Contents:
- Medical Video: What Happens When You Stop Smoking?
- Get to know the signs of cigarette smoke
- How exercise can help you stop smoking
- 1. Sports reduce the effect of nicotine on the brain
- 2. Overcoming excessive hunger
- 3. Overcoming stress and anxiety due to quitting smoking
- How to stop smoking with regular exercise
Medical Video: What Happens When You Stop Smoking?
Quitting smoking is difficult. However, that does not mean it is impossible if you really make up your mind. Just know that smoking-related diseases have claimed at least 235 thousand lives per year in Indonesia. Well! One of the simplest, most inexpensive, and effective ways to stop smoking can be done from this moment on is exercise. Routinely exercising can stop the symptoms of back cravings when you are halfway to live nicotine-free.
Get to know the signs of cigarette smoke
Symptoms of cigarette smoking usually appear most severely in the first few weeks you start quitting smoking. This period is the most vulnerable to make (prospective) ex-smokers finally tempted to return "Sebat (a cigarette-red) first! "
If you are already good at smoking cigarettes for ever, then you need to recognize the various symptoms of cigarette smoke that might appear and overcome them before they really haunt you.
Quitting smoking causes different symptoms for everyone, but it is usually quite disturbing to carry out routine activities. This can affect a person's physical or psychological condition.
Physical symptoms that arise when you start quitting smoking:
- Have flu-like symptoms; sore throat and coughing.
- Cold sensation on the end of the body (fingers and toes, top of the head).
- Feeling weak.
- Dizzy.
- Appetite increases.
- Nausea and stomach cramps.
- Headache.
- Sweating without cause.
- Acidic and bitter mouth.
While the emotional and psychological effects that may arise since the first week of quitting smoking are:
- Drastic mood changes (mood swings); angry, fast frustrated, impatient, irritable.
- Difficult to concentrate.
- Insomnia.
- An unbearable cravings for smoking again.
- Symptoms of depression.
- Anxiety and boredom.
How exercise can help you stop smoking
Although it sounds cliché, in fact changing bad habits (in this case, smoking) with a better habit (exercise) is the best strategy to start quitting smoking. The big picture, the new routine can improve mood and help divert your mind from cigarettes. Regular exercise also makes the body more energetic so it does not cause the need to smoke again.
In addition, exercise is also an effective way to stop smoking thanks to the various good changes it produces from the body.
1. Sports reduce the effect of nicotine on the brain
Nicotine is a substance naturally found in tobacco. The opium effect is even as strong as heroin or cocaine. Nicotine also plays a role in suppressing mood depressants by influencing the flow between nerve cells. In fact, nicotine from cigarette smoke can reach the brain faster than drugs injected through blood vessels.
A 2017 study that examined a group of rats exposed to nicotine for two weeks showed that the nicotine levels in the brain had dropped dramatically after they were made routinely running in a rotary wheel within 2 to 24 hours.
The results of this study also show rats that routinely engage in physical activity tend to show fewer symptoms of smoking, and if the effect appears it becomes lighter, compared to mice that are not physically active.
2. Overcoming excessive hunger
Smokers are usually more resistant to hunger or fast full. In addition to the toxic effects that disrupt the production of hormones hungry for ghrelin and stomach acid, some of the smoke that enters the body is "ingested" by the stomach, which makes the stomach feel bloated and fuller.
Now when you stop smoking, your body's hormone production will return to more regular and the stomach will no longer expand because it is filled with gas (cigarette smoke). That's why stopping smoking can make you gain weight.
Regular exercise can control the secretion of the ghrelin hormone which triggers hunger.
3. Overcoming stress and anxiety due to quitting smoking
Cigarettes are often considered a stress reliever. But in fact, cigarette poisons will actually become free radicals in the body that can trigger a stress response, both emotionally and physically.
Well, regular exercise trains the body to be able to respond to stress better. Exercise decreases the production of the stress hormone cortisol, which gives rise to various symptoms of stress and excessive anxiety, to replace it with endorphins which can have a happy effect.
How to stop smoking with regular exercise
Keep in mind that stopping smoking and exercise habits are two things that must be done gradually but sustainably.
To start active exercise as a way to stop smoking, here are some things you can do from now on:
- Determine the time for you to exercise regularly like every morning or evening
- Take at least 30 minutes a day to exercise, at least 3-5 days per week. Make a special exercise schedule if necessary.
- Choose the type of physical activity that you like the most so you don't feel burdened.
Start from the types of light exercise, such as walking, cycling around the complex, swimming, yoga, to muscle strength training such as lifting weights, squats, and planks. You can also make your house and gardening an alternative physical activity besides exercise.
Whatever type of exercise you choose as a way to stop smoking is actually good. As long as you don't overdo it.
Shortness of breath during exercise is commonplace in smokers who are just trying to stop. When your breath has started to run out so you make it difficult to talk, immediately stop the activity and take a break. To avoid this, start slowly. Especially if you have never been active in sports before.
After the body adapts to your new exercise routine and lung function slowly improves. You can increase the intensity of the sport gradually. gradually, exercise will feel easier.
