Why is Quitting Smoking so Difficult?
Nicotine is a powerful drug that is contained in tobacco. When you smoke, your body builds up a nicotine tolerance level. When your nicotine level drops below your tolerance level, you will want to smoke because your body starts to crave nicotine.
Nicotine fulfills many needs. It stimulates and energizes, and it also relaxes. While these are opposite reactions, you learn how to achieve either effect by the way you drag on the cigarette. You may find that if you are hungry, smoking fills your need for food. If you are angry, sad, frustrated, or lonely it soothes you. Smoking a cigarette has relieved physical pain.
This is why some people gain weight when they quit smoking. When you feel angry, smoking can soothe you and calm you down. Smoking has even been known to relieve physical pain. Some people use food as a reward and some people use smoking to reward themselves for an achievement. From what we’ve talked about, smoking sounds like some sort of miracle cure.
The reason why nicotine works so well is because of how fast it travels to your brain through your blood stream. With one drag of your cigarette, the smoke fills your lungs and is absorbed into your blood stream. The nicotine travels to your brain and will fulfill the feeling that you seek. However, when you smoke your heart start working faster and your arteries constrict.
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.