New Year’s Resolutions Blog

Hints for Helping You Through Withdrawal

Thursday, January 4th, 2007

According to The American Cancer Society, nicotine is highly addictive and is on a par with heroin or cocaine. It has a psychological addiction also. A regular smoker will have nicotine and its byproducts in your system for 3 or 4 days after quitting. It is at this point that the withdrawl symptoms will become evident. Some signs of withdrawal may include:

• dizziness (which may only last 1-2 days in the beginning)
• depression
• feelings of frustration and anger
• irritability
• sleep disturbances, including having trouble falling asleep, staying asleep and having bad dreams or even nightmares
• trouble concentrating
• restlessness
• headache
• tiredness
• increased appetite

Even smokers who have smoked for only a few weeks, if they have done so consistently, can experience withdrawal.

It is recommended that outside support be part of your stop smoking plan. The American Cancer Society can provide you with support through their Quitline. Also, some communities have Nicotine Anonymous support groups.

I did successfully quit several years ago. Unfortunately, I took the habit up again, but here are some things that worked for me.

I had the cleanest mouth in town ! Any time I ate anything, and particularly, drank coffee, I would immediately brush my teeth. I found that not having the taste of food or drink in my mouth took away some of the craving to smoke and once my mouth was clean, I wanted to keep it that way.

For a while, I switched to tea in the morning. It was a good idea. I found I hated tea so much as a substitute that I decided I would tough my way through the desire for a cigarette before I would also give up my coffee! Wasn’t I already sacrificing enough? Another thing I found indispensible was drinking water.

Health Benefits of Drinking Water

Prior to this, I had never drunk much water. I found that, besides giving you something to do with your mouth, it had other benefits as well.

The human brain is composed of 95% water; blood is 82% water; the lungs are nearly 90% water. How important is this composition? A mere 2% drop in body water can trigger fuzzy short-term memory, trouble with basic math, and difficulty focusing on the computer screen or on a printed page. (We definitely can’t have that !) Mild dehydration is also one of the most common causes of daytime fatigue. How common a problem is this? Estimates are that seventy-five percent of Americans have mild, chronic dehydration.

One of the chief complaints and worries of those who are giving up smoking is weight gain. Drinking water will help you to feel full so that you are not tempted to eat candy instead! There are no calories and your skin will look good.

If you get really tired of drinking, try some sugarless gum. Also little or no calories. It will be really important not to substitute calories for nicotine, because you will probably gain a few pounds, even if you do not increase your calorie intake. I know that is not good news, but let’s take it one step at a time. We can worry about those few pounds after we accomplish our goal. The trick is not to add to the few pounds that stopping smoking causes.

Please feel free to add your hints!