Herbs

Herbs to Quit Smoking

With 390,000 Americans dying every year from the effects of cigars and cigarettes, the dangers of smoking are clear. Smokers have more than twice the risk of heart attack, and 2 to 4 times the chance of cardiac arrest, while a pregnant woman who smokes increases her baby's chance of sudden infant death.

Although it is also known that herbs, natural supplements and aromatherapy help to calm nerves, reduce cravings, and empower smokers with the confidence to live smoke-free by using completely natural and safe alternatives for smoke away.

One of those herbs to quit smoking is the Argemone Mexicana, a brightly yellow flowering poppy plant from Mexico growing wild in sunny, open places. Taking a cup of tea made from the leaves of this medicinal herb will help you to stop smoking cigarettes.

This plant may be grown inside or outside your home because it simply needs a sunny and warm place. If you get a container to put together some sand and small stones into the soil, the plant grows to about 50cm and flowers throughout the year. Seeds to grow this plant are available at many garden supply stores.

If cutting the lower leafs of Argemone Mexicana for tea, new branches are induced by the additional light sprout from the stem so this way will have a continuous supply of tea to follow an efficient at home treatment to quit smoking, with the only advise to dry the leafs before using them as tea.

Lobelia is another beautiful herb that has been in use for more than 100 years, both internally and externally for its medicinal properties. Native to North America, it is also known as Indian tobacco or puke weed. Lobelia has a substance called lobeline, with similar relaxing properties as nicotine.

Smoker's body does not feel the difference in the belief it is getting nicotine when in fact it is not. Lobelia is also a cleansing herb, and may be beneficial to clear some of the effects of smoking on the organism, and it is also an expectorant.

Lobelia may increases the body's natural defense mechanisms, but it is also a very strong muscle relaxant and tranquilizer and it should not be mixed with alcohol or any other pharmaceutical tranquilizers. Most chewing gums prescribed by doctors to quit smoking have lobeline as the main ingredient.

However, in the United States Lobelia is illegal to sell for internal consumption because it's tranquilizing properties and the possibilities of poisoning. A Lobelia cigarette can make people feel dizzy; light headed, and nauseous, as if they were using LSD.

Some other herbs are safer to use and commonly seen as cooking or drinking herbs such as Peppermint, also known as Menthe Haplocalyx Briq, Herba Menthae, Menthe, Bo-He or Po-Ho. To stop smoking, both leaves and the whole herb are used for its pungent and cool, non-toxic properties.

Mostly found in Chinese herbal formulas, Peppermint it is also used for common cold and headache caused by heat, fullness sensation in the chest and it is the main ingredient of Quit smoking formulas of Yin-Qiao Wan, Gan Mao Ling and others using the Herb's essential oils

Cinnamon Bark is another herb widely used in Chinese Herbal Medicine for the treatment to quit smoking. Also known as Cinnamomum Cassia Presl., Cortex Cinnamomi, Rou Gui, Gui Pi or Jou-Kuei, twig or ramous of Cinnamon Bark are used in herbal cigarettes and as one of the ingredients in herbal aroma inhalers for the same purpose of stop smoking. Cinnamon is as safe as common spicy food, easily found in practically all grocery stores and supermarket

In average, approximately 4000 different chemical substances have been identified in cigarette smoke, and about 400 of them are harmful to the human body including both smokers and non-smokers having activities near the smoker. More than 40 of those substances may cause cancers, so take this in mind and consider herbs to quit smoking for a healthier life.

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