Quitting smoking might add as many as 10 years to your life. You won't have to wait long to start enjoying the rewards. From the minute you quit, you'll save money, food will taste better, and your breath, hair and clothes will smell fresher.
• 20 minutes. Less than half an hour after you put out your last cigarette, your heart rate and blood pressure begin to drop.
• A few days. It takes under a week for the carbon monoxide levels in your blood to normalize.
• 2 to 12 weeks. In the first few months, your circulation and lung function get better.
• 1 year. By the first anniversary of your quit date, you'll be coughing less. And you'll get short of breath less often. That's because the hair-like structures that clean the lungs have returned to normal.
• 2 years. Now you've significantly reduced your risk of a heart attack compared to when you were smoking.
• 5 to 10 years. During this period, you cut your risk for mouth, throat and voice box cancers in half. There is less chance you'll have a stroke.
• 10 years. When you haven't smoked in a decade, you have half the risk of lung cancer compared to a smoker.
• 15 years. By now, your risk of heart disease is similar to that of a nonsmoker.