Stop Smoking Side Effects

The dizziness you feel from smoking-until you become accustomed to cigarettes, that is-results from the contraction of your blood vessels. The flow of blood to your brain is thereby diminished until your heart begins to beat faster and pump harder. If less blood reaches your brain, less oxygen reaches it. Dizziness is the first symptom of the desperate danger in this situation. The nausea comes from the strenuous-and life saving-effort your system is making to throw off the poisons you've just inhaled.

The release from tension you gain through smoking, then, is psychological and not physiological. It comes from the fact that you have interrupted one thought sequence with another that is "dependable." You've moved from unknowns to knowns. From a problem, perhaps, to a comfortable and habitual ritual. You've shifted your attention; the gears of your emotions are momentarily out of "drive" and are briefly in "neutral." Consequently and undeniably, there is release.

Fortunately, however, there are other ways to obtain release, relief, and relaxation. Once you understand the dynamics and anatomy of tension, you recognize their virtues.

Sometime during the first 72 hours after quitting, your body will become nicotine free.  During that time you can expect to feel symptoms of withdrawal.  What those symptoms are and how intense they may be is entirely dependent on you and how much (or little) you smoked.  The symptoms may include difficulty concentrating, nervousness, headaches, weight gain due to increased appetite, decreased heart rate, insomnia, irritability, and depression. These symptoms peak in the first few days but gradually fade within a month.

Through all of this, irritability is probably the worst for both you and those around you.  You become irritable because you crave cigarettes, because you are depriving your brain of nicotine, and because the other symptoms are making you feel bad.  There are ways to cope with these changes and your short temper to make the experience a successful one.  Millions have done it and so can you.  Do not let your nerves become an excuse to smoke.

Take that energy and channel it into a productive behavior that will allow you to overcome the urge.  Many who smoke say that they can’t quit because “things are too stressful right now” at work or home or that they have started again for the same reason.  While nicotine can have a sedative effect on the brain that makes you feel relaxed, the truth is that it increases your general anxiety level between doses.  Smoking makes you short tempered; quitting will make you less irritable once you have mastered the withdrawal.

Expect to be grouchy, especially at first.  When you feel your anxiety level rising, go and exercise.  It doesn’t have to mean running a marathon or joining a gym.  While those may be the answer for some, most can benefit by a simple walk or vigorous yard work.  Developing an exercise program over time can help keep you from relapsing, but take it easy in the beginning and do only as much as you need to keep your nerves in check.  Working up even a mild sweat is useful in distracting you from your cravings and/or anger and will likely make you feel good about yourself instead.

Meditation and relaxation techniques can be used to help keep your anxieties in balance.  This can be as simple as sitting in a quiet place and thinking about the good things that you are doing for yourself.  You can purchase audio CDs and tapes that will walk you further through a deep meditative state.  Do not use these while driving, operating any machinery, or if you have any food cooking on the stove as they are likely to put you to sleep at first.  Yoga and Tai Chi are similarly helpful, but incorporate exercise and stretching with the meditation.  Both have excellent health benefits and have been proven to reduce stress.

Do not beat yourself up if you become unreasonably angry.  For the time being, consider yourself to be someone under an anger management program.  It will not last forever, and these techniques can stop you from blowing your top at loved ones who were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Recognize the anger in your mind when it occurs, understand that it is simply a response to nicotine withdrawal and the change in habit, and then take steps to put it under control. 

If you can control the cigarettes, you can control the anger.  Use positive self talk such as “I am angry because I am craving, but this will pass”.  Count to 10 or 20 using positive self talk in between like “1..2..3.. this line is slow..4..5..but that’s ok..6..7..”.  These techniques may seem silly, but they really do work.  They put a little time and distraction in between you and the object of your anger, allowing the energy to dissipate and you to cool off.  These techniques are great to learn for any situation, and especially when they just may be the thing that keeps you from going back to smoking.