Smoking effects | How to quit smoking ?
Nicotine affects the brain, giving a relaxing, enjoyable sensation that makes quitting challenging. However, smoking tobacco increases the risk of cancer, stroke, heart attack, lung disease, and other health problems.
Nicotine replacements and lifestyle changes can assist in how to quit smoking
Smoking affects your body in many ways, impacting skin, nails, eyes, nose, mouth, lungs, heart, blood vessels, brain, and bones.
Smoking effects can harm every part of your body, even down to your DNA. However, quitting is tough because of its impact on your brain.
What is smoking?
Smoking involves inhaling and exhaling smoke from burning plant material rolled into a wrapper, like a cigarette. You light one end and draw smoke into your mouth from the other end.
This smoke travels down your airways, reaching your lungs, bloodstream, brain, and other organs.
This article mainly discusses smoking tobacco cigarettes, but you can also use cigars, pipes, marijuana (weed/pot), or herbal cigarettes.
Composition of a cigarette
Commercially manufactured cigarettes consist of:
- The plant material in tobacco cigarettes consists of dried and processed leaf stems from the tobacco plant (Nicotiana tabacum).
- A wrapper for rolling paper
- (Cigarette butt filter): The filter catches larger particles of partially burned tobacco as the smoke passes through it into your mouth.
What makes people start smoking?
People smoke because they enjoy it. However, smoking effects on the body are harmful, and quitting is difficult once you start
. This challenge stems from the brain's nicotine cravings, causing discomfort without it. Nicotine triggers chemical release in your brain, enhancing your mood.
Smoking effects might leave you feeling:
- Relaxed and calm
- Buzzed and energized
- Better able to concentrate on tasks
Smoking effects also make it a social activity and part of daily routines, similar to having morning coffee. You may smoke for enjoyment, to relax before social situations, or to concentrate on tasks. Some enjoy the flavor or simply holding a cigarette.
How does smoking affect your body?
Smoking effects everything from your skin and nails to your tissues, organs, and even your DNA functioning.
The impact on your body begins the instant you light a cigarette. Thousands of chemicals released from burning tobacco begin causing harm even before you take a puff.
You ignite the cigarette and bring it to your lips. When you light a cigarette, it releases nicotine and forms tar, which is tobacco residue.
As you hold the cigarette to your mouth, tar can stain your nails. The smoke also dries and irritates your skin, making wrinkles more pronounced.
Breathing in smoke through your nose harms nerve endings, gradually diminishing your ability to smell. You draw cigarette smoke into your mouth.
When you smoke a cigarette, the smoke passes through a filter. While this filter blocks larger particles, tar, nicotine, and other chemicals still reach your mouth.
The tar can discolor your teeth, coat your gums and tongue, harm your tooth enamel, and increase the risk of tooth decay and gum disease.
It also diminishes your ability to enjoy the flavors of your favorite foods.
Smoke passes through your airways
As tar travels to your lungs, it coats your throat and vocal cords, potentially causing you to cough. Moving through your airways, tar and hydrogen cyanide, a toxic gas, can immobilize your cilia.
These hair-like strands, similar to broom bristles, help trap and remove germs and harmful particles from your lungs.
When damaged, respiratory infections become more likely. When you inhale smoke, it reaches your lungs and enters your bloodstream.
When smoke reaches your lungs, it enters the small air sacs called alveoli and causes damage. This damage can lead to emphysema, a type of COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease).
Smoke's carbon monoxide then travels into your bloodstream, pushing oxygen out of your red blood cells and depriving your cells and tissues of oxygen.
This shortage can cause shortness of breath. Your cells alert your body about the need for more oxygen, leading to inflammation and mucus production, which makes breathing even more difficult.
As nicotine moves through your bloodstream, it harms the lining of your blood vessels. This causes them to thicken and narrow, leading to blood cells sticking to the vessel walls, increasing the risk of blood clots, heart attack, and stroke. For individuals with penises, reduced circulation may cause erectile dysfunction.
Chemicals travel through your bloodstream to the rest of your body.
After entering your bloodstream, the chemicals from cigarette smoke spread throughout your body and harm your:
- Bones.
- Eyes.
- Immune system.
- Hormones.
Nicotine travels to your brain
Nicotine travels from your blood to your brain, triggering receptors that release dopamine, adrenaline, endorphins, serotonin, and other "feel-good" signals. This causes the nicotine "buzz," akin to pressing buttons for relaxation, contentment, or energy, all just seconds after inhaling that initial puff of smoke.
You experience withdrawal symptoms. The liver breaks down nicotine, which then exits the body through urine in a few hours after smoking a cigarette. The absence of this buzz triggers cravings, pushing you toward another cigarette.
Without it, withdrawal symptoms such as anxiety, depression, restlessness, anger, and insomnia may occur. Over time, the body builds tolerance to nicotine, requiring increasingly larger amounts to achieve the desired effect, which results in nicotine dependence.
If you’re pregnant, it reaches the fetus. Constricted blood vessels in the placenta and umbilical cord limit blood flow to the fetus, carrying carbon monoxide, nicotine, and other harmful chemicals. This may deprive the fetus of oxygen and harm its DNA.
Pregnant individuals who smoke face a higher risk of miscarriage. Babies born to smokers may experience low birth weight, heart and lung problems, and developmental delays.
What are the health impacts of smoking effects?
Smoking effects are most commonly linked to lung cancer, but it can also cause or heighten the risk for various health conditions throughout the body. These include:
- Cancer.
- Lung diseases, such as COPD, tuberculosis, asthma, and pulmonary fibrosis.
- Heart and vascular disease can result in heart attack, stroke, or heart failure.
- Eye diseases include cataracts, macular degeneration, vision loss, and blindness.
- Conditions present at birth, such as low birth weight and birth defects, can occur in babies born to individuals who smoked during pregnancy.
- Miscarriage
- Type 2 diabetes
- Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and various other autoimmune disorders
- Erectile dysfunction
- Fertility issues
- Premature aging
Secondhand smoke, inhaled from someone smoking nearby, poses significant health risks.
Smoking and cancer
Smoking effects include an increased risk of various cancers. Evidence suggests that individuals who smoke during cancer treatment may experience poorer outcomes, have a reduced response to treatment, and face a higher likelihood of recurrence.
Smoking can heighten your risk for:
- Acute myeloid leukemia
- Bladder cancer
- Cervical cancer
- Colorectal cancer
- Esophageal cancer
- Kidney cancer
- Cancer of the larynx and other throat-related cancers
- Liver cancer
- Lung cancer
- Oral cancer
- Pancreatic cancer
- Stomach cancer
Do lungs recover after smoking?
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Yes, your lungs and airways begin to recover when you quit smoking. Inflammation and mucus production decrease within weeks, and cilia regenerate in a few months.
Indeed, many body systems start to heal after you learn how to quit smoking. The time it takes varies based on the duration and impact of smoking effects on your lungs. Certain problems, such as infertility, may show quick improvement.
However, some damage, like COPD and pulmonary fibrosis, is permanent. If you quit smoking for several years, your risk of cancer and other health issues decreases, potentially matching the level of a non-smoker.
How can I quit smoking?
To quit smoking, various tools are available. You may require a mix of methods before discovering what suits you best. If one strategy fails, you might need to switch tactics.
Consider these options:
- Cold turkey
- Nicotine replacement therapy
- A healthcare provider might prescribe medications like bupropion or varenicline to help manage withdrawal symptoms and cravings.
- Lifestyle changes
How can I care for myself if I smoke?
It's well-known that the best way to take care of yourself if you smoke is to quit smoking. During your journey to quit, supporting your body with exercise, nutritious foods, and plenty of water can aid healing.
Whether you're a current or former smoker, consult your healthcare provider about routine lung cancer screenings, as they can detect cancer early and potentially save your life.