Let’s begin with the obvious, cigarettes are bad for you. Smoking them is unhealthy, harmful, and they make you smell bad. So, I'm not talking about taking up smoking. What I'm recommending is the act of smoking.
The act of smoking has four distinct and beneficial components.
One, you make a decision. It’s a decision to change the attention and focus from what you're currently doing to get up, go outside to do something else. So, your mind and body get a break, a change and a shift.
Two, you then go outside. At this time of year where it gets light at
7:30 in the morning and gets dark at 4:30 in the afternoon, most people do not see daylight at all. They leave for work in the dark and come home from work in the dark.
Most people, except those who are practicing the act of smoking, don't get outside into the sunlight. Sunlight is like vitamins. You need some sunlight (even on a cloudy day, the rays from the sun pass through the atmosphere, and the effects will be felt) in your body everyday to be happy and healthy. Study after study has proven that exposure to sunlight not only creates Vitamin D in your body, it also boosts mood, serotonin, and can prevent depression. Take up the act of smoking, you get outside.
Thirdly, taking a deep breath; when was the last time you took 10 deep breaths? Really deep breaths, where you filled up your lungs, all six directions of your lungs (top to bottom, side to side and front to back). When do you remember that you took a deep breath, held it for a while, and then let it go and let your shoulders relax and your body come back to neutral. Breathing like this is required in the act of smoking… maybe this is one reason smokers say that smoking relaxes them. Maybe it’s the breathing? Take 10 deep breaths at the top of every hour.
And finally, if others are also outside un-smoking, breathing, regrouping, refocusing, you just might meet new people. You will have new conversations. You will get new perspectives outside of your daily circle of people. Imagine that, a group of people; standing outside, unsmoking, hey, you may even make a new friend or two.
So, taking up the act of smoking could just be the healthiest New Year’s resolution you could make. I wish you a happy, healthy New Year.
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This is so funny - just today I drove past a hospital and there was a group of 4 or 5 nurses outside - on their smoke break. Funny enough in and of itself. But then I got mad. I thought that ALL employees should be given a "smoke" break - even if they don't smoke! Just the chance to go hang out with friends outside for however long it takes to smoke a cig... like, what, 15 minutes? Anyway - great minds think alike!
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