Do you remember your first cigarette? Lovely wasn't it?
The vast majority of smokers remember their first cigarette. Their recollection of this moment is that it wasn't a very pleasant experience, in fact many smokers will recall feeling quite unwell after it. So why did they continue to smoke?
There are many myths about smoking out there... In fact much of the information available is simply untrue and one could argue that it is being propagated by large businesses that are motivated by vested interests. More about this later.
The reason why you smoke is very straight forward:
When you inhaled that first cigarette, your motivation was likely due to peer pressure or a desire to stand out among your peers. The fact is that no smoker enjoys that first cigarette! The reason for this is simply that nicotine is a poison... an incredibly strong poison and when your body detects tiny residual amounts of this poison in your system it warns you that something is wrong - I use the phrase "your body's got your back' when I'm explaining this process to my clients. What I mean by this is that your body will always warn you when something is not as it should be... the secret to living a healthy life is to listen to it and heed such warnings.
Although you didn't enjoy the first experience of smoking, you went back for more because of the motivation you have, or the pressure that you're under to smoke! Your experience of your second cigarette wasn't much better than your first... your third - similar... your fourth, fifth etc... the same i.e. not pleasant.
The vast majority of smokers remember their first cigarette. Their recollection of this moment is that it wasn't a very pleasant experience, in fact many smokers will recall feeling quite unwell after it. So why did they continue to smoke?
There are many myths about smoking out there... In fact much of the information available is simply untrue and one could argue that it is being propagated by large businesses that are motivated by vested interests. More about this later.
The reason why you smoke is very straight forward:
When you inhaled that first cigarette, your motivation was likely due to peer pressure or a desire to stand out among your peers. The fact is that no smoker enjoys that first cigarette! The reason for this is simply that nicotine is a poison... an incredibly strong poison and when your body detects tiny residual amounts of this poison in your system it warns you that something is wrong - I use the phrase "your body's got your back' when I'm explaining this process to my clients. What I mean by this is that your body will always warn you when something is not as it should be... the secret to living a healthy life is to listen to it and heed such warnings.
Although you didn't enjoy the first experience of smoking, you went back for more because of the motivation you have, or the pressure that you're under to smoke! Your experience of your second cigarette wasn't much better than your first... your third - similar... your fourth, fifth etc... the same i.e. not pleasant.
But at some point early in your smoking life your body does something to help you from feeling poisoned... and what it does is quite phenomenal!
To really appreciate what it is that your body does for you, you first need to appreciate that we (humans) are not designed to live in the modern world that we currently enjoy. We have spent 'tens' of years living in a world of electricity, refrigeration, and supermarkets. A life that provides us with what we need, when we need it, so to speak. Our bodies are designed to live in a more challenging, natural environment, where the function of our physical and mental reflexes can mean the difference between life and death. This is the world that our bodies have spent millions of years living, surviving and evolving in. All of our physical and mental reflexes are designed perfectly to survive in this type of environment.
An example of such reflexes might be where a primitive human who is lost in the wilderness without food or water, comes across a mountain stream that is contaminated by some sort of metal element or other. The contamination is not enough to kill them but it is enough to make them ill. The person has a choice: drink the water and live... or don't drink the water and risk dying... not a difficult decision I assume. So they drink the water and they feel a bit unwell - this is their body telling them that something is wrong, that something has entered their body and is causing things to be not as they should be!
At some point, after the regular consumption of this contaminated substance, their body must come to terms with the fact that this person MUST HAVE TO take in the offending substance and it then switches from warning the person to helping them to avoid feeling pain.
Early on in your smoking life, your body reaches a similar point where it interprets the regular consumption of a residual poison (nicotine) as an act that is necessary... it doesn't understand why, but it does understand that making you feel ill is not helping you, so it switches its focus towards helping you to overcome the necessary evil. At this point, your brain releases endorphins - a natural 'feel good' chemical that causes you to feel calm and relaxed (ring a bell?).
When this first happens, it is the first time that you've ever felt better after having a cigarette than you did before it... this emotion is quite strong and goes straight into your subconscious mind, where all of your feelings and beliefs reside, and it becomes how you feel about cigarettes - that is a) they help you to belong to groups and b) they help you to feel better when you are feeling uneasy.
This belief stays with you, frequently for life, and you now know that whenever you encounter difficulty or disappointment in your life, there is always something that you can do to ease the stress... have a cigarette. This is why smokers, who have quit for months or even years, can find themselves craving a cigarette 'out of the blue' when something bad happens to them in their life - the belief that was formed early on in their lives is still very much there and wants to help them in their hour of need.
The important thing to understand here is that you are not addicted to nicotine - though there is a multi-billion dollar industry that depends on you believing this!. What you are addicted to is the feeling of your body comforting you by releasing endorphins. Now you could access the same chemical relief by going for a fast 10 minute walk... but you have conditioned yourself to believe that placing poison into your body is the most effective way of achieving this much sought after comfort.
... and this is the lesser known truth as to why you smoke!
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