The power of the mind over the body
Nicotine withdrawal, put simply, sucks. It’s not fun. There are a few steps you can take in preventing nicotine withdrawal that can lessen or completely prevent its impact.
The trick to preventing nicotine withdrawal lies in knowing what to expect. Flat out, you’re going to be a pain in the butt for the first week or so. Do your friends and family a favor and let them know what’s going to happen in advance, so you don’t end up starting conflicts.
The biggest symptom is irritability. Everybody gets irritable while quitting smoking, for two reasons. The chemical withdrawal symptoms from nicotine cause irritability directly, but you also get irritable from the internal mental conflict resulting from quitting. More on that later.
You’re also going to have feelings of regret or depression. Depending on your mental state before quitting, these can range from mild to extremely intense. They will, as you can imagine, drive you to want to smoke. This is something engineered by cigarettes, to keep you addicted to them. Don’t give in, and it’ll be clear sailing ahead.
Remember what I said about the internal mental conflict from quitting? Part of preventing nicotine withdrawal lies in quitting properly. Most people quit smoking by simply telling themselves that they aren’t going to smoke any more. I’m not going to get into nicotine replacement therapy, because that doesn’t work at all anyway. Regardless, if you merely tell yourself that you aren’t going to smoke any more, you’re setting yourself up for failure. Why? Because you’ll still want a cigarette, you’ll just be denying yourself something that you want, hence the internal mental conflict.
Your mind will be weighing the benefits of smoking a cigarette against the drawbacks of that same cigarette. Don’t want to shoot yourself in the foot after a week of suffering through withdrawal? Quit by learning how to convince your mind that it doesn’t actually want a cigarette.
