Does stress cause one to smoke more? The husband tells me I am full of it- I say it does?

Question

Would like a health professional to answer this, so I can send the answer to the huband.
(I notice that I do smoke more when under stress- that is why I am asking this question)

Answer 1

Smoking is a choice, there is no medical proof that you cannot control your smoking due to stress. However, smoking does affect the pleasure center in your brain and this is likely why you go for a cigarette to calm yourself when stressed.

Here's a pretty good article I found about it, if you care to read more. It's very informative and has parts in it regarding why you'd smoke more during stressful times:

http://www.smokefree.gov/pubs/FFree6.pdf

Answer 2

To the person who claims to have emphysema and COPD, I doubt that. You sound like a drama queen to the hilt. Smoking IS a choice. No one forced you to take the first puff and you were not addicted until you made the choice to smoke. Now that you've made your choice to do something stupid, you're stuck with it because your brain became addicted. Don't try to play a victim role here, this is not the 50's where people aren't aware of what smoking can do to your health. I have a dear friend who I lost due to his addiction to cigarettes, he got lung cancer. If the health issues aren't enough to wake you up and make you stop relying on cigarettes as a crutch, nothing will.

Answer 3

I smoke under stress and I am stressed all the time. I can quit but I choose to smoke because it makes me feel better. It's the only comfort I can get under my situations. It's like a security blanket, although, it's awful that it has to be a cigarette.

Answer 4

I'm not a health pofessional, but I did saty at aQuality Inn lastnight.

Smoking is a habit. When you first sarted, it prob took one cig. to feel calm. Then you get addicted. You smoke to just keep your needs fullfilled, no calming affect, just addicted. Now you need more nicotine than you used to, to achieve the same calming affect. So, Yes. Stress will cause you to smoke more than usual.

Answer 5

Actually yes...it does...but unfortunately it has the opposite effect...nicotine makes your insulin level drastically go up and down...thus making you feel more stressed...you smoke more...insulin level more erratic...more stress...It is not a good cycle to be on. I use to smoke over 3 1/2 packs a day....wow....now that's sick!

Answer 6

Yes, simply because nicotine is a stimulant, and when you get stressed, and edgy, the nicotine takes the edge off, and mellows you out.
Have you ever said "I need a cigarette" and felt calmer after smoking one?

Also, your body develops a craving for smoking, and when you don't give into to that craving, your body rebels, puts you on edge, stresses you out, so you give into that craving, and give your body what it wants.....a ciggy.

Answer 7

I'm not a health professional. I'm a "quit" smoker. I didn't quit until I had emphysema and COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). As to one person who answered "I choose to smoke, I can quit any time," she's so full of it. Nicotine is an addition, harder to stop than many hard drugs. I wish the smokers luck, and God Speed on their journey to high blood pressure, lung disease or cancer, arterial blockages, etc. Never happen to you? Yeah, right.

Answer 8

Nicotine causes you to smoke more.
Your addiction causes you to smoke more - because you choose to smoke. You are choosing your addiction.
Don't blame it on your husband, and don't blame it on anyone other than yourself. You have choices in life, and perhaps you are choosing how you want to die. Lung cancer is very real, and very painful.
Admit that.

You can't heal something that you don't admit.

Everyone has stress. We just choose other alternatives, like writing a "what's bugging me list" and tearing it up, and going for a walk, or talking to a friend who makes us laugh.

GOD bless us one and all, always.
MBA-Boston Univ.

Answer 9

At times yes, stress does cause me to smoke more.
Its a relaxation thing.

Answer 10

Swami Sukhabodhananda
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One youngster comes to me very depressed and asks this question "Why is God creating so many difficulties for us? How to handle stress?" I tell this youngster to reflect on this beautiful story:

A man goes to a shop, picks up a beautiful cup and says "my god this cup is so beautiful" and suddenly the cup starts talking to the man. The cup starts saying "O man, I am beautiful right now, but what was the state of my being before the pot-maker made me a beautiful pot?

Before I was sheer mud and the pot-maker pulled me out of the mud from the mother earth and I felt why that pot-maker is so cruel, he has separated me from mother earth. I felt a tremendous pain. And the pot-maker said, "Just wait." Then he put me and churned me, when I was churned I felt so giddy, so painful, so stressful, I asked the pot-maker "Why are you so cruel?" the pot-maker said, "Just wait." Then he put me into a oven and heated me up, I felt completely burnt. There was tremendous pain and I asked the pot-maker "Why are you so cruel?" and the pot-maker said, "Just wait."

Then he poured hot paint on me and I felt the fume and the pain, I again asked the pot-maker "Why are you so cruel?" and the pot-maker said, "Just wait." Then again he put me into an oven and heated it to make me more strong, I felt life is so painful hence pleaded the pot-maker and the pot-maker said, "Just wait." And after that the pot-maker took me to the mirror and said, "Now look at yourself". And surprisingly I found myself so beautiful.

When god gives us lot of trouble, it appears god is very cruel but we need patience and we have to wait. When bad things happen to good people, they become better and not bitter.

So all difficulties are part of a cosmic design to make us really beautiful. We need patience, we need understanding, we need the commitment to go through in a very calm and wise way. So all difficulties are not to tumble us but to humble us.

With this understanding, let us not be against difficulty. Understand difficulty is a part of a purifying process. A purifying process at present which we cannot understand and hence we need faith and we need trust.

Let us understand how to handle stress with this background. You can be affected by stress from two angles. There is an internal stress and there is an external stress. Nobody can avoid stress; one has to only manage stress. Managing stress can be internal and also external.

The internal stress is; your thoughts can create stress, your values can create stress, and your beliefs can create stress, meaning thereby your stress is coming from your mind more from the outer world. Many people suffer not from heart attack - they suffer from thought-attack.

For example, when somebody says you are an idiot, we get so hurt, we get so victimised. My boss has called me an idiot and I am feeling tremendous pain. Now where does this stress come from? If my boss has called me an idiot, I have to ask myself "am I an idiot"?

If I am an idiot nothing to be upset about; and if I am not an idiot, then also nothing to be upset about! It is the perception of the boss. But why do we suffer from that stress? I suffer not because my boss has called me an idiot but because of the thought-attack.

I may say the boss has called me an idiot; therefore I am suffering? It is true that the words are unpleasant. But what hurts is the interpretation of the unpleasant word. The thought in me interprets. That is pain and therefore it becomes pain. Much of our stress is our mind interpreting it as pain. So we suffer from thought-attack more than heart attack.