Debunked: 4 myths about quitting smoking
It’s not a newsflash; we all know the perils of smoking and how it impacts our overall health.
Despite this, more than a billion of us still turn to cigarettes on a daily basis. Want some more damning statistics? Smoking is understood to cause millions of deaths, each and every year.
It’s meant that there has been a huge emphasis on quitting over the last couple of decades. This started with nicotine patches and has now progressed to the emergence of shops which sell e-liquid supplies.
In and amongst all of these aids is a lot of bad advice. For the purposes of today we are going to look at some of this, and focus on the big myths surrounding those of you who are looking to quit.
“Smoking will reduce your stress levels”
OK, this first myth isn’t directly about quitting itself, but it will hopefully change your perception of smoking and what it does to your stress levels.
Contrary to popular belief, smoking is something that actually increases your stress levels. This is because of the withdrawal periods; when your body is lacking nicotine, it goes into a state of stress. The calming philosophy actually arises because of the fact that you are tackling your withdrawal craving at the time.
“It’s too late to quit”
As we all know, every day that you smoke a cigarette you are doing harm to your body. However, all is certainly not lost, and this can be emphasized through some powerful statistics.
For example, it had been found that if a 50-year-old was to quit smoking, the chances of them dying in the next fifteen years suddenly decreases by 50%.
The risks for each condition which can be impacted by smoking gradually drop, meaning that any decision to quit made at any time can make the world of difference.
“Nicotine is the main problem when smoking”
From a health perspective, this isn’t actually true. This is one of the reasons why e-cigarettes are preached by so many quarters; while they can contain nicotine, they don’t contain all of the other nasty chemicals which tend to cause all of the health issues which are associated with cigarettes.
So, what are these chemicals? Unfortunately, there’s a list of more than 7,000, so for the purposes of today’s article we won’t be diving into them. To give some context to these chemicals, it’s thought that around seventy can cause cancer though.
“Using multiple nicotine replacement therapies is dangerous”
This almost links to the previous point we made, surrounding the real dangers about nicotine.
Well, contrary to popular belief, it’s not unsafe to use multiple NRTs in your battle against cigarettes. Whether it’s combining nicotine patches and e-cigarettes or a completely different mix, it’s not going to harm your body. There are safe limits of consumption in relation to nicotine, but any aid is going to comfortably fall within these. If you do, by the off-chance, go beyond these limits the main side effects are likely to be vomiting and nausea.