Ways to Protect Yourself When Living With a Smoker

Quitting the bad habit of smoking will be of immense benefit to not only you, but people in your life. Smoking harms not just the smoker, it also harms the people who are exposed to secondhand smoke; it could be your spouse, your parents or your innocent kids. 

Secondhand smoke is the combination of cigarette smoke and the smoke breathed out by the smoker. It can remain in the air for many hours after smoking.

It is highly dangerous to anyone who inhales the secondhand smoke. In fact, inhaling secondhand smoke for even a little time can still cause damage to the body of a non-smoker. Over the years, secondhand smoke has been associated with life-threatening health issues in the body of non-smokers.

Find below some health effects of secondhand smoke on non-smokers:

• Cases of Lung cancer in non-smokers.
• High chance of heart-related diseases, including heart attack. Most non-smokers die early as a result of secondhand smoke.
• Cases of difficulty in breath such as shortness of breath, wheezing, coughing‚ and extra phlegm.

Secondhand smoke is even more dangerous for pregnant women, children, and babies, as the following issues have been associated with such in them:

• Mothers who are exposed to secondhand smoke during pregnancy often give birth to babies with low weight.
• Babies who are exposed to secondhand smoke after their birth often have more lung infections than babies who are not exposed to such.
•  Secondhand smoke causes asthmatic kids to have more constant and severe attacks.
• Little Children exposed to smoke are more likely to be diagnosed with diseases such as pneumonia, ear infections, bronchitis, and are at higher risk for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).

Ways to Protect Yourself

Many people believed that opening a window or making use of a fan can protect them from secondhand smoke. However, this doesn’t rid the toxins from secondhand smoke. As a matter of fact, according to https://filterbuy.com/resources/smoking-indoor-air-quality/, smoke can travel between rooms and even up stairwells and through the vents. Basically, it doesn’t matter whether you use a fan, open the windows, or stay in a separate room, the quality of air is already affected. The smoke has deadly chemicals that stick around in your home — in clothes, carpets, rugs, hair, furniture, and clothes. This is known as the thirdhand smoke.

The safest way to protect yourself is to leave areas or places where smoking happens, particularly in the house.

The following tips can also help protect you and your loved ones from secondhand and thirdhand smoke:

• Stay away from a smoker. If you live together, it’s better if you move out. If you can’t move out, advise the smoker to talk to a healthcare team about the best way to quit smoking.
• Regularly ask the smoker to step outside, each time they are about to light one. Do not allow someone to smoke inside the house or the car.
• If a smoker refuses to step outside, you should be the one to step out.
• Never let anyone smoke around you and your family.
• Ensure your kids’ school or daycare center is smoke-free. 
• Teach your children to stay away from smoky areas.
• When booking for restaurants or hotels, choose a smoke-free one.
• Use an air purifier or filter in your home to clean and purify the indoor air. Homeowners like getting multiple Jade air purifier replacement filters to ensure they have a continuous supply of filtered air. This provides a healthier environment for everyone and peace of mind for non-smokers.
  
• Have an information drive that will allow your neighbors or the people in your community to know about the harmful effects of secondhand smoke. 
• Talk to your doctor or healthcare provider regularly about the dangers of secondhand smoke, especially when you are living with a smoker. 
• If you find yourself living with a smoker, visit a doctor or caregiver provider regularly for checkups before secondhand smoke damages your lungs.

In as much as we have listed the ways you can fully protect yourself and your loved ones from the dangers of secondhand smoke and thirdhand smoke, the most important way to protect yourself is to not to allow smoking indoors. 

Separating non-smokers from smokers, like “no smoking” area in restaurants and bars, does not take away the dangers of secondhand smoke. Allowing someone to smoke at one side of your house doesn’t work as well.

It is vitally important to make sure you don’t expose yourself and your family to any type of smoke. Always remember that smoking affects your and your loved ones health. So as early as now, do the necessary actions to prevent this from happening. Prevention, as they always say, is better than a cure.