He announced to his 500 friends on Facebook that he was quitting

The power of peer pressure to help you quit smoking has been highlighted by a recent case in which a man claimed that the use of the social networking site Facebook enabled him to quit.

Mr. Michael Cover said that after smoking for 33 years he finally realized that it was time to give up and he knew that support from his friends would help. He announced to his 500 friends on Facebook that he was quitting and the feedback that he got greatly encouraged him. He said that every time that he was tempted to smoke he would update his status and the comments that flooded in encouraged him to stay smoke free and gave him that extra motivation.

A number of other factors came into play too. He knew that he would feel a bit of an idiot is he failed to quit after making such a fuss about it and also he was getting sick and tired of being short of breath and feeling generally unhealthy.

At Ukmedix News we have written before on how peer pressure works to help people to quit and one of the best things that you can do is agree with a good friend to quit together.  Quitting with a friend or maybe your husband or wife greatly increases the statistical likelihood of success. Quitting is never easy and therefore you want to find ways to maximise the chances of you becoming smoke free.

The great thing about working with other people is that when you make a promise to yourself it is much easier to break than when you make a promise to them. Support groups like Alcoholics Anonymous are aware of this and use this teamwork for maximum effect.

Mr. Cover has been smoke free for five weeks now and is feeling great. He said it hasn't been easy but he thinks he is over the worst and there's no way that he's going to light up again!