There are more than 4000 plus chemicals in the tobacco used in a cigarette. The intake of the smoke on smoking a cigarette exposes the various organs of these large numbers of chemicals and their undesirable interactions in the body. No organ is spared from the harmful effects of smoking as there are innumerable research studies to support this fact. This article tries to understand how smoking and depression are related.
Relation Between Smoking and Depression
Relation Between Smoking and Depression:
Smokers twice at the risk of facing depression. However, the effects of smoking on the mental health is profound on quitting the habit. It is owing to the terrible withdrawal symptoms that the quitter goes through owing to the deadly nicotine chemical’s presence in the tobacco.
Depressed smokers are 40 percent less likely to give up their habit when compared to nondepressed smokers. While only 9.9 percent smokers suffering from depression can successfully give up the habit after nine follow up years, 17.7 percent nondepressed smokers’ taste success in quitting smoking.
Depressive people are suggested to be more vulnerable to get addicted and smoking is one of the most common addictions chosen by them. As the severity of the conditions rises, the number of smokers also rises in the United States. 61 percent smokers suffer from depression compared to only 27 percent nondepressed ones.
When the complication of heart ailments is also clubbed with depression, it was found that 89 percent heart patients had major depressive disorder and smoked compared to 54 percent patients without this mental condition.
Which comes first?
This is the question researchers keep returning to. The link runs in both directions. Low mood raises the chance that a person starts smoking. Smoking then raises the chance that low mood continues. Shared factors sit underneath both, such as stress, family history and difficult life circumstances. So there is no single arrow here. It is more like a loop that feeds itself.
Several scientific theories exist for explaining the relation between smoking and depression. A common explanation is that the nicotine chemical has the ability of changing the mood and owing to this particular quality of this dreadful chemical, smokers take up cigarette almost as a medication for their depression.
Researchers from the University of Montana have found that the expectation smokers have from the nicotine to reduce the signs of depression, plays a major role in the existence of the causal link between the mental disorder and the bad habit.
Unfortunately, the self-medication attitude leads to the worsening of the depressive symptoms. The brain after getting addicted to nicotine crave for it, further increasing its addiction. Even if a person tries to give up smoking, the nicotine chemical makes the attempt face increasing levels of difficulties. It rises the depressive condition and breaks the natural will of the person to quit smoking.
The relief is not what it seems
Most smokers say a cigarette calms them down. What is really happening is smaller than that. A few hours after the last cigarette, nicotine levels drop and the body starts craving. That craving feels like tension and restlessness. The next cigarette removes the craving, and the smoker reads that as relief. So the cigarette is mostly fixing a problem it created. This is worth understanding, because many people believe they are treating stress when they are only topping up nicotine.
While it is hard for the non depressed smokers to deal with mental withdrawal symptoms of smoking, the experience is even the more torturing for depressed smokers.
Researchers have also found a relationship between low self esteem, initiating of smoking and continuing the habit. This further reduces the chances of giving up this habit. While quitting smoking calls for mustering enough will power and determination, depressed people are in an impaired state to do so and continue to be in a state of helplessness which in turn increases the sense of guilt in them.
Also, less educated people are more prone to depression and smoking and find it increasingly difficult to come out of this dangerous threat to their well-being. Further research on finding the definitive role of nicotine in depression and the exact mechanism is going on all over the world.
Key Points at a Glance
Important Points – How Smoking and Depression Co-relate to Each Other
- The frequency of smoking is on the increase during smoking
- There is an abnormal attachment to the cigarettes
- Attempts to quit results in decreased levels of pleasure
- Mood disturbances are there when someone tries to quit smoking
- Smoking itself can be a cover to underlying depression
- New research is on which indicates that smoking contains “anti-depressant properties.”
- Nicotine is much abused by those suffering form psychiatric disorders
- A new US study claims that smokers are about 41% more likely to suffer from depression. The study was conducted by researchers from the University Navarra and the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in Spain as well as the Harvard School of Public Health
- Chronic smoking can cause depressive symptoms
- Chronic smoking can cause depressive symptoms
- Smoke-free life and successful cessation can result in prevention of depression
What happens to mood after quitting
This part surprises many people. The first two to four weeks are the hardest. Irritability, poor sleep and low mood are common in that window. They are withdrawal symptoms, not a return of illness. After that period, reviews of long term studies report that anxiety and mood scores in people who quit tend to be better than in those who keep smoking. The size of the improvement is similar to what is seen with some antidepressant treatment. So the fear that quitting will make depression permanently worse is not supported by the evidence.
Quitting when you already feel low
- Tell your doctor about the low mood before you set a quit date. It changes the plan.
- Nicotine replacement such as patches or gum reduces the withdrawal dip a lot.
- Some medicines used for quitting interact with antidepressants, so never mix them on your own.
- Pick a calmer month. Do not quit in the middle of a crisis.
- Expect the rough patch and mark it on a calendar. Knowing it ends helps.
- Combine medicine with counselling. The two together work far better than either alone.
- Treat a slip as data, not failure. Most people need several attempts before it sticks.
Common myths
- Smoking calms my nerves. It mostly calms the craving that smoking created.
- I should fix my depression first, then quit. Studies show people in treatment for depression can quit successfully with support.
- Quitting will push me back into depression. Mood usually dips for a few weeks and then improves.
- Cutting down is enough. Fewer cigarettes still keeps nicotine dependence alive.
Frequently asked questions
Does nicotine work like an antidepressant?
Nicotine does affect brain chemicals linked with mood, and researchers have studied this. But the effect is short and it comes bundled with addiction and serious physical harm. It is not used as a treatment.
How long does the low mood after quitting last?
For most people the worst is over in two to four weeks. If it goes well beyond that, speak to a doctor.
Are e cigarettes a safer option for someone with depression?
They still deliver nicotine and dependence continues. Approved quitting aids have far more evidence behind them. Ask your doctor what suits you.
Where can someone get help to quit?
A family doctor is the simplest starting point. Many countries also run free quitline services and counselling programmes.
