Quit Smoking can reduce your anxiety!

You can quit smoking now!

It has been found that quitting smoking actually helps reduce your anxiety, this is especially true for those people who use cigarettes to cope with situations in their everyday lives. This new research has come from Oxford and Cambridge Universities and from Kings college London.

Smoking doesn’t relieve stress and anxiety, this is more psychosomatic and lives in the brain of the smoker as a belief. However, smoking is more of an ‘anxiogenic’, which means it causes anxiety! If your a smoker it is important that you know this so that the old belief can be changed, which may help you quit smoking, or at least give you that push.

In the research, 491 smokers were studied by enrolling them in the NHS smoking cessation clinics in the UK. Nicotine patches were distributed to all the participants and they had to attend a weekly session. Within the group, 106 of them had previously been diagnosed with mental health problems, predominantly anxiety disorders.

Each of the members of the group were tested for their levels of anxiety and were then asked a question about if their smoking was mainly for pleasure, or manly to cope with things, or about equal.

68 (twenty four percent) of the participants became ex smokers and remained so six months later, and out of these, 10 had a psychiatric disorder.

The results of the test indicated that those participants that gave up smoking suffered less anxety. This reduction in the levels of anxiety was especially prominent in those smokers who used to smoke to be able to ‘cope’ with life, as opposed to those smokers who smoked mainly for pleasure.

There were some that started smoking again and out of those, the ‘pleasure’ smokers noted little change in their anxiety levels. Importantly, those who returned to smoking that use smoking as a way of coping, noted that their anxiety levels once again, increased.

The ‘copers’ were far more likely to smoke their first cigarette as soon as they wake up in the morning. According to the study, this kind of behaviour is there as a way of staving off the withdrawal symptoms, not only of the nicotine but also of the anxiety. However, if the smoker had managed to quit, then the episodes of anxiety would have eventually lifted, helping them to feel more relaxed and less anxious.

So, the result of the research indicates that quitting smoking certainly reduces symptoms of anxiety and this effect is felt more in those who suffer from and anxiety disorder and who use smoking as a way of coping with stress. If the attempt to quit had failed, there was a notable return if the anxiety, but this was mainly felt more in those suffering with psychiatric problems than those without, and also in those who use smoking as a way of coping.

As I mainly deal in anxiety disorders, I am really keen to indicate that stopping smoking is really beneficial to your mental health. I run my stop smoking hypnosis sessions at my private office in Warrington, Cheshire. I do a one stop session with a free follow up if needed and I have had many very happy clients who have quit smoking and are still ex-smokers.

If you believe you can do it, then why not drop me a line.