The problem of tobacco use, which has gradually increased every year from past to present, has become a bleeding wound all over the world. Recently, many different policies aimed at minimizing tobacco consumption have been tried to be implemented in our country, but despite all the measures taken, consumption has increased day by day and the age of use has gradually tended to decrease. Especially in Turkey, the abolition of the state monopoly on cigarettes and the liberalization of cigarette imports in the 1980s caused a serious increase in cigarette consumption. In parallel with the recommendations of the World Health Organization, the Smoke-Free Airspace Project was initiated. Smoking is prohibited completely in indoor areas of all public and private buildings, and partially in public places, and the sale of cigarettes to those under 18 years of age is prohibited, and messages supported by visual warnings are written on cigarette packages. The recently implemented policy attempts to change society's perception of cigarettes by reducing the stimulants on cigarette packages and introducing cigarette packages with a black exterior. Although the appearance encourages people to quit smoking, it may cause them to get used to it after a while. In other words, after a while, people may begin to stop reacting to the negative stimuli they are exposed to, and the visuals may become habitual over time. Although the effect of all measures taken to reduce cigarette consumption cannot be denied, failure to achieve the targeted level of success indicates that the psychological impact of smoking is not sufficiently emphasized. The main issue that has a significant impact on quitting smoking is our automatic thoughts that begin to form in early childhood. As the name suggests, these automatic thoughts suddenly appear in our minds without our awareness and include individuals' emotional feelings, behaviors, comments about an event, in short, all their thoughts about the event. Our automatic thoughts are based on intermediate beliefs that are less rigid and less generalized, and intermediate beliefs are based on fundamental beliefs that are our most important belief level, which are more comprehensive, difficult to change and rigid. In other words, those who are against smoking will never be able to quit smoking. Identifying our dysfunctional automatic thoughts such as "I'm sorry" and developing different alternative thoughts against these rigid thoughts and beliefs are one of the important basic points in quitting smoking. Why shouldn't our lungs be whiter than our cigarette packs when we can change our thoughts, which are blacker than our packs, with the stimulants we are given?
Read: 0
