6 ms·
Why Smokers Still Smoke
- pearjuice 13y agoWithout reading the article: the nicotine in the cigs trigger certain brain chemical reactions which impact feels so good it is sought-after again and again and again.
- gph 13y agoNope.
- cardiffspaceman 13y agoWell that's what everyone knows. The question is, given the known pleasures and the known downsides, why do smokers not choose to avoid the downsides? And the answer according to the article is self-control.
- wyclif 13y agoI thought almost everyone knows that as well.
- mhb 13y agoWithout reading your comment to its end, I am confident that it would be a waste of time since you didn't RTFA.
- haldujai 13y agoAs an anecdotal tidbit: The reason I smoke is completely the opposite of what this article says. I do think about the long term effects, smoking increases my ability to focus and when smoking my product is of higher quality and my marks are higher. I'm trading my health later on for benefits now. Personally, I feel smoking carries less risk than cognitive enhancement drugs (I.e provigil) and causes less long term damage. I can deal with COPD and take immune boosters, eat healthy, and ensure I have an adequate intake of antioxidants to lower the risk of cancer. I also don't have a defective p53 gene.
- bnejad 13y agoI don't personally care if you smoke, but I think you are doing yourself a disservice by attempting to rationalize your choice to continue smoking and down playing the harm you are doing to your body. If its just the nicotine you crave perhaps using an E-Cig could be helpful.. although nicotine is still harmful I think cutting out the smoking would probably help a lot.
- edtechdev 13y agoI second that. Try e-cigarettes, etc. to replace the cigarettes. Exercise also gives a cognitive boost. Get an exercise bike (or real bike) and do 5-15 minutes of interval training on it. Cut down on the sugar - coffee instead of soda, nuts instead of candy bars or donuts, etc.
- seanmcdirmid 13y agoe-cigarettes don't really work well because its not about the nicotine. They do give you something to hold and put in your mouth, but the experience is extremely unsatisfying to a smoker. If you go the e-cigarette route, I suggest quitting cold turkey for a couple of weeks or even a month then trying the e-cigs with the idea being that you would have forgotten some of feeling of real cigarettes. It is also incredibly easy to quit for short periods of time, e-cigs can help you avoid relapses. Exercise is quite useful, especially in eliminating white spaces in your routine; i.e. avoid walking and bike instead. It is almost impossible to hold a cigarette and so you won't think about it while biking. Also, smoking is not very effective after exercise, your white space is used for muscle healing and the addiction pangs are muted. The rest of your advice is not as useful: they are simply other bad habits that you should probably quit anyways and not related to smoking. If you have limited willpower, focus on killing one bad habit at a time. There is a reason people often get fatter while quitting smoking; they try to fill the gap with other bad ones. But to each their own. Not-ever-smokers obviously can't give good advice about stopping because they don't understand the habit anyways; while smokers and ex-smokers are a bit diverse in what works for them.
- solarmist 13y agotl;dr Smokers seem to be worse at delayed gratification. And are more easily tempted into the easy/pleasurable choice, even if it's obviously a bad choice long term.
- rdtsc 13y agoI have seen lately advertisement for electronic cigarettes. Are those better, worse for one's health. I don't smoke but was just wondering. They are hailed as a non cancer causing cigarette. Is that true? What about just a nicotine patch. Would smokers just prefer that so they can save money but still get the nicotine boost.
- pstuart 13y agoThey are likely much healthier than cigarettes because it doesn't have all the nasty components in the smoke. Patches aren't going to give the satisfaction of manipulating a "cigarette" and the feel of inhaling the drug. I hated being a smoker but enjoyed the smoking part....
- revelation 13y agoNicotine itself is safe (that is, it a neurotoxin, but so is caffeine; the dosis makes the poison for humans). The carcinogenic substances you inhale from smoking are mostly a by-product of the combustion process. Electronic cigarettes work similar to vaporizers and should be safe (pending research). Also see gwerns articles on nicotine: http://www.gwern.net/Nicotine http://www.gwern.net/Nicotine http://www.gwern.net/Nootropics#nicotine http://www.gwern.net/Nootropics#nicotine
- leohutson 13y agoNicotine is not "safe". It's less harmful than some of the other constituents of tobacco smoke, but it's still cancer promoting in itself: http://www.wjgnet.com/1007-9327/full/v12/i46/7428.htm http://www.wjgnet.com/1007-9327/full/v12/i46/7428.htm http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/91/14/1194.long http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/91/14/1194.long http://toxsci.oxfordjournals.org/content/97/2/279.long http://toxsci.oxfordjournals.org/content/97/2/279.long
- carbocation 13y agoMuch like any drug, it is very difficult to know a priori without doing the experiment. It would be unethical to administer cigarettes or e-cigarettes in a randomized, controlled fashion, but we will probably observe over the coming decades the epidemiologic impact (much as we did for the consequences of cigarettes in the 20th Century). Suggestive studies could be performed in whatever animal models have been most instructive for studying the effects of smoking.
- zombio 13y agoAbout The New York Times (and other subscriber only content) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6111453 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6111453
- Pro_bity 13y agoFunny to note, the study cited by the NYT was published by PloS, which was founded as an alternative to subscription based scientific journals and allows articles to be republished under Creative Commons.
- michaelochurch 13y agoI think anxiety disorders can also trap people in a smoking habit. I've heard that nicotine withdrawal can cause panic attacks. I've never smoked but I know what panic attacks are like and they really try the will power; they're so horrible that you'll do anything (except for something immediately dangerous) that you think can end one. Given how rapidly an ex-smoker "unquits" after lighting up the first time, one can imagine it being hard (for some) to get out of. It does seem to be highly variable how hard it is for people to get out of the habit. Some just stop one day and lose the desire, but I also know a number of people who've "quit" several times but always fall back into it.
- bamurph 13y agoAddicts lack self control. Source: I'm a recovering addict. Edit: Really, come visit an AA meeting sometime and watch everyone guzzle coffee and light up the second they get out the door.
- mcphilip 13y agoSmoking is a nasty habit and harmful to my body. Now that that's out of the way, here are a couple reasons I smoke now and then: 1. Socialization. For whatever reason, it's easy to meet new people while smoking. You don't feel the need to constantly be talking so it's a pretty chill, low-pressure way to meet coworkers, especially those outside of your department. 2. Reflection. I think Ayn Rand said it best: “I like to think of fire held in a man's hand. Fire, a dangerous force, tamed at his fingertips. I often wonder about the hours when a man sits alone, watching the smoke of a cigarette, thinking. I wonder what great things have come from such hours. When a man thinks, there is a spot of fire alive in his mind--and it is proper that he should have the burning point of a cigarette as his one expression.” Obviously there is no requirement to smoke to get in a reflective state, but it is a trigger that helps me.
- stfu 13y agoReminds me of Rule No 1 for the GS Summer interns: If your boss smokes, smoke. [1] [1] http://gselevator.wordpress.com/2013/05/31/congratulations-summer-interns-of-2013-grab-a-pen-here-are-a-few-words-of-wisdom/ http://gselevator.wordpress.com/2013/05/31/congratulations-s...
- esamek 13y agoI would add a #3. 3. Counteracting the negative effects of other chemicals that are used that day. Any stimulant, whether its caffeine, amphetamines or pure adrenaline causes anxiety. That anxiety increases with the dosage of the aforementioned substances; leading to an increased desire of ending said anxiety (b/c you know...no one likes anxiety).
- 13y ago
- aleprok 13y agoDoes smoking cause bad self-control or does bad self-control drive people to smoke? I do not know the answer. What I know is that I am nicotine addict and smoking addict. It is a habit that I go for a cigarette about every hour. It is like a clock in my head ringing to go for a cigarette after 45-60 minutes even though the nicotine withdrawal hits in around three hours. After that I usually will just go out of choice for a cigarette even if I have decided not to smoke that much for the day, because the withdrawal symptoms are annoying. Then again I know for a certain that I am looking for activities that create lasting profit and happiness and avoid every kind of risky things like lottery. Even though I may once a year buy a lottery ticket to try my bad luck, but so does everyone else. I do know that smoking has bad social risks like yellow teeth and bad smell. I do know that smoking causes health problems. Thing is. It is life and it is my decision to live with my addiction, where is the self-control missing? One thing I have noticed since some of my friends have tried to stop smoking or actually have stopped smoking. They will still be the occasional smokers if they stay around other smokers and often that is the case, because smokers usually socialize with other smokers at the cigarette break and once you have quit you will still have that carving for another cigarette and some times the decision "maybe one" will rule them all. It's the ~20% club.
- seanmcdirmid 13y agoNicotine addiction is not really the problem; you can get over that in a week. The problem is habit: want to go outside and think; talk to friends; kill some time while walking from point A to B? Would you rather think about smoking or just smoke and think about something else? For a smoker trying to quit, any whitespace/meditation time in your schedule is a potential for relapse. And its not just a matter of not smoking for a week, a month, 3 months, or even 6 months. It is a continuous long-road challenge to really stop. Source: me.
- aleprok 13y agoYes I do know that Nicotine addiction is not the problem. The bigger problem is the habit of wanting to go outside and think, talk to friends, kill some time while taking the dog out. Like I just went to smoke and thought about this and that about how people discriminate smokers and try to get us to stop it even though most of us avoid smoking while non-smokers are present. Though it is their problem if they hang around with smokers while they smoke. Oh yes and I do wear a seat belt while I am in a vehicle if the vehicle has one for me.
- ap22213 13y agoI wish there was a data source that compared risky behaviors. Like smoking one cigarette is equivalent to driving 100 mph on a windy road is equivalent to not eating vegetables for a week. (just making those up) The problem for me is that I really don't know how risky smoking is relative to other activities. I know that it's risky. But, is it more risky than eating charcoal grilled meat or walking across a busy intersection?