Side Effects You May Experience After Quitting Smoking
When you’re maintaining life as a former smoker, there are some surprising effects that the lack of nicotine, tobacco, and various other chemicals contained in cigarettes may have on your mind and body.
Here are some of the most notable effects of quitting smoking that former smokers may experience.
Effects on Your Body After Quitting Smoking
Within two to twelve weeks of quitting smoking, your blood circulation begins to improve.
You will also experience a notable increase in your energy due to the increase of oxygen in your body.
This improvement makes physical activity a lot more enjoyable and, in turn, lowers your risk of a heart attack.
Other notable positive after quitting smoking effects include the healing of nerve endings related to taste and smell.
After quitting, these nerve endings begin to heal at a remarkable rate.
Within just a few days of quitting, you will notice a marked improvement in your taste and smell, and food will begin to taste better than you remember.
Lastly, your immune system experiences a huge boost when quitting smoking.
Your circulation improves, oxygen levels increase, and inflammation lowers.
These improvements boost the immune system and help your body fight colds, viruses, and other illnesses.
Negative Effects of Quitting Smoking
While quitting smoking is a worthy endeavor, it is not without its difficulties.
One of the most negative after quitting smoking effects is the withdrawal symptoms that kick in within a few hours to a few days of quitting smoking.
Some of these withdrawal symptoms include headaches, dizziness, nausea, irritability, frustration, depression, and anger.
While difficult to deal with, you can expect these symptoms to go away within two to four weeks of your last cigarette.
Weight gain is another negative effect associated with quitting smoking.
Because a cigarette addiction causes an oral fixation when you’re no longer smoking you may have the urge to eat with a much greater frequency.
If you want to avoid this side effect, it’s important to have an exercise routine and diet plan in place prior to quitting.
Lastly, tingling in the hands and feet is another after quitting smoking effect you may experience.
While not common, it can be quite an alarming side effect for former smokers who are not expecting it.
Because blood vessels are constricted when smoking, they begin to open up after quitting.
This causes increased blood flow, which can initially lead to feelings of tingling in fingers and toes.
Coughing After Quitting Smoking
While quitting smoking can lessen frequent coughing fits, some former smokers may experience more coughing than ever before when they quit smoking.
While unusual, this happens because the throat and lungs are beginning to heal after being constantly irritated by the harmful chemicals contained in cigarettes.
Your body is detoxifying itself, which may result in mucus exiting your body via coughing.
Intense Cravings for Cigarettes
One of the worst after quitting smoking effects is the intense cravings for cigarettes.
Nicotine releases several different hormones into your brain when it is ingested, which your brain registers as pleasure.
The release of these hormones is how an addiction is formed.
Your brain is constantly craving the pleasurable effects of the hormones that are released by smoking.
When you are no longer providing your brain with nicotine, you will start to experience intense cravings.
In order to combat these, try keeping yourself busy.
If you’re using nicotine replacement therapy, keep your gum or lozenges on hand.
There are so many stop-smoking methods that can help you to go through these hard times.
Alternatively, try smoking herbal cigarettes.
As we mentioned previously, smoking creates an oral fixation.
This fixation can be satisfied by herbal cigarettes, which use the same muscle memory as smoking a cigarette without the nicotine entering your body.
Positive Effects of Quitting Smoking
When you quit smoking, your blood pressure lowers right away.
Your blood vessels return to their normal size, and the risks of cancers like stomach, pancreas, liver, cervix, colon, and rectum are significantly reduced.
Your risk of heart disease and stroke gradually decreases over the years until your risk is the same as those who have never smoked a cigarette.
The benefits of quitting smoking are so great it can increase your life expectancy by up to ten years.
While this is a remarkable benefit, the advantages of quitting smoking prove amazing health benefits at any age.
Improvements to Lung Health After Quitting Smoking
Your lungs are the biggest winners when you quit smoking.
Almost all of the many harmful chemicals found in cigarettes produce harmful effects to the lungs and airways.
When you stop smoking, your lungs experience almost immediate benefits.
The carbon monoxide starts to gradually leave your bloodstream and smoking side effects like shortness of breath and coughing fits typically begin to subside.
Your airways begin to heal themselves when they are no longer being constantly exposed to harmful chemicals found in cigarettes.
Quitting smoking also heals the lungs’ cilia, small hair-like structures that move mucus and bacteria to the back of the throat in order to clear the lungs.
Within nine months of quitting smoking, the cilia return to their normal function.
Improvements to Skin Health After Quitting Smoking
Smoking cigarettes can add years to your appearance.
Thankfully, the changes to your skin, teeth, and hair when smoking cigarettes can all be improved when you make the important decision to quit smoking once and for all.
Within just a few days of quitting smoking, your complexion begins to brighten as your circulation improves.
As the carbon monoxide levels in your blood drop to normal levels, you will be able to see visible improvements to your skin as oxygen and antioxidant levels increase.
As your circulation improves and your skin begins to be reintroduced to the benefits of antioxidants and nutrients being delivered to your skin, your natural glow will begin to return to your skin.
With just a few months of being cigarette-free, you’ll notice your face beginning to age backwards.
Final Thoughts
There are countless number of after quitting smoking effects you may experience.
While some are good and some are bad, it’s important to remember the significant health benefits that come along with quitting smoking.
After just a few weeks, the negative after quitting smoking effects will be a distant memory.
Keep your eyes on the goal and before you know it you will be cigarette-free.