Why does smoking relax a smoker?

In clinic, “smoking relaxes me” is the most frequent answer to my question of “why do you smoke?” But, nicotine is a powerful stimulant. It increases blood pressure, speeds up the heart rate, narrows the breathing tubes making it harder to breath and hyper stimulates the brain.

So, why does smoking a cigarette cause relaxation in the smoker? The answer lies in the psychology of addiction. Soon after a person starts smoking, their body develops an addiction to nicotine. When the body doesn’t get nicotine, the person experiences withdrawal symptoms.

One of the cardinal symptoms of any withdrawal is anxiety. The body begins to stress over when it will be able to get its next hit of nicotine. The longer a person goes without receiving nicotine the more anxiety they experience. This is one reason most smokers love the morning cigarette with coffee. Sleeping causes the longest time from the last smoke producing the greatest amount of anxiety but also the greatest relief when they get that first rush of nicotine.

When a person puts out their cigarette, nicotine starts to leave their body and they go into withdrawal within 30 minutes. As the amount of nicotine decreases, the amount of anxiety increases. When the smoker takes the first puff off of that cigarette, the nicotine hits their brain within seconds. As the nicotine increases, the anxiety decreases and the person feels relief. Their physical body still experiences nicotine’s stimulant effects but their anxiety has been relieved producing a feeling of relaxation.

A person smokes a cigarette for about 7 minutes. A pack a day smoker spends 140 minutes smoking but the rest of their day is spent in withdrawal. This means most of their life is spent experiencing anxiety from nicotine withdrawal. This anxious state becomes what they believe is their usual state. Only when they smoke a cigarette do they feel the 10 to 20 minutes of normality that they perceive as relaxation. Years of smoking has changed their perception of reality.

Studies show smokers who quit have markedly lower levels of anxiety than when they were smoking. Why do we talk about this? Because if I asked someone to give up something they perceived as a source of relaxation, they would understandably resist. This world is so stressed out we need more, not less sources of relaxation. But the truth is, smoking has increased their anxiety, changed their perception of reality, costs them in both health and money and is simply an addiction. No one wants to be an addict or be anxious. So understanding what smoking truly is, a nicotine addiction that produces anxiety, is an important first step towards stopping.