Benefits of Quitting
Benefits when a person quits smoking.
- Within 20 minutes, your blood pressure and pulse rate will return to normal. Circulation improves in your hands and feet, making them warmer.
- Within 12 hours of stopping, the oxygen level in your blood will rise to normal and your carbon monoxide level will fall.
- Within 24 hours, the chance of you suffering a heart attack starts to reduce.
- Within 48 hours your sense of taste and smell improves.
- Within 2 weeks, you can hold more air in your lungs. Breathing becomes easier. Your energy levels increase.
- After a year of quitting smoking, the lungs improve their capacity to clear and reduce infection.
- Within 5 years, the risk of having a heart attack and stroke falls to about half that of a smoker. The risk of getting cancer affecting the respiratory tract and upper digestive tract will drop by half.
- Within 10 years, the risk of death attributed to lung cancer falls to half that of a smoker.
- Within 15 years, the risk of heart disease is similar to that of a person who never smoked.