When you quit smoking and no longer inhale the 4,800 toxic substances found in cigarettes, you experience enormous positive changes in your health, fitness, and risks of heart disease and cancer.
1. After 20 minutes
Circulation improves in the hands and feet. Your hands can reveal a lot about your health.
2. After 2 hours
Pulse, heartbeat, and blood pressure normalise. In the case of pregnant women: the heartbeat of the unborn child also returns to normal.
These tips will help to lower high blood pressure, or keep it from rising if it’s at a healthy level.
3. After 8 hours
Carbon monoxide is reduced and no longer stops oxygen from reaching the blood cells.
Your cells have a much better supply of oxygen.
In the case of pregnant women: Your unborn child also receives more oxygen.
Take a look at these mysteries surrounding the human body that are more fiction than fact.
4. After 24 hours
Your risk of heart attack drops. Keep an eye out for this heart attack symptom you may never have heard of.
5. After 48 hours
Nicotine is completely eliminated from your body.
Need help giving up?
In a 2013 study published in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, nicotine users took a whiff of either black pepper oil or angelica oil and found cravings greatly decreased.
6. After 2 days
Your sense of smell and taste improve and return.
Inspired to ditch the habit?
Once you have ditched the darts, here’s some household smells you should never ignore.
7. After 3 days
Breathing improves significantly.
The little hairs on the lungs (cilia) recover.
They transport particles from the lungs.
A good sign: You cough more because more and more dirt and toxic substances are being removed from the lungs.
In 2013 transplant specialists at University Hospital in Leuven, Belgium, succeeded in preserving donor lungs outside the body for 11 hours, the longest time in medical history.
This is good news for those who suffer from chronic lung disease and failure and are waiting for transplants.
8. After 1 week
Blood pressure falls.
These tips will help to lower high blood pressure, or keep it from rising if it’s at a healthy level.
9. After 3 months
On average lung capacity rises by 39 percent and shortness of breath is reduced. Skin tone also improves.
10. After 3 to 9 months
Smokers cough and susceptibility to infections are reduced because the lungs can now clean themselves.
11. After 12 months
The risk of cardiovascular disease is halved.
12. After 5 years
The risk of stomach, mouth, throat, esophageal, and lung cancer is halved.
13. After 5 to 10 years
Depending on how much you have smoked, within this period, the risk of cardiovascular diseases, heart attack, and stroke reaches the same level as that of nonsmokers.
14. After 10 years
Cell and tissue that were precancerous have largely been replaced.
The risk of lung cancer continues to drop.
The risk of cancer of the mouth, throat, esophagus, bladder, and kidneys continues to drop.
15. After 15 years
Your risk of cancer is the same as that of a nonsmoker.
This article originally appeared on RD.com.
