Quit and manage your stress
THE STRESS-FREE WAY TO STOP SMOKING.

• The thought of quitting scares you?
• No willpower to stop smoking
• It’s my choice to continue smoking
• I’ve got it under control
• I can’t stop
• They’ll find a vaccine against smoking
• Everyone I know smokes
• Smoking is social
• It didn’t kill my grandfather
• It’s not as bad as they say
• There are worse things than smoking
• If it was so bad, the government would make it illegal
• I smoke all-natural cigarettes
• Everyone smokes
• You have to die somehow...
• Tips to stop smoking
• Smoking and nicotine
• Quit without gaining weight
• Quit and manage your stress
• Quitting and physical activity
• Quitting and health benefits
• Quitting and withdrawal symptoms
• Failures and relapses
• The steps of the stop-smoking method

THE STRESS-FREE WAY TO STOP SMOKING

Smoking to ease stress really isn’t the right approach?

Stress, that famous stress! And the false impression that smoking eases your stress!

But... Nothing could be further from the truth...

Not only does nicotine quickly cause addiction (see Smoking and Nicotine), but it also triggers some physical reactions, including a sense of relief.

But this is a false relief – the relief you feel when you give your brain the nicotine fix it needs

The brain communicates its need for nicotine via a series of messages that create tension and other withdrawal symptoms.  These symptoms occur naturally, at regular intervals, whenever nicotine is eliminated by your body and you fail to provide another “fix”.  Because human beings, like all other living creatures, are hard-wired to avoid pain, you then have to find a way to light up a cigarette so you can ease the stress.

This is what that sense of relaxation smokers talk about really is. It’s a vicious circle created by your nicotine addiction.

So, as long as you continue smoking, you feed the vicious circle of withdrawal, stress, relief, withdrawal… However, all is not lost. You can break the vicious circle by adopting some of the strategies offered on this site.

Smoking to ease stress?  There’s no need!

Besides the sense of relief brought on by an intake of nicotine, the following aspects also contribute to that sense of relaxation and well-being when you smoke :

• the two or three deep breaths you take when you inhale the first puffs;
• the time you allow yourself when you take a break, interrupt a routine, meet friends, etc.;
• the psychological reassurance, linked to the sense of physical well-being (caused by the nicotine-induced relief) that you feel in different situations, be they happy, sad, difficult, boring, etc.

There are many other ways of achieving the sense of comfort and gratification mentioned in point three (see the Tobacco and nicotine and Tips to quit smoking sections).

And if you think about it, you can see that you don’t need tobacco for the first two aspects.

So, smoking to ease your stress really isn’t a winning strategy at all.

To learn more about stress, check out this site :

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca