Does smoking really help anxiety?

The exact effects that come from smoking are unknown, yet scientific experiments are being made all the time to find out. People often suggest that if you have anxiety and panic attacks then you should not smoke. But what is the truth about what happens to your anxiety when you start smoking cigarettes?

Well, the feeling of relaxation after you smoke is only temporary, and that’s why people with anxiety smoke more and more, because they can feel that relaxing feeling more often. Cigarettes help you to control your breathing when having a panic attack or feeling panicky, but cigarettes do a lot more harm to anxiety than good.

Soon enough, smoking doesn’t make you relaxed anymore. You find yourself agitated and anxious because you need a cigarette. Nicotine withdrawal symptoms are very similar to anxiety, so you are creating more anxiety than you originally had. Of course, some people would argue that if you never stopped then your anxiety would never get worse - however, by smoking you are avoiding confrontation with your anxiety and the underlying problem, meaning your anxiety will increase because you aren’t allowing the original problem to be confronted and solved.

Of course, smoking doesn’t make your anxiety extremely intense, so if you have anxiety and you smoke then you aren’t endangering your anxiety and it’s nothing to worry about, but stopping smoking will be the hardest part as the withdrawal symptoms are doubled when you have anxiety, making you even more anxious than usual.

So, what should you do?
Do not try to quite ‘cold turkey’, go to your doctor and ask them for help in quitting by slowly increasing your nicotine amount and eventually stopping. Just because your anxiety gets worse when you quit doesn’t mean that you are doomed to be smoking for the rest of your life, there are ways through it and you can do it! Your doctor knows best.

Altogether, anxiety isn’t worsened by smoking, but quitting is the what makes your anxiety harder to deal with.