Understanding The Need To Smoke
Physical dependence is when your body feels it needs nicotine.
Psychological dependence is when your brain is telling your body it needs nicotine.
Some smokers find it easy to quit while on vacation and are surprised when they start smoking again after coming back home.
The reason it is easier to quit while on vacation is that many of the things linked to smoking are not around when you're on vacation, so it's just a matter of getting through the 72 hours of physical withdrawal.
When the smoker returns home, the things that have been strongly linked with smoking are still there.
These things will bring back the urge to smoke; the smoker who went without smoking while on vacation isn't expecting this and may not be able to stop him-or herself from lighting up
Physical Dependance
When your body feels it needs nicotine.
Nicotine is the chemical in tobacco that leads to addiction. It only takes about 8 seconds from the time you take a drag on a cigarette for the nicotine to reach the reward centres in your brain. That means your brain tells your body it feels good, almost as soon as you've taken a drag and your body wants more; so it's not surprising that you do it again and again.
After three days of not smoking, there is no more nicotine in your body. After you become smoke-free, you may experience withdrawal symptoms, which are a result of not having nicotine in your system, like irritability, insomnia, headaches, and mood swings. Some of these physical symptoms may last for a few days and others can continue for up to five weeks, especially coughing with phlegm. Maybe you didn't cough a lot or at all before and it may seem like things are getting worse but, in fact, coughing up phlegm is a sign that your body is recovering.
Pshychological Dependence
When your brain is telling your body it needs nicotine.
Most smokers are also psychologically addicted to tobacco, meaning their brain thinks it needs nicotine. This part of smoking addiction is more difficult and takes longer to get over than the physical addiction because there are several steps to changing how your brain thinks.
Smoking is often linked to happy emotions or experiences, rewards, and feelings of relaxation; smoking also helps people to not feel tired or hungry. Smoking may also be linked to activities like drinking coffee or alcohol, driving to work, or getting together with friends. Basically, the longer you smoke, the more you will link things in your environment with smoking, including people, places, activities, and emotions. Each of these things can cause you to experience an urge to light up. As you move down the path to becoming smoke-free, you will need to confront each of these situations and triggers a few times without smoking to kill the power they now have over you.
Smoking may be used to deal with loneliness, anger, boredom, anxiety or stress. In order to break the link these emotions have with smoking, you will need to find other ways to handle and deal with these feelings. Having a positive talk with yourself, talking with someone about your feelings, and staying focused on achieving your goal to become smoke-free will help you manage your emotional life, and remain on the path to overcoming your addiction.
For some people, being a smoker is part of who they are. For these smokers, it may be important to change their self-image so that they go from seeing themselves as a smoker to seeing themselves as a nonsmoker. If smoking is part of who you think you are , you may want to make a change to your lifestyle or take up a new activity that helps you see yourself as a non-smoker, like becoming more physically active or starting a new sport or hobby.
You may feel like you are losing a friend when you begin to quit smoking. You may feel that cigarettes have always been there for you. They are reliable like a good friend and there for you through good times and bad.
It's worth asking yourself just how good a friend tobacco is. While there may be times when a cigarette feels good, there are probably many more times when it doesn't. The fact that you are reading this guide book says that you are at least thinking about ending your need for tobacco.
Fagerstrom Test for
Nicotine Dependence
Answer the following questions. Based on your score, you will be able to determine how much you depend on nicotine.
