Quit Smoking Symptoms
So what exactly are the symptoms of quitting smoking? More commonly, people call these “withdrawal symptoms”.
First of, most people will get feelings of irritability. What does this mean? This means that they will have an almost constant feeling, a bit like an itch. It is not just a feeling of missing smoking but a feeling of being incomplete without it.
Secondly, some people will get more severe symptoms after stopping smoking although these are much less common. Some people may get shakes, nausea and cramps. It’s extremely rare and usually passes within a couple of days.
Third, some people get hungry and feel the need to feed that hunger. No one really knows why - it is theorised that nicotine can be an appetite suppressant but the truth is far from clear.
So, What Can Be Done About These Symptoms?
Personally, I think these needs to be tackled in a number of ways.
When a person is irritable or has hunger pangs, then they are still addicted to cigarettes. They may be cutting down or eliminating them from their lifestyle but they are still addicted. Many ex-smokers report that the passage of time will help in reducing the symptoms of quitting smoking and that one needs to battle through the first few days especially.
Concerning feeding the hunger, I have no idea whether nicotine really is an appetite suppressant. What I can say is that people who gain weight after stopping smoking have simply replaced one addiction with another. They have replaced their addiction to cigarettes with another addiction - eating food for comfort and eating food beyond the amount that a person needs to live healthily. Would you trade cigarette addiction for obesity?
In fact, does nicotine really have such a grip on the human body as some people would have us believe? How about people who get the extreme withdrawal symptoms? Is there any credible explanation for this? Why do only a minority of people get those symptoms and most don’t? Or, why is there a minority of ex-smokers who didn’t suffer from any withdrawal symptoms at all? Can this really be explained as being down to a person’s susceptibility to nicotine and its absence?
Quit smoking symptoms can give us a lot of food for thought when it comes to addiction. Rather than seeing the symptoms as large and almost insurmountable obstacles, it may be better for you to look at them more closely.