How your body changes minutes after you quit smoking

For those addicted to nicotine, giving up can be a daunting task and it is easy to feel that the damage has already been done.

But research shows that your body benefits just minutes after you draw a cigarette from your mouth and stub it out.


20 minutes

As you inhale, smoke and nicotine enters your bloodstream and the substance raises your blood pressure and heart rate. After you finish the cigarette, your heart rate and blood pressure return to normal.

8 hours

Carbon monoxide, the poisonous gas that kills over 40 people in the UK year if it seeps from faulty appliances in large quantities, is one of the 4,000 chemicals which enter your body when you smoke burning tobacco.

Nicotine and carbon monoxide start to leave your body and oxygen levels return to normal eight hours after you smoke.

24 hours

A day after your last cigarette, your lungs will begin to clear out the mucus and debris caused by smoking.

48 hours

Nicotine, a toxic liquid, is the chief active ingredient in tobacco and is highly addictive. Smoking also dulls your ability to smell and taste. Two days after you stop smoking, nicotine is eliminated from your body and your senses start to improve.


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