Best Ways to Quit Smoking

Not sure how to quit smoking cigarettes? Try the following ways to stop smoking and start your path towards a healthier, smoke-free life.

Post this list in a visible location in your house.

Whenever you’re tempted to light up, take a look at all the ways smoking can damage your health:

● Increases risk of heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure.

● Reduces levels of folate, low levels of which can increase the risk of heart disease, depression, and Alzheimer’s disease.

● Affects mental capacity and memory.

● Contributes to thin bones.

● Affects ability to smell and taste.

● Increases risk of depression in adolescents.

To minimize cravings (欲望), change your routine.

Sit in a different chair at breakfast or take a different route to work. If you usually have a drink and cigarette after work, change that to a walk. If you’re used to a smoke with your morning coffee, switch to tea, or stop at Starbucks for a cup of java—the chain is smoke-free. You might even work better in coffee shops！

Tell your friends, coworkers, boss, partner, and kids how you feel.

Don’t bottle up your emotions. If something makes you angry, express it instead of hiding it with cigarette smoke. If you’re bored, admit to yourself that you’re bored and find something energetic to do instead of lighting up.

Make an appointment with an acupuncturist (针灸师).

There’s some evidence that auricular acupuncture (i. e., needles in the ears) controls cigarette cravings quite successfully. You can even do it yourself by taping “seeds” (small beads) onto the acupuncture points and squeezing them whenever cravings arise. Acupuncture can treat these other conditions, too.

When my friend suggested going to the op shop (二手商店)，instantly I thought “I hope no one I know sees me”. It was the same when my cousin commented on my new furniture and Japanese, fine-bone-china bowls and asked where I got them. They were from the local op shop but instead I said “from the antique shop”.

Many people in my Greek-Cypriot community would look down on me if I said I shopped at the op shop. They may pity me, consider me poor, a failure. Immigrants sacrificed their families and homes for a better life. Buying a house and having enough money to live comfortably, to educate your children and see them also live comfortably, are a big part of the immigrant dream, But has this dream made us materialistic at the cost of our own planet?

Our love for purchasing the latest trendy clothes or furniture, then donating them when we are tired of them has become normal. I was once like this. But after watching the documentary The True Cost I learned donated clothes that don’t get sold are sent to developing nations, many of them ending up in landfills (垃圾填埋地). In addition, your new dress requires electricity and materials to make. But if you buy a second-hand dress, that’s one less dress in a landfill and one less new dress to be made.

A friend introduced me to op shopping only a few years ago. My first item was a dress she gifted me. It was lovely and I loved it. Nobody could tell it was second-hand. This opened me up to purchasing more second-hand high quality branded clothes. Once I visited a friend and was impressed by how she decorated her apartment. “It’s all second-hand,” she said. I couldn’t believe it. The truth is a lot of things sold at the op shop are in new or almost new condition. That’s when I made the decision to only buy second-hand things.

Selling second-hand things isn’t anything new but what the planet needs is more buyers. There is so much excess (过量) production in the world. So stop feeling ashamed, and let’s get shopping.

If you shoo（赶走鸟时发出的声音）a pigeon, that bird is likely to remember you and know to stay out of your way the next time you cross paths, according to a new study. Researchers found that wild, untrained pigeons can recognize individual people’s faces and are not fooled by a change of clothes.

At a park in Paris, two researchers of similar build and skin colour, but wearing different-coloured lab coats, fed a group of pigeons.

One researcher ignored the pigeons after feeding them, allowing them to eat the food, while the other was hostile（充满敌意的）and chased them away. This was followed by second session when neither researcher chased away the pigeons.

The experiment was repeated several times, with the pigeons continuously recognizing the individuals and avoiding the researcher who had first chased them away even when the participant no longer did so. Exchanging lab coats during the experiments did not confuse the pigeons, and they continued to stay away from the researcher who had been initially hostile.

"It is very likely that the pigeons recognized the researchers by their faces, since the individuals were both female and of a similar age, build and skin colour," study researcher Dalila Bovet of the University of Paris Ouest Nanterre La Defense said in a statement.

"Interestingly, the pigeons, without training, spontaneously（自发的）used the most relevant characteristics of the individuals (probably facial traits）instead of the lab coats that covered 90 percent of the body, "Bovet added.

The researchers noted that the birds appear to be able to tell from humans and are aware that clothing colour is not a good way to tell humans apart. They theorize that this recognition ability may have come about over the long period of association with humans, from early domestication to many years of living in cities.

Everything is online these days, and it’s so easy to search online for whatever you want. The Internet is valuable tool, but it’s’ easy to find yourself disturbed by it. For example, you’re working on essay, and you need to do some search online.     11     Before you know it, you’ve spent an hour reading more information than you’ll be able to use. Maybe you notice an attractive title or something else that draws you away from your work.     12     Addiction to social media is closely related to our general addiction to the Internet. Everyone is always on their phones.     13     As a result, when I get to work, I don’t have enough attention and energy to put toward the task. If this sounds like you, then your productivity has suffered because of the way you use the Internet.

    14    So we should learn to live with it. The only way to stop the Internet from taking up all your time and concentration is to disconnect. When you disconnect, you’ll get your attention back and work productively. Thus, when working on a challenging task, keep your phone out of reach. Meanwhile, go into your work with the intention of having greater focus and energy so that you’ll be discouraged from using the Internet.    15    This pressure will help you get the job done on time.