Article Source: msnbc.com
from:msnbc.comSmokers often say they need a cigarette to calm their nerves, but a new study suggests that after a person kicks the habit, chronic stress levels may go down.
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If I had survived a year after being diagnosed with a heart disease, I'd be less stressed too. You don't stress over so many little things after facing a life threatening situation either.
Again, who paid for this study?
I agree with Allen 100 percent!
You pretty much are told that you have to quit smoking or die of heart disease, and you manage to quit smoking for a whole year! I'd be thrilled!
The way this study is presented is very misleading. It tries to portray that smoking increases stress. This is such a stretch and misconstuction of a specific set of data.
If you are a smoker, and you are stressed, many smokers will tell you that smoking calms them. If you are a smoker and are stressed and don't/can't smoke, you will likely be more stressed.
If you are a smoker and succeed in quitting, good for you! You will likely gain comfort in the knowledge that you are no longer damaging yourself by smoking. However, you no longer have the "instant" stress relief from smoking a cigarette when you get stressed out.
This article is attempting to say that smoking causes you more stress than not smoking, based on the responses of a group of people that basically need to quit smoking or die, when this article should have said something like ...
"The long term effects of smoking can lead to stress if a smoker is diagnosed with heart disease later in life."
Duh!
I think you missed the point of this article, it's speaking about long term, chronic, median levels of stress.
I smoked for 10 years and quit last year, and I can truly say my stress level has not only dropped, but leveled off instead of having the constant roller coaster stress peaks described in the article.
You're not constantly thinking about when/how to take your next smoke break, if you can smoke in so and so's car, if this place sells smokes, if you're allowed to smoke here, etc. It really is a big weight off your chest.
Other studies have also shown a drop in borderline manic depressives and depression/anxiety in people after they've quit smoking, excluding the first couple months, which are a b!tch.
I smoked for many, many years, under all sorts of pressure I finally quit 3 years ago. Let me put some lies to bed here & now.
1: Your food tastes better (Crap it does, nothing tastes good anymore)
2: Your breathing will improve (Nope, wrong again, in fact since quitting I have had more respiratory illness then ever I did before)
3: You'll feel better (than what? I am now an aggressive, miserable SOB)
4: You'll be better off (except with all the extra illnesses I have a huge drug bill I never had before: Ever)
5: The 40 lbs you have put on will come off...soon (BS)
6: You will enjoy exercise (What!!)
And as for all the No smoking commercials; all it make me do is want to start again.
So I don't leave my desk so often, but most non smokers I know seem to spend a lot of time wondering the floors of this tower.
I also have lost a bunch of "smoke Buddies" whom I never see anymore, & if I do see them in passing I am treated as a turncoat.
Believe me giving up smoking is an awful experience, especially as I didn't want to in the first place. Pressure from the "nice people" who don't smoke, the medical profession who seem to me to be feathering their nests.
So...In regard to 3 above, bugger off & leave me alone
previously posted: Wed May 12, 2010 8:59 AM CDT
Phil, it sounds like you've already done too much damage to yourself to start reversing it. Either that, or you havent been smoke-free for a long enough time.
After quiting after 10 years of smoking, I noticed a big difference in the taste of food about 2,3 weeks into it. I also got back about 50% of my sense of smell. Subtle things like cut grass, the neighbor grilling, the smell of veggies in the garden, all things that I probably wouldnt have noticed if I kept smoking.
My stamina in the day to day gym routine improved (your blood has more oxygen) and I wasn't constantly out of breathe.
The reason you're getting sick now is because your lungs are expelling the decades of tar and phlegm that have built up in them, and yes, they are more sensitive now. Hopefully your damage is still reversible.
i also smoked for many years, Phil-over 45 to be exact. I couldn't quit cold-turkey...both parents smoked since they were teenagers, both contracted lung cancer and one passed away (my dad is a 15 year cancer survivor). The risk of getting cancer under these circumstances, is higher than under any other circumstance. What I did, and I've mentioned this before on these boards, was go with an electronic cigarette-no tar, not toxins, the nicotene is a synthetic, 'food additive' type of nicotene (no nicotene has ever been assigned to a carcinogen group, by the way). The next evening (10 months ago), I had my last real cigarette..a Winston, to be exact.
I do breathe much better, no coughing or wheezing, my energy and stamina levels are as high as they were when I was in my 30's (I'm 62). Food tastes a little better, my weight has stayed consistent...no gain. I don't use the e-smoke as frequently as when I was using regular cigs. The smoking sensation is exactly the same, only with a coffee flavor substance that I purchase from the manufacturer of the electronic smoke. There are several brands of e-smokes available and I tried 2 before I settled on the one that came closer to smoking an actual cigarette. If you go to www.asmartsmoke.com, you'll see what I settled for. For those of you that want to cut down drastically or quit altogether, I would highly recommend an electronic smoking device...mine may have saved my life.
You are correct sir, these are real life savers! I would suggest them to anyone who can't quit using the patch or gum, etc.. If you love to smoke for the throat hit when you inhale or the physical additction of holding a smoke, the e-cig curbs these. I used Vaporking, there are a lot out there to choose from though.
Cigarettes are the number one killer of people. Why is this drug legal?
The Government makes tons of money, in taxes, on them. They're not banned like many drugs because they don't alter behavior. Tobacco lobyists are constantly pressing Congressmen and Senators. If smoking wasn't as addictive as it is, I suspect that would have probably have been banned several years ago.
So the article says the stress that "these darn cigarettes are going to kill me" goes away after you quit smoking?
Brilliant. I quit years ago but this article make me want to go cut the filters of a carton of marlboros and smoke all of them this afternoon.
Yeah, I'm a little confused about the 'less stress' bit. I know that when I did smoke, it soothed things to a point but stress comes in many different forms that can't be controlled by just quitting smoking. Breathing excercises, especially for those who have smoked and quit, are a lot easier to accomplish and deep breathing excercises, from my standpoint, do relieve some types of stress.
I also heard if you quit smoking your chances of hitting the lottery increase, you'll lose 50 lbs., marry a celebrity, be cured of about 500 different diseases, never suffer from erectile dysfunction, regrow hair if you're bald, and our national healthcare costs will be cut in half and with the savings we can offer free healthcare to our illegal immigrants. Amazing what a couple million dollars spent on the right study will do. Christ, enough already, smoking isn't good for you, we got the message a long time ago and, if we forget, there's a reminder on the side of the package. I wonder how much money is wasted on studies to come to the same conclusion over and over and over again.
Is there a claim, no matter how stupid or outrageous, that the anti-smoking fascists won't make?
These studies are bogus. Plain and simple.
This study is seriously flawed and set up to show a decrease in stress levels.
LOOK at when they took the initial stress level.........while the patient was in the hospital with their heart disease. At that point they had an abnormally high level of stress.
FLAWED.........VERY FLAWED STUDY!!!