How long does it take to stop feeling stressed when you quit smoking?
Are you struggling with cravings? Does it seem that no matter how hard you try not to smoke, you just have to have another cigarette? There is an alternative...healthy and safe way to control your cravings! Click here for info.
I quit smoking 4 days ago…i started to exercise and will continue to everyday…it helps alot when you want to quit smoking…the thing is that i feel very stressed and sensitive with everything…i get really nervous and shout at nothing…i did smoke one cigarrette today and half yesterday…but before i was smoking one pack of cigs a day….so i feel much better and i’m starting to feel discusted by cigs…the one i smoked today made me feel dizzy, smelling aweful….i’ve been smoking for 7 years though…i’m i doing it the correct way? When will i stop feeling nervous and stressed? Does it matter that i smoke 1 cig when i feel really anxious?
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May 23rd, 2008 at 12:06 pm
HI PAMELA
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Breaking the Habit
“Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world,” Mark Twain said. “I know because I’ve done it thousands of times.” Twain was being facetious, but his point was on target. The average smoker tries to quit 10.8 times over a period of 18.6 years before finally breaking the habit permanently, according to a 1998 U.S. study by the Hazelden Foundation, an addiction-treatment organization. Those dismal stats are testament to a powerful habit that is not merely nicotine dependence, but “a whole set of small behaviors such as hand-to-mouth gestures and characteristic times of the day when you don’t feel comfortable unless you are smoking,” says Simon Chapman, a public-health professor at the University of Sydney. To quit, he says, “people have got to unlearn all those behaviors.”
Getting Help
Plenty is available, in the form of books (Allen Carr’s Easy Way to Stop Smoking is a popular guide), local seminars and self-help groups in a growing number of Asian cities, and websites (try quitnet.com). Most offer step-by-step strategies for quitting and staying quit.
Trial by Turkey
We all know the boor who insists that abstinence is just a matter of willpower. But the success rate for those who go cold turkey is as low as 5%—and according to the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse, only 7% of people who quit without aids or outside support stay clean for more than a year.
Alternative Therapies
Given that most quitters need a boost, what works and what doesn’t? A 2003 report in the Dutch medical weekly Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde tried to sort fact from fiction by pooling piles of studies on smoking cessation compiled by the Cochrane Library, which collects global health-care information. Among the findings: acupuncture works no better than a placebo, and results for hypnotherapy were inconclusive.
Drugs and Hugs
Stop-smoking aids are a multibillion-dollar market. But so far, only three types have been proved to help, according to the World Health Organization. The first is nicotine replacement therapy (NRT): using a patch, gum, lozenge, nasal spray or inhaler to deliver nicotine to the brain in declining doses over a two- to three-month period. The second is the use of antidepressant pills such as bupropion and nortriptyline (studies suggest that people who are prone to depression are also inclined to smoke). The 2003 Dutch medical-weekly report concluded that NRT or antidepressants more than doubled 12-month abstinence rates. Thirdly, counseling, ranging from coaching over the phone to full-blown psychoanalysis, has been shown to be beneficial, whether used alone or in tandem with medication.
Staying Quit
It takes about 15 smoke-free years before mortality rates of ex-smokers roughly match those of lifelong nonsmokers. But palpable health effects show up almost immediately: blood pressure is lowered within 20 minutes of the last puff, and lung function increases by up to 30% after about three months. If you need more motivation to stay off cigarettes, regular exercise can reinforce the benefits, and stress-reduction techniques such as yoga can help you cope with cravings.
A Silver Bullet
Isn’t there an easier way? British drug company Xenova and U.S.-based Nabi Biopharmaceuticals are testing nicotine “vaccines” that may block the chemical’s ability to create pleasurable feelings in the brain. But even if the treatments prove successful, the companies say it will take at least four years before the vaccines reach the market. If you’ve been smoking for a long time already, what makes you so sure you’ll live that long?
Breaking the Habit
“Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world,” Mark Twain said. “I know because I’ve done it thousands of times.” Twain was being facetious, but his point was on target. The average smoker tries to quit 10.8 times over a period of 18.6 years before finally breaking the habit permanently, according to a 1998 U.S. study by the Hazelden Foundation, an addiction-treatment organization. Those dismal stats are testament to a powerful habit that is not merely nicotine dependence, but “a whole set of small behaviors such as hand-to-mouth gestures and characteristic times of the day when you don’t feel comfortable unless you are smoking,” says Simon Chapman, a public-health professor at the University of Sydney. To quit, he says, “people have got to unlearn all those behaviors.”
Getting Help
Plenty is available, in the form of books (Allen Carr’s Easy Way to Stop Smoking is a popular guide), local seminars and self-help groups in a growing number of Asian cities, and websites (try quitnet.com). Most offer step-by-step strategies for quitting and staying quit.
Trial by Turkey
We all know the boor who insists that abstinence is just a matter of willpower. But the success rate for those who go cold turkey is as low as 5%—and according to the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse, only 7% of people who quit without aids or outside support stay clean for more than a year.
Alternative Therapies
Given that most quitters need a boost, what works and what doesn’t? A 2003 report in the Dutch medical weekly Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde tried to sort fact from fiction by pooling piles of studies on smoking cessation compiled by the Cochrane Library, which collects global health-care information. Among the findings: acupuncture works no better than a placebo, and results for hypnotherapy were inconclusive.
Drugs and Hugs
Stop-smoking aids are a multibillion-dollar market. But so far, only three types have been proved to help, according to the World Health Organization. The first is nicotine replacement therapy (NRT): using a patch, gum, lozenge, nasal spray or inhaler to deliver nicotine to the brain in declining doses over a two- to three-month period. The second is the use of antidepressant pills such as bupropion and nortriptyline (studies suggest that people who are prone to depression are also inclined to smoke). The 2003 Dutch medical-weekly report concluded that NRT or antidepressants more than doubled 12-month abstinence rates. Thirdly, counseling, ranging from coaching over the phone to full-blown psychoanalysis, has been shown to be beneficial, whether used alone or in tandem with medication.
Staying Quit
It takes about 15 smoke-free years before mortality rates of ex-smokers roughly match those of lifelong nonsmokers. But palpable health effects show up almost immediately: blood pressure is lowered within 20 minutes of the last puff, and lung function increases by up to 30% after about three months. If you need more motivation to stay off cigarettes, regular exercise can reinforce the benefits, and stress-reduction techniques such as yoga can help you cope with cravings.
A Silver Bullet
Isn’t there an easier way? British drug company Xenova and U.S.-based Nabi Biopharmaceuticals are testing nicotine “vaccines” that may block the chemical’s ability to create pleasurable feelings in the brain. But even if the treatments prove successful, the companies say it will take at least four years before the vaccines reach the market. If you’ve been smoking for a long time already, what makes you so sure you’ll live that long?
May 25th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
it’s all mind of matter… working out is very good… give it about two weeks with out smoking at all and you should be alright… you have to want to quite in order to stay off… it’s all in your head you have to be stronger then the cig, just stick with it and i’m sure you will be fine… plus you will smell, and breath a whole lot better once you stay off… good luck!!!
May 26th, 2008 at 3:24 am
You only feel stressed until you smoke another one. Gets rid of your stress, just like that!
May 28th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
yeah that one cig probably really really matters in terms of cravings and withdrawal symptoms. you need to draw a sharp line.
i suspect that posture ‘imbalance’ can dramatically increase cravings. add a sensible yoga routine to your exercise. you might wanna take a vitamin.
your method sounds fine though, just make sure you get to zero cigarettes in a reasonable amount of time. you can do it in a few months, right?
i think a tradition like a Christmas smoke or a New Year’s Day smoke would be awesome but I can’t break my streak. it’s been too many years since i’ve lit up.
May 30th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
The “pins and needles” leaves after about 5 days. Then it’s just a matter of walking through the cravings for about a month.
May 31st, 2008 at 5:09 pm
I am 46 years old and have been smoking for 36 of those years. I am very sick from it. I have emphysema and c.o.p.d. I have tried to quit several times without success. Once I actually quit for 3 wks. I felt like I could bite the head off a nail. I was so nervous, irritable, and just plain mean. People actually begged me to start smoking again. I pray that you succeed. You don’t want to end up dieing like me. I don’t have very many years left. I hope this is enough encouragement to help you, and keep you from starting back up. Do not even smoke 1 cig. That’s how I started back up. Good luck! My prayers are with you. You can ask your doctor for help with the nervousness.Chew on straws, chew gum, eat hard candy, whatever it takes.
June 1st, 2008 at 11:22 am
Yes, it does matter. The sooner you get your body clean of the nicotine then the sooner you will feel better. When i quit it was the third day with out a cig that i felt better, but i did not smoke any. Good luck, i know how hard it is. Stay strong
June 4th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
I’m on day 107 of not smoking. My advice would be to not give in to that one cigarette a day. Get rid of any you have left in the house, too. It’s too tempting to have them around. Chew gum, use a squishy squeeze stress ball, or take up a hobby that keeps your hands occupied. An urge typically lasts only thirty seconds, so when you get an urge to smoke, keep reminding yourself you only have to get through THIRTY SECONDS, and the urge will be gone.
June 5th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
I will not go into a dissertation that I cut and pasted from some website. I see someone already did that. AND pasted it twice!
I will tell you that I successfully quit for three years, only to share a cigarette at a party and within a week or two I had worked my way back into the habit.
Then quit for a year, and thought maybe a cigar on the golf course would be okay…………then a cigar every day or two, then daily, then smoking them like cigarettes! Then back to the cigarettes (for 3 more years!) because they were cheaper!
Don’t despair, I have now been off them (again!) for over a year, and I simply know that it takes very little to “reacquaint” your body to the habit!
The exercise is a great help, keep it up. But I think, at least in my experience, that if you keep burning a few ***** periodically, it simply lengthens the time until you are truly free from the addiction.
How long is that? Ask most ex-smokers that question and your answer is almost always “I’ll let you know when it happens”. It may never go away, but I call it a success if I go two or three days without thinking about one. Luckily, it passes more quickly all the time………
June 7th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
Yes, even one cigarette matters when you’re trying to quit.
There are several physical effects that you must overcome when quitting smoking. First, there’s the nicotine addiction. Second, smoking has damped your metabolism by putting carbon monoxide in your blood.
Over time, the carbon monoxide leaves your blood…but it takes a while. Until it’s gone, the damped metabolism might make you feel depressed and in need of some nicotine to give you a temporary lift. But if you smoke a cigarette to get the nicotine, the addiction and the carbon monoxide levels go back to where they were to begin with, before you started to quit.
So cold turkey. Half-measures do not lead to success.
June 9th, 2008 at 6:41 am
I feel for you! Four days of not smoking feels absolutely awful. However, the longer you go, the better you feel. You may feel like you want to rip people’s eyeballs out with your teeth right now, but soon you might just reflexively reach for that pack of cigs and get annoyed that you don’t smoke.
The correct way is whatever way you feel is right for you and helps you achieve your goal – to quit smoking. Some people feel that continuing with nicotine replacement (or a sneaky cig every now and then) prolongs the withdraw. Other people feel that cold turkey is just too likely to end in homicide and opt for a different approach. I’ve heard of all sorts – quitting on holiday because you’re away from temptation, cutting down until you stop, timing your cigs until you ween yourself down to none, the patch, the pill, the gum, the inhaler, the lollipop…there are loads of ways to do it and none of them are easy. There are lot’s of incentives too – saving the money to treat yourself etc…
The nervousness and stress should lessen considerably after about two weeks. After about three months, you have long periods in the day when cigarettes don’t even enter thoughts at all. The best thing is – it gets better and easier the longer you stay away from them.