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Quitting is Hard, Not Quitting is Harder

Quitting smoking is hard because smokers rely on tobacco products, both physically and emotionally. The physical addiction is down to nicotine, which is believed to have a level of addictiveness on a par with heroin.

Nicotine, once in the system can take several days to leave the body after Quitting smoking. When nicotine is inhaled it travels in the blood and affects the heart, brain, hormones and metabolism – no wonder people miss it so much when attempting to give up.

Nicotine causes pleasant sensations in a smoker which makes them want to smoke again, and over time the body increases its tolerance to the drug which means that a minimum amount of cigarettes need to be smoked in order to keep levels up.

Withdrawal symptoms after stopping smoking start a few hours after the last cigarette has been smoked and become very apparent after a couple of days of abstinence.

Symptoms include extreme irritability, loss of concentration, tiredness, increased appetite, depression and feelings of anxiety. The withdrawal symptoms are a physical reaction to a lack of nicotine in the body. Just as hard to cope with however is the emotional emptiness experienced when cigarettes are taken away – especially for people who have smoked for a long number of years.

Quitting smoking is one of the hardest things a person may have to do – but failure to do so will inevitably lead to them suffering from far worse experiences in the future. The unpleasantness of giving up smoking is nothing compared to being told you have developed an incurable disease later in life.