Do you relieve stress by smoking?
One of the most common vices that people use in reaction to stress is smoking. It is also the most disastrous way of dealing with tension and pressure. The very idea of rolling up tobacco leaves, sticking it in your face, and setting fire to it does seem to defy intelligent explanation. Besides, think about what it does to your body and how many deaths are caused each year due to this terrible habit.
I have often seen pregnant mothers with conscientious concerns about what foods will be best for their unborn baby and whether the water should be boiled before drinking. Often such mothers will also refuse to take even the safest medication to relieve a severe migraine or will eat the best of foods because of their baby. Yet it is amazing that some of these same pregnant mothers will blatantly inhale a pack of cigarettes per day, ignoring the incredible and devastating damage to the developing fetus.
The effects that this smoking will have on that baby will persist into childhood, even if neither of the parents are smoking in the house. Evidence now suggests that the second-hand smoke can stunt both physical and mental development, and cause a much higher incidence of children’s visits to the doctor for bronchitis, headache, asthma, head colds, and allergy-related conditions.Â
Even more significant than their role as an agent of hurting unborn children from mothers who smoke due to stress, cigarettes are an unparalleled form of self-abuse. During stress, when lungs are already being dilated and sucking in air to the maximum capacity, the inhaled cigarette smoke is able to do its maximum amount of damage. The fact that all the blood vessels in the body, including the coronary arteries, are known to clamp down severely when even one cigarette is inhaled makes it easy to see why smoking can push you closer toward heart attack pains.
Smoking badly damages virtually every organ in the body. It is responsible for the thousands of deaths from heart attacks and stomach ulcers. Approximately thirty percent of all cancers are related to smoking. This includes lung cancer, throat cancer, and cancer of the bladder, to name a few. Even second hand smoke can be very dangerous.
Remember, smoking a cigarette may seem like it is relieving your stress, but in the end all you are doing is severe damage to your body and the body of others around you. The only option is to completely quit smoking when you feel tension and stress in your life. It is the only way. There is no dietary supplement, series of exercises, vitamin, or magic potion that will negate the poisonous effects of inhaled tobacco smoke.