Stop Smoking Tips

Why Smoking is Addictive

Nicotine creates a biochemical reaction in your body that has an immediate effect on your mood, your ability to reason, and your metabolism. Even if you only smoke a few cigarettes a day your body feels the results and side effects of the more than 4,000 chemicals being pumped in through the lungs.

Some of those chemicals are carcinogenic. Others are also used in rat poison. Carbon monoxide, considered a poison, is inhaled into the smoker’s body. All of these chemicals are fantastic reasons to stop smoking.

The more that you smoke, the higher the level of chemical dependency that is reached. Light smokers also become dependent on cigarettes through a physical dependency on the nicotine as well as the psychological and stress related dependency on the act of smoking.

It is only a matter of seconds after that first puff that nicotine starts to have an effect on your central nervous system, and the rest of your body. Certain areas of the brain, when stimulated by nicotine, help you think more clearly. Other areas of the brain lie in a pleasure center which when stimulated can make you feel more relaxed and less anxious.

Nicotine also affects the hormones produced by the body, which creates a chemical dependency to nicotine and the accompanying craving. Heavy smokers have become dependent on heightened levels of hormones, stimulated by nicotine, which can have an addictive quality.

They need a cigarette at certain intervals of time. After the stimulation of the hormones starts to fall, they need another cigarette to bring them back into the comfort zone. If they do not get that cigarette, the craving begins.

Interestingly when you smoke and exhale all of the smoke you dragged into your lungs with each puff isn’t exhaled. It takes several hours to rid the lungs of the last cigarette – some say 24 hours. And we all know that smokers don’t wait 24 hours between each cigarette!

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