How much does smoking a couple of cigarettes a week actually harm me?

Everyone if different. George Burns was a very heavy smoker (actor who died at age 100) Others die young of lung cancer ---some who have never smoked (due to their own smoking or second hand smoke.)

Smoking is also a dirty habit. It makes you smell as well as your clothes. Let's not forget the cost- wow. It also annoys most around you. It will also be the cause of more expensive health ins. It makes you less efficient at work and that and the effects on your health can cause you not to get hired. Quite a few employers feel this way as health ins. is already outrageously expensive.

If you're a guy try sucking on a pipe. Guys and gals go for gum. Amazingly chewing gum has a few health benefits. Even if it has sugar in it it still helps to clean your teeth.

You can get mega hooked on them any time. For guys it damages your sperm, for gals it causes birth defects especially slow and inadequate growth. It damages other parts of your innards too. The damage is NOT easily corrected if at all.

I work in a respiratory ward.

I am letting you know that smokes contain very very harmful toxins. Not only is that one or two doing you damage it is causing damage to others around you.

If smoking didn't make so much money for governments it would be outlawed. Its sad really.

i'm sure it does effect you someway

but no where near as much as smoking regularly does

i too used to smoke like you

but the only worry is you could fall into the same trap.

with me it started as one a week

then one a day

now im a regualr smoker and i need to stop

that would be the worst thing to happen

but smoking at all is bad for your health and i would avoid it if you could.

any smoking is harmful to the smoker. You think that you are not a habitual smoker, but indeed you are...when you are depressed, or stressed or going out for a drink...soooo I do see a pattern here. My advice is to quit now, when it won't be as difficult to do. You will be doing yourself and your family a favour. They will not have to make the funeral arrangements so early.

It will still take a yr or two off of your life span. If your sitting in a bar you may as well smoke because you have all that 2nd hand smoke going in your lungs.

You'll be fine. Seriously, most people here are regurgitating scare stories and what they have read in the press, without looking at the scientific evidence.

If you stop smoking for two weeks, your lungs become clear.

Unfortunately it is worst than you think....

your lungs restore actually BUT like everything else in your body it kinda stops after a while and your lungs eventually begin to start clogging up. I know its hard to WANT to stop because my best friend smokes....but sometimes u need to think in the future...one day you will have a family and even IF you dont I mean...take care of yourself!

It will pay off.....the earlier you quit the easier....

Nah, it won't harm you. I believe it will definitely harm you less than your cell phone, if you use one. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that smoking alone rarely causes lung cancer, but smoking in an electromagnetic- and microwave-saturated environment is what may in fact cause lung cancer. So all you non-smokers here ought to read this...

Mobile phones 'more dangerous than smoking':

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and...

It is still harmful to your health; although, not as much as if you smoked all the time. Quitting smoking all together is always the best advice.

Smoking period is unhealthy and dangerous to your health. It doesn't matter how much you smoke. It's a drug addiction to Nicotine that is worst then Cocaine and Heroin. Please stop smoking before it destroys your life. Get help to stop now before it causes further harm to your body.