Nicotine gum

Giving up smoking may not be as hard as you think. Especially when you have preventive measures like nicotine gum.

Chew The Gum, Forget The Cigarette
The next time you feel an urge to light up a cigarette, try instead to pop a nicotine gum. They contain relatively smaller doses of the addictive substance, and go a long way to getting you off the white tobacco stick. The advantage is that the smaller doses take a longer time to reach your brain compared to the more immediate ‘hit’ provided by the cigarette. The result is that you will take more time with a gum than you would with a smoke.

Another benefit the gum offers smokers trying to quit is that they can have multiple pieces in a day. The suggested number is 10-15 per day, but you could have as much as 20 to 30 pieces in a day, depending on the nicotine strength of the gum.

Precautions
Nicotine gum may look ordinary chewing gum, but there are certain precautions that you need to be aware of. Such as:

• Chew the gum slowly to break it down. Once you can taste its ‘peppery’ flavour, stop chewing the gum and place it between your gums and cheek. The nicotine then will slowly release into your bloodstream.
• After a few minutes, start chewing the gum again and ‘park’ it in your mouth when you feel its flavour.
• For 15 minutes before and after you chew the gum, do not have acidic beverages like coffee, soda-based drinks, and juices.

An Effective Aid
Your goal should be to decrease the number of pieces per day to 1 or 2. Once you achieve that, you can stop using the gum. This should help you escape the grip of cigarette smoking for good.