Psychological causes of smoking. The psychology of smoking. The main psychological motives of adults

To quit smoking, you need to give up not cigarettes, but negative thinking.According to statistics different countries, about 60% of men and 20% of women on the planet smoke. Moreover, the harm from smoking has been proven for a long time and is known to everyone. Why are they doing that? And given that most smokers are confident that they will soon quit this smoky business, what makes you postpone another painful “throw” until Monday? “There is nothing easier than quitting smoking, I have already quit a hundred times,” Mark Twain justified.

If for men the beginning of smoking practice is associated with the desire to be an adult, to prove their worth - why a cigarette in adolescents is associated with maturity - a question for parents, then for girls, smoking is primarily associated with coquetry, with a desire to attract the attention of guys, especially those who which is older. Some people are delighted with smoking from the first puff, others feel sick a couple of times, but the desire to be like everyone else overcomes the resistance of the body, and now the person is already reaching for a cigarette - first to the public, saying that he was nervous - it's time to smoke, then seriously - any stress, even the smallest excitement - associated, for example, with a sentimental song, calls for a puff.

“The reasons why a person goes into the smoking room with a cigarette are emotional,” agrees Pavel Staroshchuk, narcologist, Insight clinic. “But the real reasons for smoking are deeper and have to do with the psyche, not with emotions.”

A real understanding that smoking is harmful to health cannot come at the age of twenty - when you are full of strength and blush, you will not believe that shortness of breath happens in life, bad teeth and lung or lip cancer. But when the first illnesses appear, not even related to the habit, when the first thousand rubles are spent on pills, you begin to appreciate health. Just as a twenty-year-old is proud of the fact that he did not sleep for several nights in a row, and a thirty-year-old boasts that he managed to go to bed at ten, so smoking, which at a young age seemed to be something that was very important to know and have, eventually becomes something that is not needed.

But here the question arises that it is already difficult to get rid of pranks - it sucked: “You can talk about addiction when you want to stop and you can’t,” explains narcologist Pavel Staroshchuk. “But the fact is that many want to quit on a formal level, unconsciously wanting to continue smoking.” In general, according to a narcologist, all addictions are incurable, just like, for example, the ability to swim is incurable.

So when people talk about quitting smoking, we are talking not about a complete recovery, but about remission, which should be long, preferably for life. " chemical addiction nicotine is not the main problem in quitting smoking, writes Allen Carr in his legendary book The Easy Way to Quit Smoking. - She's easy to deal with.

The main problem is the mistaken belief that cigarettes bring you pleasure.” Indeed, at the physiological level, nicotine is eliminated from the body within a few days, but people can return to smoking in a year: “The fact is that most do not need tobacco in a cigarette, but that a lot of psychological problems, - explains Pavel Staroshchuk. - Problems come from childhood, on an unconscious level in a stressful environment they cause great excitement, and from stress many people have good remedy- Ritualchik with blowing smoke.

And suddenly a person blocks his way to the smoking room, but it’s better for him not to get - the stresses are returning, only now he is left alone with them, and before he had chain mail - a cigarette.

If you just quit smoking cigarettes without being mentally prepared, a return to smoking is almost completely guaranteed. From the first time it is possible to quit smoking only for those who have a prosperous psyche without pitfalls, but for the most part people, according to experts, give up tobacco only on the fifth or even fifteenth attempt.

You need to approach quitting consciously, accustom yourself to the idea that although smoking is delicious, the smoke pleasantly tickles your throat, it’s time to give it up: “Like a pacifier in childhood, it’s nice, but it’s time to quit,” the narcologist gives an example. But first you need to quit not a cigarette, but your usual attitude to life: “You can try to change the perspective of thinking, because most often we think negatively, and this causes depressive moods,” Pavel Staroshchuk suggests. “You need to not focus on the destruction of the enemy - smoking, but control the thinking that leads to the desire to smoke.”

So that the process of quitting is not painful, you need to place “prostheses” everywhere, so as not to torture yourself by giving up your favorite business, but to love, supporting in every possible way.

Inability to cope with stress. As we have already said, it is necessary to change consciousness and deal with childhood traumas. It is not always easy to do this yourself - why not take advantage of a trip to a psychotherapist?

Fear of gaining weight. The fact is that all dependencies stem from the same root, they are all a way to drown out internal problems. And if the “prosthesis” smoking is discarded, another one comes to the fore easy way distraction - food. “Smoking causes some atrophy of the walls of the stomach and sometimes smokers need special diet, but in 95% of the weight gain after quitting smoking is a habit substitution, - says Elena Nikolaeva, a nutritionist at the Sante-Estetik beauty and health center. - A person replaces periods of smoking with periods of eating. To avoid the problem, it is worth making the food fractional, not three, but five times a day, so that you can chew something more often. It is even better to replace food with liquid - for example, herbal tea with a stimulating or calming effect.

Refusal to communicate with the usual company and alcohol. “It’s not right to avoid the company of smokers – this is another minus for refusal, people begin to feel that they are falling out of society,” warns narcologist Pavel Staroshchuk. - It is more correct after a period of physical withdrawal to go to communicate with familiar people. And to position yourself as someone who has overcome a stage that other smokers have yet to come. This also includes alcohol - you need to wait out the withdrawal period and in the future, if the throwing is conscious, control yourself in situations with alcohol intake that can provoke depression.

There is nothing to keep yourself busy. You need to learn to be alone with yourself, learn to talk with yourself and not fill the void with cigarettes. “Often people smoke out of boredom - there is simply nothing to do,” says the narcologist. “But as soon as a person gets carried away with something, he forgets about smoking.”

There is nowhere to put your hands - knit, pick a lilac branch, stroke a cat - there are a lot of “prostheses” in the beautiful world around.

And it is important to remember that if not inner desire quit smoking - nothing will work for you. Only if the consciousness completely switches to something more worthy than dodging problems and stops perceiving everything in black, smoking, as a result, and secondary factor will go away on its own. The warnings of the Ministry of Health do not work, they do not scare, but they put pressure on them, causing a desire to act out of spite. But realizing that smoking shows self-loathing can make a big impression on you: “Love yourself and stop smoking,” Allen Carr urges. Because if you can't love own person You will never learn to love others.

Taking a cigarette for the first time, a person does not suspect that he is falling into a network, from which it will be difficult to get out. Addiction to nicotine, as well as to caffeine, alcohol and any drugs, does not go away on its own, but turns into physical and psychological dependence. The latter is more difficult to overcome. The brain remembers the pleasant sensations during the smoking process and requires them to be repeated. Before you start fighting nicotine addiction, you need to find out the motives that prompt a person to smoke.

Who is predisposed to developing psychological dependence

Nicotine, even in small doses, has a stimulating effect, so cigarettes in their own way diversify a boring life, make positive changes to it. Heavy smokers often suffer from bad mood, digestive disorders and consider cigarettes as a cure for these conditions.

Nicotine, combined with alcohol and coffee, is stimulating. People with other types of dependence are prone to psychological attachment to it, for example, from:

alcohol;
drugs;
gluttony;
gambling;
extreme sports.

Several categories of the population are predisposed to psychological dependence on tobacco:

How Psychological Addiction Occurs

Nicotine, getting into the body with smoke, spreads to all organs and systems (lungs, blood). The brain releases dopamine, it dampens the excitation of the central nervous system. There is a feeling of peace and relaxation.

With systematic smoking, the body adapts to elevated level dopamine, nicotine is quickly eliminated from the body, and the signal from the brain makes you smoke again. So a certain ritual is developed: every 2-3 hours, the smoker must raise the level of the hormone by smoking a cigarette.

Over time, the period without nicotine is reduced, and the number of cigarettes smoked during the day increases.

Signs and symptoms of addiction

Tobacco addiction does not appear on its own, it arises under the influence of harmful substances contained in the smoke. Nicotine is the first and most dangerous component. This is poison. It has an exciting effect.

During the refusal of cigarettes and cleansing the body of toxic substances to which he is accustomed, smokers have following states discomfort:

All these are quite natural manifestations of cleansing the body of harmful substances. This state of affairs will soon pass. It is important not to panic and not to take up again tobacco products. We must try to get away from unpleasant symptoms, then this period will end faster and easier.

How to determine the degree of dependence

The less experience of a smoker, the easier it is to resist this habit. To determine the level of dependence on tobacco, ask yourself the following questions:

With a positive answer to all questions, you can understand that you have enough strong addiction from smoking and it will be difficult to cope with it.

The fight against addiction

It is difficult to get rid of addiction to cigarettes, but if desired, it is possible.

Prepare mentally. Determine for yourself what makes you smoke and whether you want to get rid of this habit. Are you ready to overcome difficulties? What will it give you?

It is necessary to determine the motives for getting rid of harmful and dangerous habit. To do this, psychologists are advised to answer the following questions for yourself:

Will life change after getting rid of addiction;
what happens if you continue to smoke;
what will not happen if you keep the addiction.

You need to quit smoking as soon as possible. Good motivation will help desire. Knowing how to beat the habit, decide why you need it. Gradually reducing the dose of nicotine rarely helps to quit smoking. You need to throw it sharply and immediately. It will be hard, but endure, because your health is worth it!

The main reasons for smoking, according to which people start smoking cigarettes and knowingly put their lives at risk and create a danger to others.

Like cigarettes, physically addictive and
Psychologically, addiction is very difficult to quit.
Bad examples that lead to nothing good.

Top reasons for smoking among teenagers

Adolescents begin to smoke under the influence of peers. Boys and girls smoke, thinking it's great. Group acceptance is one of the main reasons. Friends who force you to smoke are very persuasive.

This is especially true in relationships between young people. If one person in a couple smokes and the other does not, this is the reason for the threat of a break in relations.

The desire to become older and more independent. Teenagers need to experiment and try new things. Smoking - available opportunity, bored teenagers, in search of sensations, begin to smoke.

If parents smoke, relatives are bad example. Discipline and rules are important to parents. Non-smoking parents are more likely to have non-smoking children who tend to smoke less.

It may be tempting, but they will not smoke at home, reducing the chances of addiction to tobacco products.

Another reason is a trusting outlook on life. The consequences of the future will not cause harm, so there is no reason to refuse pleasure. Out of curiosity, children try to smoke, whether they like it will be the basis for the decision to continue.

Advertisements and films on television are a common way to influence. There is consistent evidence linking the impact of movie images of smoking and smoking initiation in young people.

They perceive smoking as a pleasant and romantic pastime, a desire to be like idols.

Test for smokers

Psychological problems of people

Smoking is addictive. People dream of material wealth beautiful life, attractive people, want to be attractive.

Most depend on money, status, food, comfort and the opposite sex. These things are hard to get, but cigarettes are easy to get. It's nice to be dependent on what you can achieve.

Nicotine is addictive, studies have shown people are prone to smoking according to psychological reasons. overcoming nicotine addiction easy, problem with psychological addiction more difficult.

The psychological reasons for people smoking can be:

Stress. People smoke when they feel excited. The repetitive movements a person makes give a false sense of control. Smokers, light cigarettes, feeling his loss (anger, stress, anxiety).
Strong feelings. They smoke more, thinking about problems. Feeling numb from smoking helps to survive. Using cigarettes to avoid problems or dull pain.
Ineffective anti-advertising. Warnings about are ineffective, they do not contain psychological issues. Anti-advertising, reinforces the desire to smoke. Rebellious teen smoking more after seeing health warnings.
Rule breaking anxiety. They start smoking for breaking the rules, giving excitement. Smokers cling and can't stop.
Loneliness. They say that people feel less lonely when lighting a cigarette, they call cigarettes friends.
like sucking thumb. The smoker, smokes, feeling tension, an unconscious desire to take a calming action - thumb sucking.

Take the smoking test

The influence of society on the spread of tobacco smoking

Social learning theory, studies the learning of people, using the example of others. The strong influence of parents and the environment that the smoker looks at, peers, actors and pop stars. This makes them imitate the behavior and try to smoke.

Over the years, television shows and movies have effectively created associations between smoking and glamour, sex and risk. The amount of smoking in real world decreases. But people are still exposed to advertising that deliberately promotes smoking.

Young people who are fans of tobacco industry-sponsored motorsports are more likely to smoke than others.

Smokers have in common with other smokers without asking about their interests. Represent, group people who smoke dressed in T-shirts with your favorite music band.

Everyone would like to feel comfortable starting a conversation with them. Cigarettes are an easy reason to start a conversation with strangers.

If a person wants to get closer to smokers, he starts smoking, imitating behavior. People spend time with people who look like them.

Useful video on the topic

Addiction in women

Number smoking women, aged 45 to 65, has increased over the past 10-20 years. Anti-smoking groups blame manufacturers for failing to increase the price of tobacco. But only low prices reason for smoking?

Cigarettes are seen as a symbol of freedom and the image of power that comes with smoking. Women who start smoking adolescence, rebelling, forgiving the rules, approaching friends and the opposite sex.

Later they smoke when they drink. When women drink and smoke with friends, they feel the atmosphere of solitude, share secrets, knowing about support and understanding.

Smoking, tobacco use is associated with education and family budget. It is found that lack of education, illiteracy and declining income increases the risk of smoking.

Tobacco companies are responsible for encouraging girls and women to smoke. Manufacturers have created brands of cigarettes with low level nicotine, special design and flavors. The ads focus on women's independence, stress relief and weight loss.

Unconsciously pursuing the goal of appearing in oneself male side. It is popular with women who smoke to deny popular stereotypes about female weakness and sensibility.

Women smoke for the following reasons:

rebellion against social pressure, woman feminine, perfect and sweet;
a way to gain independence from parents;
a way to make friends and be accepted by peers;
relaxation and stress relief method;
smoking is an easy way to not gain weight.

Women smoke more often alone, which indicates the shame of the habit of smoking, a woman with a cigarette is a phenomenon that is less socially acceptable.

Having a cigarette, a reward, and a way to deal with stress or anxiety. But everyone knows smoking causes cancer and a host of cancers. Comes new level stress - from awareness, independent influence on oneself.

Smoking is like eating, a piece of chocolate cake when you need to lose weight. The cigarette fills temporary cravings, but the awareness of the harmfulness and futility of the method is obvious.

The problem of losing weight when quitting the habit

It is believed that people who quit smoking are able to gain excess weight. Some gain weight after quitting smoking. Weight gain comes from filling the void with food, not from lack of nicotine, tobacco smoke.

While smoking, nicotine causes the body to suppress appetite and stimulate metabolism. It really is true.

The practice of smoking cigarettes for weight loss and appetite suppression with cigarettes was first used among pre-Columbian Native Americans and Europeans of the time.

Women are afraid, thinking that they will gain excess weight. In reality, the body will become slimmer, because quitting smoking will give you energy and strength to go in for sports and go to the gym.

In the United States, studies have been conducted on the relationship between smoking and body weight.

One study found 75% of women smokers failed after stopping smoking. Some women have started smoking, hoping it will help them lose weight.

Studies have shown that women who worry about weight in relation to smoking also worry about other habits: eating heavily, drinking, not being physically active.

It is important that women understand that smoking has a big influence appearance: thinning hair, wrinkles, brittle nails, discolored teeth, skin and bad breath. Getting rid of cigarettes is an effective cosmetic procedure.

Main reasons for refusal

Diseases caused by smoking include:

heart diseases;
stroke;
peripheral vascular disease;
emphysema;
ulcers.

Treatment of pre-existing diseases will be hampered by smoking. The risk of anesthesia and postoperative complications increased by the use of cigarettes.

Some people want to quit smoking to set a positive example for their children.

Smoking expenditure is another important reason. A smoking couple may be motivated by understanding the huge spending on cigarettes.

Smokers burn holes in clothes, cars, furniture and carpets. This can lead to accidental fires. More than half of fire deaths are caused by cigarette smoking.

Many quit smoking within a short period of time but return to smoking. Freed, people feel healthier, calmer and happier.

But the lack of understanding of the seriousness of the habit, allows itself to return to the temptation. This leads to an increase in full-fledged dependence.

People are starting to heal different reasons, but most have a common motivation. They need help to quit smoking. They know the danger, the difficulties, the costs, but they cannot stop.

What is the psychosomatics of smoking

Psychosomatics - explains the interconnection of emotional experience (weakness in front of a sense of fear, suppression of the manifestation of feelings, prohibition of showing anger) and physical condition(illness, health, bad habits). Influence of the psyche on the occurrence of diseases.

Almost every attending physician pays attention to psychological condition sick. If treatment and drugs do not give desired effect, Doctor Refers Patient To Psychotherapist.

It is also possible to independently analyze your feelings during the desire to smoke, to understand why this happens. The main thing is to draw conclusions and act.

Addiction is a psychological attempt to avoid a problem. Cigarettes work as a means to relax. Although you can relax without a cigarette.

However, by using this tool, a person is preparing for the upcoming difficulties and stress. As a result, he will find another stress in getting rid of such a means of relaxation.

A person is able to overcome difficulties on his own, without external helpers, but an inner voice convinces of the opposite. Minor weakness will have to pay its own easy breathing, because advertising and society convinced of the status of smoking.

To avoid smoking, the influence from the psychological side on the patient brings results. For this, methods of relaxation, meditation, breathing exercises, communication with psychotherapists and individual treatment.

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I’ve already quit a hundred times, ”Mark Twain justified.

If for men the beginning of smoking practice is associated with the desire to be an adult, to prove their worth - why a cigarette in adolescents is associated with maturity - a question for parents, then for girls, smoking is primarily associated with coquetry, with a desire to attract the attention of guys, especially those who which is older. Some people are delighted with smoking from the first puff, others feel sick a couple of times, but the desire to be like everyone else defeats the resistance of the body, and now the person is already reaching for a cigarette - first to the public, saying that he was nervous - it's time to smoke, then seriously - any stress, even the smallest excitement - associated, for example, with a sentimental song, calls for a drag.

“The reasons why a person goes to the smoking room with a cigarette are emotional,” agrees Pavel Staroshchuk, narcologist, Insight clinic. “But the real reasons for smoking are deeper and have to do with the psyche, not with emotions.”

A real understanding that smoking is harmful to health cannot come at the age of twenty - when you are full of strength and blush, you will not believe that shortness of breath, bad teeth and lung or lip cancer happen in life. But when the first illnesses appear, not even related to the habit, when the first thousand rubles are spent on pills, you begin to appreciate health. Just as a twenty-year-old is proud of the fact that he did not sleep for several nights in a row, and a thirty-year-old boasts that he managed to go to bed at ten, so smoking, which at a young age seemed to be something that was very important to know and have, eventually becomes something that is not needed.

So when they talk about quitting smoking, it's not about a complete recovery, but about remission, which should be long, preferably for the whole life. “Nicotine chemical dependence is not the main problem in quitting smoking,” writes Allen Carr in his legendary book The Easy Way to Stop Smoking. - She's easy to deal with.

The main problem is the mistaken belief that cigarettes bring you pleasure.” Indeed, at the physiological level, nicotine is eliminated from the body within a few days, but people can return to smoking in a year: “The fact is that most do not need tobacco in a cigarette, but that a lot of psychological problems are hung on it, - explains Pavel Staroshchuk. “Problems come from childhood, they cause great excitement at an unconscious level in a stressful environment, and many people have a good remedy for stress - a smoke-blow ritual.”

If you just quit smoking cigarettes without being mentally prepared, a return to smoking is almost completely guaranteed. From the first time it turns out to quit smoking only for those who have a prosperous psyche without pitfalls, but for the most part people, according to experts, give up tobacco only on the fifth or even fifteenth attempt.

You need to approach quitting consciously, accustom yourself to the idea that although smoking is delicious, the smoke pleasantly tickles your throat, it’s time to give it up: “Like a nipple in childhood, it’s nice, but it’s time to quit,” the narcologist gives an example. But first you need to quit not a cigarette, but your usual attitude to life: “You can try to change the perspective of thinking, because most often we think negatively, and this causes depressive moods,” Pavel Staroshchuk suggests. “You need to not focus on the destruction of the enemy - smoking, but control the thinking that leads to the desire to smoke.”

Fear of gaining weight. The fact is that all dependencies stem from the same root, they are all a way to drown out internal problems. And if the "prosthesis" smoking is discarded, another easy way to distract yourself comes to the fore - food. “Smoking causes some atrophy of the walls of the stomach and sometimes smokers need a special diet, but in 95% of the weight gain after quitting smoking, the habit is changed,” says Elena Nikolaeva, nutritionist at the Sante Estetik beauty and health center. - A person replaces periods of smoking with periods of eating. To avoid the problem, it is worth making the food fractional, not three, but five times a day, so that you can chew something more often. Better yet, replace food with a liquid, such as herbal tea with a stimulating or calming effect.

Refusal to communicate with the usual company and alcohol. “Avoiding the company of smokers is not right - this is another minus for refusal, people begin to feel that they are falling out of society,” warns narcologist Pavel Staroshchuk. - It is more correct after a period of physical withdrawal to go to communicate with familiar people. And to position yourself as someone who has overcome a stage that other smokers have yet to come. This also includes alcohol - you need to wait out the withdrawal period and in the future, if the quitting is conscious, control yourself in situations with alcohol intake that can provoke a depressive state.

There is nothing to keep yourself busy. You need to learn to be alone with yourself, learn to talk with yourself and not fill the void with cigarettes. “Often, people smoke out of boredom - there is simply nothing to do,” says the narcologist. “But as soon as a person gets carried away with something, he forgets about smoking.”

There is nowhere to put your hands - knit, pick a lilac branch, stroke a cat - there are a lot of “prostheses” in the beautiful world around.

And it is important to remember that if there is no inner desire to quit smoking, you will not succeed. Only if the consciousness completely switches to something more worthy than dodging problems and stops perceiving everything in black, smoking, as a result, and the secondary factor will go away on its own. The warnings of the Ministry of Health do not work, they do not scare, but they put pressure on them, causing a desire to act out of spite. But realizing that smoking shows self-loathing can make a big impression on you: “Love yourself and stop smoking,” Allen Carr urges. After all, if you do not know how to love your own person, you will never learn to love others.