“SMOKING KILLS!!!” – How many times have you read this? A hundred, a thousand?
TV commercials, cinema intervals and the ironic part on your cigarette pack!
Yet, the question remains – Are you still smoking?
99% chances are that you have tried and tried and tried, but still, you light your cigarette every time you face life’s pressures! The constant strain of work-life, the mounting pressure of family, the cost; everything creates a void in the mind that gets plagued by inner demons probing an individual to keep on smoking!
The Excuse? Release the mental pressure and resistance!
Addiction – When your mind grows weak
It is a known fact that the nicotine in a cigarette is highly addictive. And perhaps, that is why smoking transforms from habit to addiction.
Often, people also confuse smoking as a habit and smoking as an addiction. To dissipate this confusion, here are a few questions people can ask themselves to understand whether they are addicted or not:
1. Do you smoke in the first hour of the morning? Is your daily smoking count more than 20?
2. Sometimes when you are without a smoke, do you have a nagging urge to smoke at that moment?
3. Does it prove painful to stop smoking at a stretch of time?
4. Even when sick in bed, do you have the constant urge to smoke?
To decide to quit smoking you need answers to these questions first!
For if a person is not sure at what level his or her addiction is, then there lays no viable method to give up smoking. Addiction stops a person from achieving his desired goals or dreams in life. It is then when your mind grows weak.
Who probes the Mind?
The human mind’s subconscious is a tricky entity to handle! Consciously, a man may try to quit smoking daily, but his subconscious mind refuses to act against its own will. It does not want to bend and lets one’s inner demons feed on one’s weakness. Psychologists call this, “the manipulation of your conscious mind’s freedom”. In other words, it is an argument of your conscious and subconscious minds, practically a war!
Losing control while seeing others smoke is a common statement made by smoke addicts. As they take each puff, a rush of pleasure takes over their mind and thus, they lose their willpower quite easily. Now, giving power to a petty thing like a cigarette doesn’t sound right, does it? The lack of willpower over such a tiny thing may seem pretty absurd, but it’s true. Many even stop smoking, but soon again, a sudden relapse occurs; all because of the one word – ADDICTION!
Dilemma – A Mind Drama of Emotions
“I know, I should quit.”
“I will quit smoking from today!”
“I have got to stop smoking.”
How many times have these voices shouted in your mind? Each and every day, a new resolution and each and every day, one failed attempt!
Recent findings state that the inability to fulfil such resolutions comes from the belief that there lies some unknown force in your mind which has full control over you. As a result, a kind of self-defeat attitude takes over which the smoker admits.
However, truth be told, their euphoria is quite short-lived as soon anxiety, irritability and utter depression come rushing to their minds. The mind is in a constant clash between whether to give up smoking and continue with this old habit!
Let’s explain the sheer euphoric feeling at first!
A bit of biology info here – When a person inhales smoke from a cigarette, a concentrated Nicotine dose enters his bloodstream that soon enters the brain. As a result, the brain responds and sends a signal to the adrenaline glands raising blood pressure, heart rate and respiration.
Nicotine,
Activates brain pathways which control feelings of pleasure.
Increases neurotransmitter dopamine level producing euphoric feelings.
Each puff achieves to reinforce this ecstatic emotion in the human mind.
As this first phase of euphoria passes, severe mood swings take place leaving the mind completely drained. Owing to the myriad shuffling of negative emotions, smoke addicts go through turmoil like:
Anxiety, Depression and More…
Sigmund Freud had once said, “Anxiety roots from unfulfilled desires”. The underlying void or deficiency of the human mind leads to substance abuse. Soon, when it goes out of control, a constant paranoia or hyper anxiety develops. On a biological level, anxiety and irritability both come when the body ejects nicotine. The sense of euphoria fades only to leave an emotional dependency on the drug.
Biochemical enslavement also starts. Emotions swing the opposite way when smokers withdraw their puffs. The nicotine withdrawal makes them anxious and irritable leading to ultimate depression. They do not get to sleep much, start to eat more so that their craving for the smoke gets compensated and soon a craving for the next cig comes rushing. Such a dilemma can last for months when any chronic smoker plans to quit smoking.
