Quit Smoking Patches
Quit smoking patches are one of a range of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) devices and are perhaps the most popular type that you can buy today.
What Is NRT?
NRT products are manufactured by a number of drug companies and are some of the most popular stop smoking aids aids in terms of the amount spent globally each year. They are a substitute product for cigarettes. The theory is that, because they contain nicotine, people can switch from cigarettes to NRT and they will not immediately get a craving for cigarettes.
Then, over a period of time - usually between 3 and 6 months - they can gradually cut down on the amount of nicotine they receive from these NRT products. Eventually, their dose of nicotine will be so low that they should find it quite easy to stop using these NRT products and will finally be free of addiction.
How Do Patches Work?
Patches, along with chewing gum, are perhaps the most popular NRT product that you can buy. The reasoning is simple - they are very convenient to use. They look much like a band-aid (plaster in the UK) and you place them on an area of the body containing fatty tissue and where they are unlikely to fall off. Although many people choose to use the upper arm, they can another recommended place to use a patch is on the buttocks!
Patches deliver a slow release of nicotine through the skin and into the bloodstream over time. They normally need to be changed every day and it is recommended that they only be worn during your waking hours so you should remember to take them off before bedtime.
Can You Quit Smoking With Patches?
Although patches are incredibly popular, they are also notoriously ineffective, as are all NRT products. Success rates for giving up smoking in the long term (greater than 6 months) are notoriously low using willpower alone anyway. Using patches, a few studies have barely been able to show an extremely minor improvement in the percentage of people who are not smoking after 6 months. The figure is still extremely low anyway.
Why Don’t Patches Work?
Patches take away many of the health risks from smoking immediately. No longer are you inhaling the tar, noxious chemicals and radioactive material present in cigarettes (by the way, nicotine can still have harmful effects on your health). But all you are doing is substituting one addiction for another. So how about cutting down on NRT? Really, this is no different to cutting down on cigarettes. Have you ever successfully stopped smoking for over 6 months by cutting down on cigarettes before quitting? Probably not, as is well known.
Is There A Better Solution To Quitting Smoking?
There most definitely is. I used to be a smoker myself. I used to smoke 25 high tar cigarettes a day but I have been clean for 8 years now. I also tried the patches - in fact, they made me feel ill and I tore one off after a few hours and started to smoke again straight away.
I now know that patches are useless if you want to quit smoking for good. They do nothing to stop your cravings for cigarettes and it still becomes a willpower exercise.
So how did I do it? I came across a little known secret to stopping smoking that is 100% natural and uses no pills, patches, magnets, injections, hypnosis or any other of the traditional “cures”. What’s more, I did not need any willpower and I have never craved for a cigarette since I stopped smoking. If you want to learn more about how I did it, click here.