Be healthy

Maybe your family wants you to quit or a good friend has a smoking-related illness. Maybe you’re just tired of an expensive habit that you know is unhealthy. No matter what your reasons are, it is important to get the support you need. If you quit, health improvements start right away and continue to get better with time. If you've tried before, remember: every time you try to quit, you increase your chance of succeeding.

Establishing a tobacco-free workplace

As a tobacco-free workplace ourselves, Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Mississippi can share our success and help your business become tobacco-free, too. Click here to learn more about becoming a tobacco-free workplace.

Health benefits of choosing to be smoke-free

Choosing to quit smoking can be one of the most important decisions you make to improve your health and quality of life. It can be difficult, but the choice is yours to make. You may wonder how soon your health will improve after quitting smoking. Here are some benefits you will see:

• 20 minutes: Blood pressure drops to the level you had before your last cigarette and the temperature of your hands and feet returns to normal.
• 24 hours: Your chance of a heart attack decreases.
• 1 to 9 months: Coughing, sinus congestion, fatigue and shortness of breath decrease: cilia regain normal function in the lungs, increasing the ability to handle mucus, clean the lungs, and reduce infection.
• 1 year: Chance of having a heart attack is cut in half.
• 5 years: Stroke risk is reduced to that of a non-smoker 5 to 15 years after quitting.
• 15 years: Risk of coronary heart disease is that of a non-smoker.

In addition to your own benefits, being smoke-free helps those around you. Secondhand smoke is known to cause many health problems and make others worse. Whoever is near you when you're smoking, you're doing them a favor when you quit. Here is more guidance to help quit tobacco.

Resources to help you quit