How to quit smoking? This is a difficult answer for most. Quitting smoking is a step by step process and you need to start from the basics. Tobacco contains an addictive substance called nicotine. When you smoke for a long amount of time, your body gets accustomed to a certain amount of nicotine in your bloodstream. Once this level drops below your threshold, your body goes into a “craving mode” and you will want to smoke another cigarette.
There are many effects of nicotine. Nicotine makes you feel stimulated, energized and it also can calm you down. This might confuse some as the feelings noted are opposites of each other. However, you can change the affect on your body by the way you drag on a cigarette. If you feel hungry, you can smoke to make you feel full. Smoking is a good way to stop hunger cravings.
You might have also experienced that you can concentrate harder and for longer amounts of time after smoking. Some people smoke because they are bored. All of these effects can be achieved through nicotine. However, there are many negative affects to smoking.
The reason why you might feel all of these feeling are because nicotine can travel to your brain at a rapid rate. Even from one puff of smoke, you chemicals that are released into your blood stream will activate your brain to give you the effect that you want. However, there are harmful effects to smoking. Your heart is working harder, your blood pressure increase and your arteries constrict. Once you become dependent on this drug, you will smoke more and more to get the feeling that you desire.
Nicotine cravings are so powerful that it might control your life. Have you been on vacation and have decided to go somewhere else because smoking was not allowed? How about the time you went out into a snowstorm to buy a pack of cigarettes. Your cravings can start to control your life even if you don’t know it.
Now that you know how powerful nicotine is, you can start to learn how to quit smoking. Quitting cold turkey is very hard and you will experience nicotine withdrawal. Nicotine therapy is the way quit smoking as quitting cold turkey will cause you to start smoking again. Many people deal with nicotine withdrawal by keeping themselves busy by finding healthy alternatives to smoking.