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As a developer who smokes, there are a couple aspects I've discovered that I think make the habit more popular with developers. Obviously, the short-run benef
by nsp 14y ago
As a developer who smokes, there are a couple aspects I've discovered that I think make the habit more popular with developers.
Obviously, the short-run benefits of smoking are far outweighed by the long and medium run detrimental effects, and this isn't an argument in favor of people smoking.
1) nicotine is a cognitive enhancer, giving short term improvements in attention and memory.
This has pretty clear benefits for programming. See sources/citations at end of comment for more information.
2) The nicotine addiction withdrawal cycle of leaving the building to smoke every x hours provides a relatively scheduled context shift. I've found this to have similar effects(albeit more mild) effects to timer based productivity techniques with timed periods of focused effort followed by breaks. I frequently have 'aha' moments in the elevator on the way down to smoke from my office after being stuck on a particular problem or bug coding.
See:
NIH 1992 - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1579636 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1579636
"
Abstract
1. Nicotine improves attention in a wide variety of tasks in healthy volunteers. 2. Nicotine improves immediate and longer term memory in healthy volunteers. 3. Nicotine improves attention in patients with probable Alzheimer's Disease. 4. While some of the memory effects of nicotine may be due to enhanced attention, others seem to be the result of improved consolidation as shown by post-trial dosing."
Cognitive Effects of Nicotine Amir H. Rezvani and Edward D. Levin (2001)
http://directory.umm.ac.id/Data%20Elmu/jurnal/B/Biological%20Psichatry/Vol49.Issue3.2001/6959.pdf http://directory.umm.ac.id/Data%20Elmu/jurnal/B/Biological%2...
- Gatsky 14y agoInteresting... there is a an accessible meta-analysis here - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3151730/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3151730/ There is some evidence that achieving cognitive benefit is related to genetic variants that promote nicotine dependence - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20886544 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20886544 Ever thought about just chewing gum or using an inhaler?
- philwelch 14y agoI also hear that since smoking is now taboo and smokers now gather outside in well-defined areas, smoking is a great networking opportunity. You end up talking to people you'd never talk to otherwise, with the built in opener of bumming a cigarette or asking for a light.
- wturner 14y agoWhy not just chew nicotine gum and abate the possibility of cancer.
- bravoyankee 14y agoNicotine gum is addictive too, with its own set of problems.
- wturner 14y agoI know, but it's not nearly as bad as tobacco and smoking imho.
- konradb 14y agoIf your goal was to reduce the risk of cancer, but you wanted to enjoy nicotine, that would probably be a reasonable thing to do. I can only speak for myself, but I find smoking is much more enjoyable than chewing nicotine gum. There are probably lovely tasting brands of nicotine gum but I've tried about three or four and they have all shared a strange characteristic... it's like a feeling that they are chemically burning the inside of your mouth slightly, and for me the feeling intensifies the longer I chew the gum for. Of course when smoking there's lots of nasty effects too, but I'm just saying given the choice I'd take smoking. Source: non smoker who has tried to give up lots of times