for a pack of 20, we can look at how much money could be saved by quitting

If you smoke 10 a day:

• £58 a week

• £252 a month

• £3,030 a year

If you smoke 20 a day (a pack a day):

• £116 a week

• £505 a month

• £6,059 a year

If stopping feels too big right now, cutting down is still a saving. But getting support to fully stop gives the biggest health and money benefits.

What would you do with that money instead?

When you stop smoking, your body starts to heal straight away:

• After 20 minutes: your pulse starts to return to normal

• After 8 hours: oxygen levels improve and carbon monoxide drops

• After 48 hours: taste and smell improve and lungs start clearing mucus

• After 2 to 12 weeks: breathing and circulation improve, and exercise can feel easier.

• After 3 to 9 months: cough, wheeze and breathing problems improve as lung function increases.

• After 1 year: your risk of heart attack is about half compared with someone who still smokes.

Benefits for your mood:

Some people feel more stressed at first because of cravings. After that stage, many people feel less stress and anxiety and their mood improves.

Benefits for your whole family:

• Cleaner air at home

• Children can get ill less often

• Asthma can be easier to control

• Safer car journeys

• More money for family life