Loving My Pain Free Life
About Me
Loving My Pain Free Life

My name is Melinda Johnson and I suffered with foot pain for many years. I went to see a podiatrist and after an examination, I was told that I had heel spur syndrome. I followed the recommendations of my doctor by doing at home treatments along with physical therapy. I was amazed at how much these treatments helped my foot pain. Living with pain can have a big impact on your life and that's why I started this blog. My foot pain kept me from doing many things that I enjoy and I want to help others who are going through the same situation. As you browse through my blog, you'll learn about home treatments, medical procedures and new advancements in medicine that can help reduce pain. It is my hope that by writing this blog, you can live pain free too.

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Loving My Pain Free Life

How Smoking Might Be Making Your Anxiety Worse

Claire Roberts

If you suffer from anxiety and smoke cigarettes, your habit of smoking might actually be causing your anxiety symptoms to become worse. It may seem like smoking relieves your nerves when you are feeling overwhelmed, but this really is not the case. If you want to find a way to relieve your anxiety, choosing to stop smoking might be one of the best things you could do for yourself and your wellbeing. Here are several things you should understand about this correlation.

Smoking to relieve stress trains your brain

If you find that you smoke more when you feel anxious, it's because your body feels that it needs nicotine to cope with stress. This is actually something you train your brain to think when you smoke, and especially when you smoke to find relief from stress. Because of this, your brain has a hard time coping on its own. This may cause you to smoke more, simply because the cravings for the nicotine make the anxiety worse and your brain cannot cope without the nicotine.

Cravings cause anxiety

When you are waiting for your lunch break to have a cigarette, you might feel more anxious as the time comes closer. This occurs because your brain senses that it needs nicotine, which leads you to feel anxious, nervous, and agitated. When you finally get your break and can smoke a cigarette, you find that you suddenly feel better.

Because of the way this works, you probably believe it is the cigarette that is providing relief from your anxiety, but this is not really the case. If you were not a smoker, you would not have gone through the negative feelings you originally felt, because you would not be having those cravings. This theory explains why smoking may actually cause anxiety or make it worse.

Studies show that quitting reduces anxiety

It's also important to know that many studies have been done on this subject, and all of these studies reveal similar results: People that smoke have more anxiety, and these individuals tend to see a decrease in anxiety after they quit smoking.

While you might suffer increased levels of anxiety when you first quit and are dealing with the cravings and withdrawal effects of this, over time your anxiety level is likely to drop.

If you are interested in learning more about anxiety and the ways it can be treated, contact a primary care physician today.


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