Surfing for a longer life
With more and more people inhabiting the virtual world today, doctors are using that space to encourage people to quit smoking. There are websites that list out the disadvantages and dangers of the addiction, and also those that help you formulate a personal quitting plan.
The helping hand At the Champs Club, an Indian anti-smoking website, you can calculate exactly how much money one one save by quitting smoking for a month/year/five years and so on. It helps one understand how long and what kind of changes one's body will undergo in the first 30 days of quitting.
The site has names of smoking rehab clinics over the country, where addicts who want to kick the butt can enroll for a three-month programme. Says Dr Gupta, a panelist, "Since the website was launched last month, we have received a number of enquiries and four people have already enrolled.
We expect a lot more soon." Becomeanex.
org helps smokers come up with personalised quitting plans, which map out when s/he needs a smoke and how s/he reacts when s/he doesn't smoke. Indian brothers A blogger called 'nocigarette' has collected anti-smoking TV ads from over the world.
One Indian ad says, "Be nice to smokers, they don't have long to live." Though India-specific anti-smoking websites have yet to catch on, Cancer Patients Aid Association India (CPAA) has an active website with a detailed section on "How to quit smoking".
The section directs traffic to a website called whyquit.com that is headed by Joel Spitzer, a world-renowned anti-smoking campaigner.
All of Spitzer's reinforcement articles for those who have quit have been compiled into a 1.4 MB PDF e-book called Never Take Another Puff.
Since 2005, over 8,50,000 copies have been downloaded. Besides, there are about 1,000 anti-smoking meet-up groups on meetup.
com, of which two are Delhi-based.
No comments:
Post a Comment