Smoking can harm your health, not just the health of those around you. Smoking is one of the most common forms of substance abuse in America and it’s said that more than 17 million Americans smoke cigarettes. But quitting smoking for good doesn’t have to be as hard as everyone makes it out to be – here are 7 self-help tips that will help you quit today!

1. First, Find Your Reason

Why do you want to quit smoking? Is it because everyone around you smokes and you hate having to walk outside every hour for a cigarette break? Or is it something more serious, like wanting to live longer for yourself or your children? Whatever your reasons are, make sure they’re strong enough that quitting will matter. If not, chances are you’ll relapse in the future when things get tough. Thankfully, today there are so many replacement options that make quitting easier and can serve as a first step. You can opt for zero nicotine vape options that give you the feeling of smoking cigarettes without the harmful chemicals. People choose these replacement options because they help them get rid of cravings while they ease off cigarettes gradually, without triggering any withdrawal symptoms.

2. Try Focusing on Breathing Exercises 

When cravings hit, try focusing on controlled breathing techniques instead of reaching for a cigarette. This will help relax both mind and body which can help stop the need to smoke before it even begins. A few deep breaths every time I had an urge helped me stay strong throughout many quit smoking attempts. Breathing exercises are also important because smoking often causes shortness of breath, which is how people get started in the first place.

3. Tell Your Loved Ones

Make sure to tell your friends and family that you’re quitting smoking so they can support you along the way. If you make it public, everyone will be watching to see if you succeed or not. Having people expect me to fail gave me even more reason to stay strong every day for my health, as well as theirs. This also helps with the social aspect of quitting smoking since you’ll be reaching out to your friends and family for support. Your loved ones are essentially the ones who will help you succeed.

4. Take It One Day at a Time

Quitting cigarettes is tough – but staying smoke-free is tougher. When things get hard, remember that staying smoke-free for one day should be all you focus on – because anything more than that should be treated as a huge accomplishment in itself! Focusing on one day at a time helped me stay strong through tough days and tough urges. Also, try not to focus on quitting altogether – set small goals like only smoking half as much or cutting down to one cigarette per day, instead of quitting completely.

5. Find a New Hobby or Activity to Take Up Your Time

Take up a new hobby to take your mind off smoking! When I quit, I exercised more because it helped me relax and focus on something other than cigarettes. If you don’t want to exercise, any activity from painting to skateboarding can help get your mind off of smoking every once in a while.

Play an instrument

A piano, guitar, or even drums might be just what you need to keep your hands’ busy while also getting some exercise in with those fingers! The key here is finding something where there’s no risk of being tempted to light up while playing because this habit could lead back down the path of smoking again. 

Learn a new skill

You may have always wanted to master the art of baking or painting – or maybe you want to learn a new language? Whatever it is, take up that hobby and spend your time learning instead of smoking. It’s amazing how many hobbies there are in the world and if we’re not careful we’ll live our whole lives without discovering even half of them! Find something you love and stick with it for at least a few weeks before deciding whether or not it’s worth quitting smoking for good to pursue.

Read more books

Many people undervalue the power of reading because they’ve never given books a chance. Reading doesn’t just open your mind to new ideas but also helps relax the mind when cravings hit hard. Try reading anything from mystery novels to self-help books. 

Practice meditation 

Meditation is another method that can help ease cravings while calming the mind and body, allowing you to avoid smoking again without feeling too anxious or stressed out about it. It also helps because meditation can bring your focus away from nicotine addiction and onto other positive personal changes like releasing negative thoughts, increasing self-esteem, and improving your overall physical health.

6. Remember the Benefits

If you don’t remember why quitting is important to you, write down all of the benefits that come along with being smoke-free – Not only does it help remind why quitting matters in the first place, but looking at your list whenever things get tough will show how much stronger you’re getting every day in your quit smoking journey. You can also write down all the benefits for your loved ones to help you stay strong.

7. Create a “Help Me” Jar

When things get tough, write down on a slip of paper all of the reasons why you want to quit smoking and put it in a jar. Then when you reach for another cigarette, read through your slips one by one to help keep yourself motivated! This helped me during many tough moments in my quit smoking journey and is a simple way for anyone to stay motivated. Also, remember to reward yourself for staying strong and reaching certain milestones in your quit smoking journey.

Remember that everyone’s journey is different, but these self-help tips can make quitting cigarettes much easier – even if you’ve tried before without any luck. But with support from friends and family, as well as focusing on staying healthy, there should be no reason for anyone to ever have to smoke another cigarette again.

A new study has revealed Floral patterns to be the most popular embroidery style in the United States.

Researchers at the online creative resource and digital embroidery designer Design Bundles analysed the average number of internet searches in the US for a range of different embroidery styles between November 2021 and January 2022.

Six of the top 12 most searched for embroidery designs were of a floral embroidery pattern, with Flowers, Sweet Peas, Roses, Sunflowers, Leaves, and Cacti all featuring on the list. Three of the top 12 were fauna – related to animals – with bees, pandas, and butterflies all making the list.

This means that nine of the top 12 most searched embroidery styles in the US are related to natural imagery, which perhaps reflects a wider trend in the world of embroidery.

At the top of the list was Flower embroidery. With an average of 12,100 searches per month for the period of the study, Flowers were found to be the most popular embroidery pattern in the US by a considerable margin. This fits well with the remainder of the list containing more specific searches related to plants. Embroidering your fabrics with a range of freshly stitched flowers is a great way to bring colour, life, and beauty to your designs check on justcraftingaround. 

Second on Design Bundles’ list of the most popular embroidery styles in the US were Sweet Peas. The Sweet Pea embroidery style saw an average of 5,400 searches per month between November 2021 and January 2022. Sweet Peas are delicate beautiful flowers which makes them a perfect design for embroiderers’.

Roses came in joint third place on the list along with Logos. Each had an average of 2,900 searches over the course of the three months during which the study took place. Rose represented both third place and the third floral design to be included in the list of most popular embroidery styles in the US.

Just behind Roses were Sunflowers, another floral design. Sunflowers had 2,400 searches per month on average in the US. Sunflowers have long been a popular floral design in all manner of crafts. This is perhaps due to their striking bright colours, tall height, and their immortalisation by Vincent Van Gogh in one of his most famous paintings, ‘Sunflowers’.

Leaves came in fifth place along with Butterflies, both of which had an average of 1,900 internet searches per month in the US between November 2021 and January 2022. This meant that the top five most popular embroidery patterns in the US are all floral designs.

The next and final floral design to feature was Cacti, which came seventh overall with an average of 1,300 searches per month in the US. The colourful, intricate and distinctive look of cacti makes for stunning patterns when they are embroidered.(1)

Most popular embroidery patterns in the US

Source – Design Bundles

What is embroidery?

Embroidery is the craft of decorating fabrics with a needle and thread to create patterns and decorations. Other materials such as sequins, buttons, feathers, or anything else that will stitch, can be used as part of an embroidered pattern. Embroidery is used for decorative not functional purposes.

Early evidence of embroidery dates back to over 30,000 years ago. Archaeological remains of the first European settlers, known as the Cro-Magnons, were discovered with evidence of embroidery on the clothes.

Although embroidery is now predominantly used for designing clothes, cloth, curtains, and other everyday fabrics, it was once also used to design and decorate book covers.

What is digital embroidery?

Digital embroidery is a digital design stored in a file that is used for creating patterns with an embroidery machine. So you can choose a pattern that you like and simply send the file to an embroidery machine and it will perfectly recreate that pattern on any piece of fabric you give to it.

Embroidery machines create intricate and accurate patterns in very little time and are far more precise than hand embroidery. Most machine models can complete around 6,000 stitches in just ten minutes. We have certainly come a long way since the early humans were threading simple patterns onto their clothes all those thousands of years ago!

So whether you want to embroider flowers, plants, or any other pattern for that matter, why not try using an embroidery machine next time to guarantee incredible results?

How to import digital embroidery designs to an embroidery machine

Using an embroidery machine is a great way to create fast and precise embroidery patterns. So, if you have a machine you can do away with your embroidery hoop and trust technology to bring your next project to life.

First, you need to choose a digital embroidery image or design that catches your eye and that you think would work well for the piece you are making. You will need to buy this image or download it from a site that offers free patterns.

Then you save the image onto your computer and transfer it onto a USB stick. Make sure you safely remove the USB stick so as to ensure you don’t lose any files saved onto it.

You then insert the USB stick into your embroidery machine. There should be a USB port on the side of the machine.

Next, you need to scan or import the image from the stick to the machine. Depending on which embroidery machine you have this is done through methods. Try to locate the USB drive on your machine’s screen and there should be an import option from there. Select the image you saved earlier.

Then you can set the image. Your embroidery machine should then give you the option of setting the size and parameters of the image.

You should then be able to preview the design and have the machine transfer it onto the fabric, and you’re done! (2)

There are many interesting facts about hemp that most people are unaware of and didn’t know. One of the most interesting facts is that some people don’t know it’s a plant like its cousin, cannabis. They tend to hear the word “hemp” and think it’s a fibre or piece of rope? Actually, they are right but didn’t realize it is made from a plant.

Hemp or the cannabis L-Sativa plant is the same as a cannabis plant; however, unlike the cannabis plant, hemp strains contain small trace amounts of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), typically less than 0.3%. Both cannabis and hemp also contain other compounds called cannabinoids like cannabigerol (CBG), cannabidivarin (CBDV), CBD, and others.

To discover some interesting facts about hemp that you didn’t know about and why so many people like the CBD products made from it, continue reading.

What is Hemp?

The official name for it is industrialized hemp. The most significant difference between hemp and cannabis plants is the cultivation, use, and levels of delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). That is the psychoactive chemical that gets users “high” and cannabis strains are notorious for.

For a hemp plant to be legally classified on a dry-weight basis, it must contain no more than three percent THC. Whereas most cannabis plants contain approximately 5-30% THC; therefore, it is essential to know what you’re buying before you try CBD, either extracted from hemp or cannabis.

Cannabis species have more than 480 natural compounds out of 100 that are specific to a group called cannabinoids. Since hemp plants contain small trace amounts of THC, they are often more rich in other cannabinoids like cannabidiol (CBD) that are non-addictive and non-intoxicating.

Facts About the Hemp Plant

In 2018, the Farm Bill distinguished the difference between cannabis and hemp by restricting hemp to be no more than that of 0.3% THC. Many hemp products are made with seeds that contain protein, fats, and other chemicals.

On the other hand, CBD products are made by being extracted from the leaves and flowers of the hemp plant, where the medicinal properties are such as CBD and other cannabinoids. If you’re looking for high-quality CBD products, Observer recently came out with their top product recommendations.

Without further ado, here are five facts about the hemp plant:

1. Hemp Was Used as a Government Aid

Many laws in the US regarding hemp have fluctuated throughout history. Hemp was federally legal to grow between 1970 and 2018 but did you know there was a time when the US government required hemp farmers to grow the plant? It was used for WWII as sails, fabric, canvas, paper, and military-grade rope.

2. Hemp Purifies the Earth

Hemp can be used to help purify the earth by growing on top of radioactive materials such as radioactive heavy metals and nuclear compounds. Hemp plants have a long root system that extends deep into the ground, absorbing harmful chemicals and pulling toxins out. This provides a better alternative than an expensive detoxifying process.

3. Hemp Could Help Prevent Hunger

By nature, hemp seeds contain high levels of vitamins A, B, D, and E, fatty acids, high levels of calories, and nutritious minerals. Hemps seeds can also be used as a meat alternative because they meet the daily protein requirements. This can help in regions where hunger is a factor due to the rapid growth rates of the hemp plant.

4. Hemp May Reduce Deforestation

A big problem facing many countries is deforestation. Hemp could help replace what man has harvested for building materials such as lumber and plywood. It can also help save trees used to manufacture paper and pulp products. According to Hemp Technologies Global, hemp grows faster than trees at one acre of hemp vs. 4.1 for trees.

5. Hemp Looks Different Than Cannabis

While both hemp and cannabis look the same, there are some differences. Cannabis plants tend to grow shorter and wider than hemp plants. Hemp plants grow tall and thin and thrive in hot and humid conditions. There are also more flowers on the cannabis plant than the hemp plant. The leaves on cannabis plants are also wider.

The hemp plant has become a versatile product not only for its therapeutic compound cannabidiol but also for many household and commercial products that people use every day.

Other Facts About Hemp That You Didn’t Know

It is legal to grow hemp in all 50 states and are harvested between 90-120 days. Hemp was used to make fiberboards for construction materials and is both stronger and lighter than wood. Did you know hemp paper was used to write the US Constitution? Yes, it is true.

Industrial hemp strains can be isolated to grow plants that contain little to no THC, making hemp a valuable resource for manufacturing high-quality CBD. Before 1937 in the United States of America, hemp was considered a legal tender and was used to pay taxes.

And lastly, hemp contains a wide range of healthy compounds that can be used as a dietary supplement and has many practical uses for common everyday items that most people don’t even know are made from hemp. One of the most important discoveries was its use for extracting the valuable compound CBD that is used in many products.

This article is here to tell you to try something new. Opening our minds to the world and all its opportunities is one of the best things that we can do for ourselves. There are so many opportunities out there to explore, so many places to travel, and so many things to try. Do yourself a favor and read along, as we give a few tips to how you can kickstart this process and start expanding your horizon.

Break out of your comfort zone

Breaking out of your comfort zone is one of the healthiest things we can do as humans. Life is about balancing the right amount of chaos and peace in our lives. Peace represents our habits, our everyday life, and the things we are used to doing. Routines and comfort bring us peace. Chaos is represented by the challenges life gives us. Chaos is represented by new opportunities that can abrupt the peace we find in our routines and daily lives.

Balancing chaos and peace is difficult, but many people fear chaos. However, change and growth is only possible when we invite chaos in, face the challenges that we are given, or when we challenge ourselves and try something new. Chaos might seem wild but inviting chaos into your life doesn’t mean quitting your job or leaving your partner. It can be something more trivial as well.

The bedroom is one arena where many people are afraid of expanding their horizon and trying something new. This can make sex a monotone experience, which in time can be fatal to a relationship. As such, you can learn much from being open to new experiences, exploring your fantasies and the like. Have a talk with yourself or your partner and find out what you’d like to try.

You can try using handcuffs, a vibrator, or blindfolds. Take small steps, and once even this becomes routine, you can try more wild things, like a Sex swing. Being open to exploring each other in a relationship can add a really strong dynamic to a relationship that is often underestimated. Sex is often seen like something that belongs to relationships of younger people, however although it is true that our sex drive decreases as we grow older, it doesn’t disappear completely, before we are seniors.

Explore the world

Another way to explore yourself, and expand your horizon is to travel the world. Most people are a product of the surroundings we are raised in, which we of course can’t be at fault for. It is, however, our responsibility as we get older, to acknowledge that there are many other cultures and ways of living out there in the world. Discovering new cultures can help us discover that perhaps our parents’ ways aren’t the best, or on the contrary, help us realize that we were luckier and more privileged when growing up.

Knowing that there are other ways of doing things like politics, food, and life in general, can help us understand the world. And understanding the world we live in, makes us more whole as a person. Travelling is cheaper than you might think, and most of us can save money in our everyday life, by cutting down on expensive habits. So, what are you waiting for? (1)

There’s no denying that we all live in a material world. While our purchases and consumption habits are far from the most important and meaningful components of our lives, they sure do take up a huge amount of our time.

According to Forbes, the average person now sees more than 10,000 advertisements every single day. This means that it is more than like that you have already seen thousands of advertisements today before reading this and that you probably don’t remember most (or any) of them.

In order to cut through all of this noise, many brands will resort to the basic principles of psychology to capture our attention and attempt to make a real connection with the view. The most powerful way that they do this is not with images, but with words.

Understanding the words that brands commonly use to influence consumer psychology is important, as it tells us a lot about what we value and what drives us. Let’s take a closer look at some of the main words brands use to get our attention, with some real-world examples thrown in.

Imagine

“Imagine” is an incredibly powerful word in brand psychology. It opens up the viewer’s mind to new possibilities and new scenarios that a product could bring into their life. Telling the viewer to “imagine” is inviting them to conceive of a better future, or a problem being solved. “Imagine” is used every day in marketing, but one particularly illustrative example comes from the travel booking company Expedia, which invites the audience to “imagine the places we’ll go – together”.

Now

“Now” conjures up an instant sense of urgency and immediacy. It tells you that, whatever problem you might be dealing with, the solution is at hand. “Now” might also be used in marketing psychology to ground the product or service within your current daily life, so that you can see it as applicable to your needs.

The word “now” can also be used to imply quick gratification with delayed costs, with the platform Klarna using its “buy now, pay later” marketing to great effect.

Believe

To “believe” in something is to hope for something truly better. It is to summon upon your reserves of optimism and make something you want to materialise through sheer force of will. In marketing “believe” is used to invite customers to take a leap of faith in a brand, with promises that they will not be disappointed. One of the most well-known examples of this is the TV broadcaster Sky’s “believe in better” slogan, which conflates its services with an aspiration to have the very best in life.

You

Probably the oldest and most powerful word in marketing psychology ever. When a brand is referring to “you”, it is making things personal. This word is used to illustrate that a brand has done its research and knows what you want, and why you want it.

Every brand uses this to some extent, but a great example can be found at the casino games platform Betway. On its homepage, Betway uses the word “you” 25 times in total, connecting all of its slots and card games to its target audience to emphasise that Betway knows exactly what they want.

Help

“Help” is a particularly interesting word in marketing psychology, because it flips our common understanding of consumerism on its head and premises a different kind of relationship between the brand and the customer. “Help” is an invitation. It implies that a brand is here to assist you, rather than to simply sell you something and that they are invested in your needs.

“Help” is used everywhere in marketing, but nowhere more so than in the real estate industry. Go on any real estates website, such as Rightmove, Zillow, or Hoxtons, and you will see slogans such as “we can help you get moving”, or “let us help you move”.

Together

“Together” has a similar psychological implication to the world “help”. It implies a levelling of the relationship between the brand and the customer. It suggests that the act of making a purchase with a brand is a collaborative one, one that marks the beginning of an ongoing relationship between the two.

One great example of this in action comes from the beer company Heineken, which launched its own “better together” campaign back in 2020. This campaign, which is aimed at the social aspects of coming together to watch the football, positions Heinekin beer as the glue which brings people together. By buying this product, you are “together” with the brand and, by extension, your friends.

Words are incredibly powerful tools that influence how we think and perceive the world at every level. As these brand psychology examples show, all it takes is the right combination of letters to convince people to make a purchase.

Prayer is an important feature of all religions, and it should never be something that takes a backfoot. You shouldn’t resort to prayer only when nothing else is working and, instead, you should be in constant communication with your god. All religions will have a time in which prayer is more crucial than any other time; for instance, Ramadhan is the time wherein Muslims engage in more prayer. Despite this, this doesn’t mean that you should neglect your duty to pray for the remainder of the year. Regular prayer is responsible for a multitude of benefits, but what exactly are the advantages of prayer?

Sets the Tone of Your Day

First thing’s first, prayer can set the tone for the remainder of your day. Instead of dwelling on the stress caused by a long commute, the never-ending list of chores, or piles of bills, use prayer to establish your mood for the rest of the day. Upon waking up, you should thank your God for all that they’re doing and completely focus on all the goodness that they bring. In doing so, your morning will be filled with thankfulness about each of your blessings. This provides you with a solid foundation to invite your God into the remainder of your day, allowing them to help in areas of difficulty.

Assists Decision-Making

Everyone is guilty of making poor decisions from time to time, but with prayer on your side, your god will deter you from certain bad decisions. When you ask your god for guidance, you’ll inevitably make better decisions. Despite this, you should also take the time to reflect upon previous decisions, and how acting differently would’ve impacted your day. For instance, how would things have played out if you reacted calmly and rationally as opposed to shouting? What would’ve happened if you invested some time into your friend rather than rushing off and shutting them out? What would’ve changed if you made a healthy decision rather than slipping into a bad habit?

Keeps Your God in the Forefront of Your Mind

Any devoted follower of religion should always have their god at the forefront of their mind. If you take Christianity as an example, Sunday is considered as the Holy day, meaning that many Christians neglect their relationship with God until Sunday morning. However, a proper relationship with any god can’t be built in an hour per week. Instead, your god requires your constant attention and recognition. The more that you pray, the more you’ll start to realize that your god is around you always. This allows you to reach complete peace and comfort, as you can be confident that your god will be with you in any trying times.

Strengthens Relationship with God

Your god should be regarded as one of your loved ones, and it’s highly likely that you’ll speak to your loved ones more than once a week. Therefore, you should be communicating with your god regularly via prayer so that you’re able to build this solid relationship. Similarly, these prayers shouldn’t be simply making requests, they should entail quality conversations with him that you would have with any other of your loved ones. Reciting existing prayers are a good place to start, but you shouldn’t rely on these alone. Sticking solely to these prayers will obstruct you from personalizing your connection with your god. You should open your heart, share your challenges and struggles, celebrate your victories and blessings, ask for guidance and help, and ask for forgiveness.

Do you engage in regular prayer? Is your relationship with your god the strongest that it can be?