Are cigarettes stress relievers?
By menzis00
@menzis00 (273)
December 11, 2011 4:44pm CST
Hello MyLotters!
When I was a kid I went out for a walk with my older cousin, and he had lit up a cigarette, so I, a curious kid as I had been, asked him why is he smoking? His answer was "because I'm under stress and cigarettes help me to chill out, they are great for calming down". So I always thought that they can help you cool down when you're under stress. But later I read somewhere that this information had been false and that in fact cigarettes raise your blood pressure and adrenaline and make you more nervous than you are before.
Years later I started smoking and well, I don't think it's actually the nicotine or cigarettes that help you calm down. It's just that, when you're nervous, you go out and smoke, and you have to mostly stop everything you're doing to smoke a cigarette, being nervous and shaking and all that can get you burned. So I think the act of smoking is the one that relieves your stress, not the cigarette ingredients.
What do you think? Do you smoke? If you smoke, does smoking help you relieve your stress? If you don't smoke, do you think cigarettes can help you when you're under stress? Write, answer, share with me your experiences and stories.
Happy MyLotting and have a nice day:)
1 person likes this
5 responses
@rencarl (620)
• Philippines
14 Dec 11
hello there.i am a nurse by profession and i do not recommend the idea of smoking as a way to relieve stress. one way to relieve stress is to do deep breathing exercises.it is proven effective and this is the principle behind the idea that smoking is thought to relieve stress.when you smoke, you do breathing in and out of smoke.this may be thought of by others that smoking indeed can relieve your stress. the truth is that it is the breathing exercise during smoking that relieves you from stress, not smoking itself.
1 person likes this
@menzis00 (273)
•
15 Dec 11
Breathing is so cool, I've trained kung fu for a few years and we learned something about meditation and deep-breathing as ways to relax and refresh yourself, and it's a cool method, it just takes so much time to learn doing it right and for it to be effective, if you're not doing it right it can actually damage you :/
@ShepherdSpy (8544)
• Omagh, Northern Ireland
12 Dec 11
I don't know about the chemical or disease causing effects of smoke inhalation on the body,or how destressing it might be,but psychologically,sucking on what is a nipple substitute can be quite soothing for most people...
@kingparker (9673)
• United States
12 Dec 11
I don't smoke at all, but my friend does. He vowed to quit million of times, but never had done it right. He continues to smoke I understood that he is under stress too, from day to day. I don't know if smoke can help me relieve those stresses I encountered, but I would rather sleep through them; which might help me refresh my brain work also. When you are stressful and exhausted, you might need to get your brain some rest.
@menzis00 (273)
•
12 Dec 11
Well, I guess everyone has it's own methods of relaxing. For instance I couldn't go to sleep if I were nervous. Firstly because I don't have the habit to sleep any other time rather than night and secondly because when I'm stressed out I just can't calm myself down enough to fall asleep, so I guess I have to use some other methods..
@louievill (28851)
• Philippines
11 Dec 11
yes it narrows down the blood vessels so it's gonna give you more stress in the long run, perhaps it's a false or pseudo stress reliever cause it takes your mind off whatever it is that's bothering you so some would say it calms you down.
@atprudente6 (673)
• Philippines
12 Dec 11
Smoking does not stop human stress, rather, i gives stress to our lungs and it damages our body.
