It has been known for several decades at this point, despite the best intentions of some manufacturers, that smoking is an unequivocally bad habit for you and your body.
The risks and negative effects it has on your body have and continue to be thoroughly researched, and virtually all of them are terrible.
From hair loss to teeth discoloration, to aging skin, to more serious and pressing problems, such as reduced blood flow, lung cancer, and heart attacks. The list goes on.
Whether it is through inhaling the smoke yourself, or giving it to someone else through second-hand smoking, with these effects being clear, now more than ever, more people are trying to quit this nasty habit that is killing over half a million Americans every year.
However, once you have decided to quit smoking, you then find yourself with one of the worst and most demoralizing things you can experience whilst trying to quit smoking.
Nicotine withdrawal. Failing to account for this in some way can result in several symptoms, such as a massive increase in appetite all of a sudden, anger or frustration that seems to come out of nowhere, or even anxiety or depression.
Any one of these might make someone cave into their habits, and pick up smoking again, leading to a vicious cycle of trying to quit, then taking it up again. It’s demoralizing, to say the least.
Fortunately, there are ways of trying to satisfy the nicotine craving that comes with quitting, without succumbing to buying another packet of cigarettes.
In this article, we are going to show you just a few ways that you can slowly wean yourself off of both cigarettes, and eventually nicotine too.
We’re also going to cover what exactly is so bad in cigarettes, as well as some notes for using nicotine supplements in your weaning period.
What Makes Smoking So Awful?
So, to make sure that we all understand what exactly is killing us in them, we should probably take a look at what makes smoking cigarettes so bad for you.
Generally speaking, the two major components that are likely to cause you health problems: The tobacco of the cigarette, and the nicotine that also come with it.
Tobacco
When you are smoking tobacco, the substances and chemicals that you are inhaling will cause both your heart and your blood vessels to worsen in their ability to carry and pump blood and oxygen around your body.
One of the main diseases that can result from smoking tobacco is Coronary Heart Disease, or CHD, which is when the arteries that lead to and around the heart cannot supply the muscles that pump blood around it with enough oxygen for them to work properly.
This is one of the leading causes of a heart attack in the United States and is one of the leading causes of death in the US.
It also makes generally trying to maintain a healthy lifestyle more difficult, as your body is unable to exercise for as long as it needs to function properly, as it also raises your blood pressure, and makes it more likely for clots to form in your body, which can also cause heart attacks or strokes.
Nicotine
Whilst nicotine doesn’t have the same cancer-causing and directly damaging effects as tobacco, it can still cause increased blood pressure and affect blood flow in your body.
It is an incredibly addictive substance that can cause severe symptoms and effects if you are used to receiving a regular amount, only for it to stop.
As we mentioned in the introduction, appetite, mood, and mental health are all likely to be seriously affected once you stop taking in nicotine.
Other effects that can result from this are an imbalance in your normal hormone levels, as well as effects on your digestive tract. You’ll also likely find that your memory and ability to concentrate are seriously compromised once you try to immediately stop.
When you combine the serious addictiveness of nicotine with the conditions smoking tobacco causes, you have a deadly issue that leads to smoking-related deaths affecting one in five people in America.
Nicotine Replacement Therapy
Because it can be a major shock to the body if you completely stop receiving a steady intake of nicotine, many doctors that are trying to help their patients quit smoking will put them on a system that is designed to slowly wean them off it.
This is known as Nicotine Replacement Therapy, or NRT.
This will usually entail supplementing your nicotine cravings with another nicotine item that still releases it into your bloodstream, without as many of the damaging effects of tobacco.
The general concept, in combination with changing your behavioral patterns, is to tackle both the physical and psychological effects of tobacco at the same time, which will eventually make outright quitting nicotine possible in the long run too.
Ways To Get Nicotine That Aren’t Smoking
If you are on a Nicotine Replacement Therapy course, or you are thinking of cutting back on your cigarette intake, these are some of the items that you might find most helpful:
Nicotine Patch
This is one of the most common substitutes that you can be offered when it comes to quitting cigarettes.
All you need to do with a nicotine patch is to place one of these products on your arm, and your nicotine cravings will be covered for the rest of the day, by releasing a small amount into your bloodstream through your skin
As a side note, make sure that you take this at a fixed time, rather than when you start feeling cravings. As the patches can take up to 12 hours to take effect, you may find your cravings too strong and turn to a cigarette before they take effect.
For a nicotine patch product, check out Nicotine Gum
