Quitting Smoking Relieves More Stress than Nicotine

If you were to ask anyone with a cigarette on the street why they smoke, you will likely get the predicable answer, "because it calms me." And they wouldn't be lying. It is a common known fact that the nicotine in cigarettes is an effective stress reliever.

But new research out from the British Medical Journal says that heavy smokers are consistently less stressed after they drop the habit.

How can this be? The researchers argued that irritability and anxiety between nicotine fixes more than makes up for the amount of stress alleviated once a smoker is lit up. Of course, this hypothesis would only hold true most frequently in individuals with a significant smoking habit, and so researchers turned their attention to chain-smokers in particular.

The study followed individuals who smoked an average of 20 cigarettes a day -- which is usually a pack -- and were an average of 44 years of age. Some were content with their mental well-being, while others were selected from a pool of clinically depressed patients. Every one of these smokers were urged to quit smoking, at least temporarily, for a six week period.

The mental health of each smoker, primarily stress levels, six weeks after quitting and 6 six weeks prior to quitting were then compared.

Researchers found that quality of life indicators for mental health, such as depression and positivity rates, all showed that quality of life in the smokers who quit improved exponentially over the six weeks, resulting in stress levels significantly lower than prior to quitting.

It was also noted that in the cases of those participants who were clinically depressed, depression drops associated with the cessation of smoking were equal to, if not higher than, standard antidepressant treatments for mood and anxiety disorders.

The researchers concluded that the elimination of a nicotine habit in the average chain-smoker can significantly improve their mental health, especially with the reduction in stress levels. The researchers also expressed their opinion that encouraging a patient to quit smoking might have a significant impact on the mental well-being of the clinically depressed, but of course, more research is required to back these claims.

The study was published in the British Medical Journal on February 13.