How Does Smoking Cigarettes Relieve Our Pain

For many a long term smoker - the 'habit' has become synonymous with relief. When we first started smoking, cigarettes made us look 'mature' and helped us fit in. For some of us, decades passed and we learned to associate them with reducing our stress, making us feel better, curbing our appetites, and just plain healing us mentally.

Then science came, bringing the truth about how they affect our physical health. So ok, now we know the ads from the early 20th century are false – they don't help us run faster by increasing oxygen intake (duh). But we still feel better after smoking. And with the state of medical care today, who wants to believe a doctor who perhaps makes thousands, even millions from corporate pharmacology when they tell us - "Smoking may be hazardous for your health".

And unfortunately, none of this has helped your situation. You still smoke, still depend on cigarettes to get through another day. Your personal situation may be stressful, very stressful in fact. It may seem impossible to control, let alone improve. And we all need some way of coping with this, right?

Absolutely. I think there are more than a few of us that can relate to very stressful, difficult situations. Having a method to cope is mandatory in these settings, you just can't bare the weight of the world on your shoulders without help – at least being able to help yourself. However, the media, greedy corporations & politicians, systems with good intentions gone wrong (public school anyone?), and perhaps personal disasters in our own lives have grossly mislead you.. me.. all of us.

Because the reality is cigarettes offer a very poor method for coping with our very real, very difficult problems. We don't want to believe this – but they have conditioned us into thinking they help us more than they really do. The truth? They are nothing more than a bad distraction.

The process goes something like this: Another problem has come up, or perhaps the same one just won't leave us alone. We get nervous, anxious, even angry that we haven't done anything to deserve this. We don't have many resources, so our coping methods are limited. We can't just get in our Ferrari's and drive off to the autobahn for a 6 hour drive (usually :). So we turn to an old friend. We light up, draw, and the feeling of immediate relief sets in. Our brain makes it a point to remember this, and it does very well.

Nicotine artificially spikes our blood sugar – we feel more energy. But it also replaces the anxiety we feel from our problem with its own – by stimulating our nervous system. So after a while, we start feeling more irritable, we feel increasingly lethargic, and stress sets in all over again. Only this time, its worse because of our now unbalanced blood sugar and less relaxed nervous system. Many of us simply compensate by drinking or eating – both of which calm our nervousness to an extent.

In theory it may sound find. We feel better for a while, then we eat or drink, have another smoke, everything's ok. We may even get plenty of exercise at work, have a good enough diet, perhaps even seem to be perfectly healthy. So, what's the problem?

First – using a distraction to divert stress only prevents our minds from working to resolve the problem. Cigarettes therefore prolong our real problems – making them worse and last months, maybe even years into the future.

Second – By replacing the real source for stress in our minds, cigarettes prevent us from ever becoming mentally stronger. The constant emotional cycle of smoking to feel good, withdrawal, and then repeating interrupts our brain and stops it from learning from the strong emotions caused by big problems. Sure – we understand the logical side and how we feel – but our brain will be weak in its ability to think rationally during high stress levels. So instead of thinking about possible solutions to an uncomfortable situation – we will simply end up awfulizing – thinking about how big the problem could be. This is the opposite of what we should be doing.

Third – No matter how healthy we seem to be, cigarettes are hurting us. We may not care so much at the time, but they are causing significant damage to our lungs, circulatory system, brain, and body in spite of any other healthy practices we may have. In addition, they ourselves and others around us by reducing our social network to those who are not repelled by the habit.

Please help yourself today! You can quit successfully and without suffering - learn how now at SmokingRevealed.com