I guess I'm not entirely proud of the fact that I've been a smoker for a good long while — 9 years to be exact. For a long time now I've wanted to quit, I knew that quitting was the right thing to do, but I somehow always convinced myself that it would be easier to not bother. There was seemingly always a reason not to, but I finally made the decision to quit (just over a month ago) and since then I've noticed some bizarre changes in my life, things I’d not really anticipated and was genuinely shocked by.
Taste
I have drunk coffee for years and in all that time I have only ever ordered my drink one way; Black, no sugar. I absolutely adored the bitter taste and as time went on I found that I was looking for more flavor, a lighter roast and different infusions of taste. At point I dare say, I even began drinking too much coffee and really had to scale back my intake so as to not make myself ill. It had been a long-lasting love affair, but within about two weeks of my quitting smoking, I found that I just couldn’t stand the bitter, dry-mouth inducing taste of my (previously essential) coffee.
For the first couple of weeks I really had to stray away from coffee — Instead I found myself reaching for a cup of tea, which for a short time sufficed, but was just not the same. I’ve since managed to build myself back up to the strong flavours I was used to, but it certainly doesn’t seem the same as before.
That said, it’s not all bad on the taste front! Since quitting smoking, food has never tasted so good. Everything is sweeter, spicier, and more flavoursome than before. My family recently moved to a healthier diet and it couldn’t have happened at a better time. Never before have I found such enjoyment from the flavours of food.
Smell
Another changed I noticed (And this is probably to be expected in most cases) is that I just cannot stand the smell of cigarette smoke anymore. To clarify, the smell associated with someone else breathing smoke has always been utterly vile, but I guess over time I’d learned to enjoy the smell of a lit cigarette. Now however I find myself offended on a fairly consistent basis, by the ghostly odor of smoke.
Battery Life
What I think to be the most unexpected side-effect of my quitting smoking though, something I could never have imagined would have been the case, and now affects me day to day, is the length of time my phone batter now lasts! Historically I would take my phone off charge around 6:30am and usually by around dinner time I’d be looking to get my phone plugged in for the evening top-up. Granted my phone’s battery life has declined significantly as my reliance on the device has increased, through software updates and functionality changes this had been something I’d learned to accept.
Now it seems, taking my phone off charge first thing in the morning, I find myself not having to charge my phone until the following morning! That’s usually not the case though — I’ve become accustomed to charging my phone each evening and for the foreseeable future that ritual will stand.
I guess the amount of time I spent standing outside, smoking a cigarette and flicking through apps on my phone must have consumed about 50% of my phone’s battery life — Absolutely shocking.
I’d love to know if anyone else who has quit smoking noticed anything out of the ordinary in their day to day life?
