27th Annual National No Smoking Day in Locks Heath – did you know?

Yesterday, Wednesday 10th March was the 27th annual National No Smoking Day. Did you know? I have to admit I saw no advertisements for this anywhere in Locks Heath.

No Smoking Day is one of the biggest annual health awareness campaigns in the UK, having helped over 1.5 million smokers give up their habit since its inception in 1984. The campaign is organised by the ‘No Smoking Day’ charity, and each year nearly one million smokers attempt to stop on the Day.

Calls to helplines, sales of stop smoking products and visits to stop smoking services peak every No Smoking Day. In 2006, call volumes to the NHS stop smoking helpline reached four times the daily average for the rest of the year, with around 12,000 calls made on the day.

Interestingly however Everetts Chemist in the Locks Heath Centre report that they didn’t sell any more Nicotine Replacement Products than usual yesterday - perhaps due to the lack of advertising?!

This year the charity is particularly encouraging women who smoke to break free from their habit. One in 12 females in the UK kicked the habit on No Smoking Day in 2009 – a total of 366,000 women. No Smoking Day is hoping that the remaining 4 million female smokers in the UK will also be inspired to quit in 2010.

Over half of all long-term smokers will eventually die from their habit, so there are obviously a vast number of health benefits to stopping. These days however we are also very aware of our pockets and purses. The No Smoking Day website has a Quit and Save Calculator so you can work out the benefit to your finances too.

This is a guide to how much you could save. These figures are calculated on an average packet of 20 cigarettes costing £6.00.

   No of cigarettes a day

5   10  20  40

Daily Cost  £1.50   £3.00   £6.00 £12.00

Weekly Cost £10.50   £21.00 £42.00   £84.00

Monthly Cost  £45.50    £91.00  £182.00 £364.00

Yearly Cost    £546.00    £1092.00   £2184.00   £4368.00

Interestingly if you smoke 10 cigarettes a day, you will be spending £37.00 more in 2010 than you would have a year ago!

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One of the No Smoking Day's top tips for successful quitting is to find a buddy who also wants to stop smoking. Would you like to stop and want to find someone locally to quit with? Why not leave a message here?

Have you given up smoking recently? How are you doing? Do you have any great tips to help others?

Let LocksHeathPeople know!

To find out where your local stop smoking service is look at the No Smoking Day website or call 0800 169 0 169