Ten Lifestyle Goals for Healthy Living: Part 7 || Port Alberni Investment Advisor

This is the seventh post on Lifestyle Goals for Healthy Living, but it is perhaps one of the most important ones - smoking, alcohol and drug abuse.  A lifestyle that includes these things is not a healthy one. In the first quarter of the last century, smoking was considered glamorous and sophisticated.  Today, it is well-known that smoking, alcohol and drug abuse contribute to ill health, and ultimately, early demise.  We need to be free of these unhealthy lifestyle habits in order to enjoy the benefits of healthy living.  Let’s take a look at smoking.  According to statistics provided by Health Canada, in 2000, 25% of Canadian teens age 15 to 19 years were smokers.  According to the World Health Organization, over 100 million deaths in the 20^th century can be directly attributed to smoking. The good news is that the numbers of Canadian smokers is slowly, but steadily declining.  The negative health benefits of smoking have been been promoted in a wide range of media campaigns in an effort to get people to stop smoking.  Cigarette manufacturers in Canada are now forced to carry picture-based warnings on their packages and laws now require smokers to light up outside of cafes, restaurants and bars.  Despite this, approximately one fifth of Canadians still call themselves smokers.  Have you ever examined what’s in a cigarette?  It’s quite disturbing.  There are approximately 4000 chemicals in a cigarette, including carbon monoxide, ammonia, cadmium and arsenic. If you were offered to consume any of these chemicals individually, you’d flat out refuse.  If a friend asked you to go out to the garage with them and breathe the carbon monoxide from a running automobile, just for kicks, you’d think your friend was suicidal.  But the fact is, if you are a smoker, you are taking a similar risk, albeit in smaller doses over a longer period of time, every time you puff on a cigarette.   According to Health Canada, Canadian teenagers smoke 1.6 billion cigarettes every year, with a cost of $330 billion per year.  Approximately 37,000 Canadians die every year of illnesses related to smoking, which is equivalent to all murders, alcohol-related deaths, car accidents and suicides combined.  That is a startling statistic!  If you are a smoker who wants to get healthy, and live longer, you need to make a serious effort to quit smoking.  After two days, your taste and smell will begin to improve.  Within three months, your lung function improves. After a year, your risk of heart attack diminishes by 50%.  Within 10 years, you have cut your risk of dying from lung cancer by 50%.  In order to write this blog, I decided to a purchase a pack of cigarettes, to check out the new packaging requirements.  I bought the cheapest package I could find, but it was still almost $8.00 for one package which means that a one-pack-a-day smoker is spending $240 a month on cigarettes!  The package had both some rather dire warnings and a graphic photograph on the package.  It was enough to frighten me from wanting to even light one up!  Here are some cigarette-smoking photos (to remind you just how glamorous it ISN'T), and some beautiful scenic photos to remind you just how beautiful life is.    If you don’t love yourself enough to quit smoking, think about the other people in your life that you do love, and do it for them.

Photos by Stirling Images Photography