Modern life brings us a lot of worry, anxiety, stress, and depress. These affect us not only psychologically but also physiologically. Our modern culture lacks adequate relaxation. Many of us not only do not know how to relax, but do not take time to learn. Instead, we pick up unhealthy methods to relieve pressure from daily life. Smoking helps us to relax, since it gives us a legitimate excuse to linger a little longer after meals, to stop work for a few minutes, or to sit at home without doing anything that requires effort.
When a person feels depressed, the rhythm of his breathing becomes upset. A short and shallow breath creates a heavy feeling in the chest. Smoking results in deep breath, forces a rhythmic expansion of the chest, and thus restores the normal pace of breathing. These actions remove weight on the chest and may relieve mental depression temporarily. When we are enraged, we breathe heavily. Smoking makes smokers breathing more steadily, and thus calms them down.
Smoking brings oral pleasure. Oral pleasure is just as fundamental as sexuality and hunger. It functions with full strength from earliest childhood. There is a direct connection between thumbsucking and smoking. Adult smoking may be an extension of child thumbsucking to provide comfort. The satisfied expression on a smoker’s face when he executes the entire process of smoking is ample proof of his sensuous thrill.
There are scientific evidences that why so many smokers feel they smoke more under stress. Stress has a physiological effect on the body which makes the urine acidic. Whenever the urine becomes acidic, the body excretes nicotine at an accelerated rate. Thus, when a smoker encounters a stressful situation he loses nicotine and goes into drug withdrawal. Most smokers feel that when they are nervous or upset cigarettes help calm them down. The calming effect, however, is not relief from the emotional strain of the situation, but actually the effect of replenishing the nicotine supply and ending the withdrawal. It is easy to understand why smokers without this basic knowledge of stress and its nicotine effect are afraid to give up smoking. They feel that they will be giving up a very effective stress management technique.
