Basically if you are a programmer who smokes (and I was until a few weeks ago) it's easy to quit smoking. You already know how grossly inefficient and wasteful

Basically if you are a programmer who smokes (and I was until a few weeks ago) it's easy to quit smoking. You already know how grossly inefficient and wasteful smoking is. You just have to trick your mind into instinctively realizing smoking is fundamentally stupid, the same instinct that kicks in when you see a code segment that goes "if (x = y) { ...". Instead of trying to control the craving or stop thinking about cigarettes, you have your brain evaluate the "should I smoke right now?" question with the answer _no_. Once I did that, I found quitting smoking surprisingly easy. I still think about it quite a bit, but so far I haven't strayed from the correct answer even a little bit. Regular exercise right at the beginning will help you ride out the initial physical cravings. Within a week your lungs feel much better and you're way more alert etc etc so the virtuous loop is in place and that's where I am and so far it feels pretty good.