HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE?

FOR quitting smoking to start paying off: 20 minutes WITHIN 20 minutes of your last cigarette, your heart rate falls back to normal, reducing pressure on your arteries, says the NHS. If you don’t light up again, the benefits keep accruing: within 48 hours all the carbon monoxide has left your body, meaning increased levels of oxygen in the blood.

Within two days, the nerves of the nose and tongue that have been dampened by smoking start to wake up and your senses of smell and taste will begin to sharpen. After one year, your risk of heart disease will have halved and within ten years your chance of lung cancer is half that of a smoker. Remain a non-smoker for 15 years and your risk of heart attack is the same as someone who’s never smoked.