Smoking and Your Heart Benefits of Quitting Smoking

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One of the best ways to reduce your risk of coronary heart disease is to avoid tobacco smoke.

• Don’t ever start smoking.
• Quit if you already smoke.
• Avoid secondhand smoke. Don’t go to places where smoking is allowed. Ask friends and family members to not smoke in the house and car.

Quitting smoking will help your heart and blood vessels. No matter how much or how long you’ve smoked, quitting benefits you.

• If you already have coronary heart disease, quitting smoking greatly lowers your risk of having more heart attacks or dying from that heart disease. In many studies, quitting smoking has cut this risk of heart attacks or dying by half or even more.
• Your risks of heart disease from smoking get lower soon after you quit. For many people, the risk keeps getting lower over time.
• Your risk of atherosclerosis and blood clots related to smoking gets lowers over time after you quit.

Researchers have studied communities that banned smoking at worksites and in public places. The number of heart attacks in these communities dropped after the bans were in place. These results may be because there were fewer active smokers and people were not exposed to as much secondhand smoke.

There are different strategies that may help you quit smoking. Find your motivation to quit smoking for your heart health, get a support group to help you on your journey, and speak with a healthcare provider if you need medicines to help.