The First 2 Days After You Quit Smoking

Table of ContentsView AllTable of ContentsQuitting Smoking TimelineImmediate BenefitsDeciding to QuitBreaking the DependenceFinding Support

Table of ContentsView All

View All

Table of Contents

Quitting Smoking Timeline

Immediate Benefits

Deciding to Quit

Breaking the Dependence

Finding Support

When you quit smoking, the health benefits begin within minutes of your last cigarette. According to the Surgeon General, physical improvements in your body begin within the first hour of smoking cessation.

It may take time for your body to heal itself from the damaging effects of smoking, but it’s important to know that you’ll start to experience health benefits almost immediately after you smoke your last cigarette. Every day that you stay smoke-free, you’ll build up even more positive effects.

At a GlanceQuitting smoking can be challenging, but the benefits are well worth the effort. Smoking poses significant health risks, but your body begins to repair itself within an hour of quitting. The sooner you stop smoking, the sooner you can enjoy the positive effects, including a lower heart rate, reduced risk of heart attack, and improved taste and smell. Let’s take a closer look at what happens in the first two days after you quit smoking and explore tips for how you can get started on your smoking cessation goals.

At a Glance

Quitting smoking can be challenging, but the benefits are well worth the effort. Smoking poses significant health risks, but your body begins to repair itself within an hour of quitting. The sooner you stop smoking, the sooner you can enjoy the positive effects, including a lower heart rate, reduced risk of heart attack, and improved taste and smell. Let’s take a closer look at what happens in the first two days after you quit smoking and explore tips for how you can get started on your smoking cessation goals.

Your Body Within the First 2 Days of Quitting

Once you decide to put down your last cigarette, the health benefits that you’ll start to enjoy begin within just 20 minutes. By the end of the first day, your risk of having a heart attack begins to drop.

After 20 Minutes

Your heart rate and blood pressure drop back to normal, and the circulation in your hands and feet starts to improve.The longer you stick with your quitting smoking plan, the more improvements you be able to enjoy.

After 12 Hours

Cigarettes contain thousands of different chemicals, including carbon monoxide (CO). Carbon monoxide affects your body’s ability to utilize oxygen and high CO levels in your blood play a role in cardiovascular disease.

Within 12 hours after you quit smoking, the carbon monoxide levels in your blood reduce, and the oxygen level in blood increases to normal. As oxygen levels in your blood increase, the tissues of your body begin to receive more oxygen as well.

After One Day

The lower levels of carbon monoxide and increased oxygen in your body also help improve your cardiovascular function. This means that your chance of having aheart attackdecreases.

Levels of nicotine in your body also drop dramatically.As nicotine levels drop, you will also begin to experience symptoms of nicotine withdrawal and cravings. Having a good quitting-smoking plan in place can help you resist cravings, cope with withdrawal symptoms, and stay smoke-free.

Quitting smoking also lowers blood pressure and the chance of having a blood clot, so your risk of having a stroke also begins to decrease.

After Two Days

When you smoke, it causes damage to the nerve endings that are vital for taste and smell. By day two of being smoke-free, these nerves will start to repair themselves.

Your sense of smell and taste improves as your nerve endings start to heal. You may notice that the air smells fresher and food tastes better within a couple days of quitting.

That’s a lot of improvement for just 48 hours of smoking cessation.

The Immediate Benefits of Quitting

Thechemicals in cigarettesaffect you in more ways than you realize. When you quit and start to see changes in the discomforts you’ve been living with, like headaches, chronic sinus irritation, and fatigue, for instance, you start to put two and two together.

That’s not to say that every physical ailment can be traced to tobacco use, but you will probably be pleasantly surprised at some of the changes that take place once you stop smoking. Best of all, this is just the beginning. You can look forward to many additional improvements in the days and months to come.

The benefits of quitting smoking continue to build the longer you stick with it.

Making the Decision to Quit

Don’t let that fear paralyze you. Pick your quit date and stick to it. The benefits you’ll experience in the short and long term are well worth the work it takes to achieve.

Years of associating smoking with everything you do creates powerful links in the chain of psychological dependence you had on nicotine.

Logically, you knew better, but addiction can make peoplerationalize and justifyall kinds of crazy notions. You (understandably) like the feeling of relief you get when the nicotine level in your bloodstream is replenished.

From the time a cigarette is stubbed out until the next one is lit, smokers are in a state of physicalwithdrawal from nicotine.

The more time between cigarettes, the more severe the withdrawal, resulting in edginess, inability to concentrate, and even feelings of depression. It’s a vicious, never-ending cycle.

That is an addiction, not enjoyment. You don’t think of smoking as self-destructive when you first start, but over time addiction quietly teaches you that you are weak and powerless. Most people want to stop long before they are actually able to quit.

The Truth About Smoking Pleasure and Nicotine Addiction

Support for Your Quit Smoking Program

Once you decide to quit smoking, it’s important to decide how you’ll quit.

Keep in Mind

Remember thatquitting tobacco is a process. It takes time. Your courage to take that first step and throw the butts away is a choice you’ll never regret making. Your life will improve a thousandfold when you have kicked tobacco out, once and for all. You’ll have even more benefits fromtwo weekstothree months of quitting.

7 SourcesVerywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.American Cancer Society.Health benefits of quitting smoking over time.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Benefits of quitting.National Cancer Institute.Handling nicotine withdrawal and triggers when you decide to quit tobacco.National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.What is coronary heart disease?Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Within 20 minutes of quitting poster.American Lung Association.How smoking impacts your lung health.Wadgave U, Nagesh L.Nicotine replacement therapy: an overview.Int J Health Sci (Qassim). 2016;10(3):425-435.Additional ReadingAlberg AJ, Shopland DR, Cummings KM.The 2014 Surgeon Generals Report: Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the 1964 Report of the Advisory Committee to the US Surgeon General and Updating the Evidence on the Health Consequences of Cigarette Smoking.American Journal of Epidemiology. 2014;179(4):403-412. doi:10.1093/aje/kwt335

7 Sources

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.American Cancer Society.Health benefits of quitting smoking over time.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Benefits of quitting.National Cancer Institute.Handling nicotine withdrawal and triggers when you decide to quit tobacco.National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.What is coronary heart disease?Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Within 20 minutes of quitting poster.American Lung Association.How smoking impacts your lung health.Wadgave U, Nagesh L.Nicotine replacement therapy: an overview.Int J Health Sci (Qassim). 2016;10(3):425-435.Additional ReadingAlberg AJ, Shopland DR, Cummings KM.The 2014 Surgeon Generals Report: Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the 1964 Report of the Advisory Committee to the US Surgeon General and Updating the Evidence on the Health Consequences of Cigarette Smoking.American Journal of Epidemiology. 2014;179(4):403-412. doi:10.1093/aje/kwt335

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

American Cancer Society.Health benefits of quitting smoking over time.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Benefits of quitting.National Cancer Institute.Handling nicotine withdrawal and triggers when you decide to quit tobacco.National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.What is coronary heart disease?Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Within 20 minutes of quitting poster.American Lung Association.How smoking impacts your lung health.Wadgave U, Nagesh L.Nicotine replacement therapy: an overview.Int J Health Sci (Qassim). 2016;10(3):425-435.

American Cancer Society.Health benefits of quitting smoking over time.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Benefits of quitting.

National Cancer Institute.Handling nicotine withdrawal and triggers when you decide to quit tobacco.

National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.What is coronary heart disease?

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Within 20 minutes of quitting poster.

American Lung Association.How smoking impacts your lung health.

Wadgave U, Nagesh L.Nicotine replacement therapy: an overview.Int J Health Sci (Qassim). 2016;10(3):425-435.

Alberg AJ, Shopland DR, Cummings KM.The 2014 Surgeon Generals Report: Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the 1964 Report of the Advisory Committee to the US Surgeon General and Updating the Evidence on the Health Consequences of Cigarette Smoking.American Journal of Epidemiology. 2014;179(4):403-412. doi:10.1093/aje/kwt335

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