Finally, you have gotten the courage to quit smoking. However, that is not the end of the battle. It's one thing to say you want to quit smoking, but to actually stay out of cigarette smoking is another thing. Very soon, you will ask yourself, how long does it take to stop craving for cigarettes? Indeed, as you will eventually find out yourself, dealing with cigarette cravings is no easy task at all. You see, nicotine can be very addictive. In fact, it's more addictive than heroine and cocaine.
Besides that, with cigarette smoking often comes the tendency to depend on it since it is seen to provide relief to anxiety attacks and various stressors. This is psychological dependence, an addiction that is harder to deal with, if truth be told.
During the period of adolescence especially, you must have experienced the need to belong, to be accepted. For a teenager, being part of a certain group is a must. Yet things did not happen exactly as you would have wanted them, and so you turned to cigarette smoking as a means to unburden your emotions. You were relieved then, and so you must have believed that smoking could practically erase all your problems, and this was how your dependence on cigarette smoking started to increase. It's not just the chemical composition of cigarettes that made you want to smoke, but the physical and emotional relief that you could experience.
You have made the right decision when you chose to quit smoking, but you must expect some problems down the road. One big problem that you will be facing is nicotine withdrawal. For chain smokers, going without a cigarette for an hour can be an extreme sacrifice, because within fifteen minutes after the last cigarette, the nicotine blood level already starts to decline; after 40 minutes, the nicotine levels in the brain have completely diminished. For the next 3 days, your craving for cigarettes will be so intense, but from two weeks up to about a month, your cravings will remain steady.
If you suffer from nicotine withdrawal you are likely to experience cigarette cravings that are so intense, anxiety and irritability. There may also be headaches, drowsiness, nausea, and difficulty in focusing and sleeping, and since there are usually blood sugar changes, you will experience an increase in your appetite as well.
So how long does it take to stop craving for cigarettes? The safest answer would be a month at the very least.
Besides that, with cigarette smoking often comes the tendency to depend on it since it is seen to provide relief to anxiety attacks and various stressors. This is psychological dependence, an addiction that is harder to deal with, if truth be told.
During the period of adolescence especially, you must have experienced the need to belong, to be accepted. For a teenager, being part of a certain group is a must. Yet things did not happen exactly as you would have wanted them, and so you turned to cigarette smoking as a means to unburden your emotions. You were relieved then, and so you must have believed that smoking could practically erase all your problems, and this was how your dependence on cigarette smoking started to increase. It's not just the chemical composition of cigarettes that made you want to smoke, but the physical and emotional relief that you could experience.
You have made the right decision when you chose to quit smoking, but you must expect some problems down the road. One big problem that you will be facing is nicotine withdrawal. For chain smokers, going without a cigarette for an hour can be an extreme sacrifice, because within fifteen minutes after the last cigarette, the nicotine blood level already starts to decline; after 40 minutes, the nicotine levels in the brain have completely diminished. For the next 3 days, your craving for cigarettes will be so intense, but from two weeks up to about a month, your cravings will remain steady.
If you suffer from nicotine withdrawal you are likely to experience cigarette cravings that are so intense, anxiety and irritability. There may also be headaches, drowsiness, nausea, and difficulty in focusing and sleeping, and since there are usually blood sugar changes, you will experience an increase in your appetite as well.
So how long does it take to stop craving for cigarettes? The safest answer would be a month at the very least.
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