Nicotine Effects on Your Mind and Body

Wondering how nicotine affects your mind and body?

Whether you realize it or not, your body goes through significant changes when it is exposed to nicotine.

After quitting, most if not all of these side effects gradually subside.

We鈥檝e rounded up some of the most notable effects of nicotine on your mind and body.

Effects of Nicotine on Your Health

There are a number of ill-effects that happen when a smoker consumes nicotine on a regular basis.

Some of these effects begin happening after your first puff, while some grow gradually over the years.

Nicotine can cause a multitude of serious and life-threatening diseases including emphysema, lung cancer, heart disease, and innumerable varieties of serious cancers that could have been easily avoided had the use of nicotine been stopped earlier.

In addition to these frightening side effects caused by nicotine, we鈥檒l go over some of the other most notable health effects that have tobacco users turning up their noses at the idea of another cigarette.

Nicotine Effects on the Body

The nicotine effects on your body make cigarettes highly addictive and habit-forming.

While you may not notice it at first, the addictive qualities of nicotine will slowly sink their teeth into your body and brain until one day, before you know it, you鈥檙e addicted.

In addition to its sneaky addictive qualities, nicotine raises blood pressure, heart rate, and blood flow, all of which can lead to serious health issues if left untreated over time.

Most seriously, nicotine can harden arterial walls, one of the leading causes of heart attacks.

Nicotine Effects on the Nervous System

When you take your first puff of a cigarette, the nicotine is absorbed into the blood almost immediately.

It reaches your brain within a few seconds.

Nicotine affects the brain in curious ways, acting as both a stimulant and a depressant depending on the mood of the smoker and the level of nicotine being absorbed.

Nicotine also releases the hormones epinephrine and beta-endorphin, a pleasure response and a pain inhibitor, respectively.

Your brain enjoys the effects of both of these hormones, so when the effects drop off shortly after the cigarette is finished, your brain immediately craves another.

This is what triggers the continued use of cigarettes and eventual addiction.

Nicotine Effects on Blood Pressure

Every time you smoke a cigarette, your blood pressure increases.

This increase in blood pressure causes your blood vessels to constrict and your heart to beat faster.

Perhaps more seriously, when you smoke or are even exposed to secondhand smoke, your risk for the build up of plaque inside your arteries increases.

When you have high blood pressure caused by smoking, the build up of plaque is accelerated further.

This is a serious health issue and can cause fatal consequences such as heart attack and stroke.

Nicotine Effects on Heart Rate

When you smoke, your heart rate increases almost immediately, which in turn causes faster breathing.

The increased heart rate and shortness of breath can decrease the amount of oxygen in your organs and tissues, causing unpleasant side effects like nausea, dizziness, and lightheadedness.

For first-time smokers, these symptoms are quite unpleasant, but after continued use they gradually become tolerable.

However, continued abuse of the heart rate can lead to serious side effects like heart failure, stroke, and cardiac arrest.

Physiological Effects of Nicotine

The physiological effects of nicotine refer to what happens to your body when you smoke.

As referenced above, inhaling nicotine causes your heart to beat faster, your blood pressure to increase, and your veins to constrict.

Prolonged exposure to nicotine can cause shortness of breath, a consistent cough, and can lead to serious health complications that could have easily been avoided by quitting.

Psychological Effects of Nicotine

The psychological effects are what make nicotine a difficult habit to kick.

Nicotine causes the brain to release dopamine, which releases feelings of happiness and relaxation.

Unfortunately, like many other addictive substances, these pleasant feelings don鈥檛 last, so you crave another cigarette to get the good feeling back again.

Once the habit is fully formed, you鈥檒l find yourself needing more and more cigarettes in order to get the same euphoric feeling you got from the first cigarette.

This is how pack-a-day habits form, and the more someone smokes, the greater the risk of serious health complications down the road.

Short Term Nicotine Effects

There are many acute effects of nicotine that can be both pleasant and unpleasant for the smoker.

One of the effects that causes nicotine to be so addictive is the almost immediate release of the adrenaline hormone.

Adrenaline causes a pleasurable response in the brain.

Other things caused by adrenaline include increased blood pressure, heart rate, and faster breathing.

While not pleasant for a first-time smoker, these side-effects subside with continued use.

These desirable effects of the hormones released during smoking are what causes the smoker to be addicted.

Long Term Nicotine Effects

While there are many short term effects of nicotine, as a habitual smoker the nicotine effects that you need to be worried about are the long term ones.

Nicotine is an addictive substance, and the more you expose yourself to it the more you expose yourself to potential serious health risks.

For teenagers and young adults using nicotine, they are more susceptible to long-term neurological effects as a result of nicotine use.

Some of these effects include mood disorders and permanently lowered impulse control.

For adults, the risks of prolonged nicotine use are still present.

Prolonged nicotine use can lead to hypertension, diabetes, and obesity.

The chemical can also reduce brain activity and negatively affect neurological processes like concentration and memory.

Does Nicotine Have Any Positive Effects?

With the bad reputation nicotine has, you may be wondering if there are any positive effects that come along with it too.

The answer is yes.

Nicotine actually has multiple positive effects that come from prolonged use.

In addition to the pleasurable feelings that arise from the hormones released during smoking, nicotine can promote weight loss, improve performance, and protect against multiple diseases and disorders including Parkinson鈥檚, Tourette鈥檚, ulcerative colitis, and sleep apnea.

While all of this is true, the reason nicotine has a bad reputation is because of all of the incredibly harmful chemicals that are contained in cigarettes.

Unfortunately, while there are some beneficial effects of nicotine, they are offset by the incredibly harmful and potentially fatal side effects that come from smoking.

Final Thoughts

If you鈥檙e wondering what risks you鈥檙e taking by being a habitual nicotine user, we hope that this writing has helped to shed some light on the effects of nicotine and the potential health implications caused by smoking.

If you need help quitting smoking, it鈥檚 important to talk to your doctor and ask for advice and assistance.

They will be more than happy to help you say goodbye to this harmful habit for good.

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