Published at 28 January, 2025 09:41.
The message for this year’s campaign and over the next three years is to help raise cancer awareness and put people at the centre of their treatment in a way that sees them as a whole person with individual needs. Treating the person and not just the cancer is an important part of this. A person with cancer has a story that is unique to them. You may be a family member or friend with someone who has a cancer diagnosis. You will have your own unique story too. Let us unite in this thought as we explore some of the reasons why people smoke, and the risks associated with smoking and developing cancer.
Everyone has different reasons for starting smoking and continuing to smoke, and everyone has different reasons why they want to stop smoking too. You may identify with some of the reasons yourself and feel united with other people in a common goal to quit smoking. You may have started smoking early in life with peer pressure being the main reason and feel it is too late for you to quit now. It may be stress that keeps you smoking as you feel it relieves the pressure and strains in your life. Perhaps it is the habits and triggers associated with smoking that keeps you tied to the daily rituals you have created for yourself. The cycle of smoking can be broken, and you can get off the roundabout of daily smoking rituals more easily than you think. Reasons to quit are just as important as the reasons you started in the first place. You can learn new habits, routines and changes in behaviour by looking at your current ones. Simple changes can bring big rewards and make stopping smoking much easier. A positive mind set will help and remember you are giving yourself a gift that will keep on giving. Breathe easier, walk further, look revitalised as more oxygen is getting to your skin. Smell sweet, feel energised, taste your food better, and stopping to smell the roses is now possible, as you have more time for yourself instead of time spent smoking or thinking about your next cigarette. Your mental health, mood and well-being improves, and there’s more money in your wallet. Feel great knowing you are also protecting your children, family and friends from the risks of second-hand smoke. You are not giving anything up which benefits you physically, mentally or financially. Your longer-term risks of cancer, lung disease, heart disease and stroke will be significantly reduced. You will also be less likely to develop type 2 diabetes, bone disease including osteoporosis, eye disease and dementia. The earlier you quit smoking, the more you are likely to benefit. But it's never too late – because quitting will improve your health whatever your age and no matter how long you have smoked. After quitting for 10 years, your risk of death from lung cancer falls to half that of a smoker! Even if you already have a cancer diagnosis, stopping smoking is still the best thing you can do for your overall health and have the best chance of a good outcome. Smoking can make treatment less effective, side effects from treatment can be worse and if your treatment is successful then carrying on smoking increases the chance of the cancer returning.
Be united with many other people in your goal to stop smoking and united in a shared belief that quitting is the best thing you can do for yourself and your family whilst honouring your own unique story. NHS Stop Smoking Service - Yorkshire Smokefree
“United by Unique”, the new World Cancer Day theme 2025-2027 | World Cancer Day
