The psychology of smoking. The reason for smoking is negative thinking

Why does a person smoke? Why does he take up a cigarette again and again? reasons for smoking? Now we'll find out.

Reasons for smoking

1. Smoking gives you a sense of confidence

Some people, especially those who are shy and insecure, use a cigarette to feel more confident. In order to join the society and become a part of it.

What to do?

Increase confidence and self-esteem. Look for positive ways to feel great. Ask yourself: "What will give you confidence" This can be playing sports, buying expensive and stylish clothes, a prestigious job and much more.

2. Smoking gives peace of mind

Frequent stress and anxiety leads to strong nicotine addiction. A person gets used to using a cigarette as a support in difficult situations. Like an antidepressant. And so it is important to learn how to manage your stress and be able to calm down and maintain composure.

If your reason for smoking is to calm down, then autogenic training, meditation techniques or breathing exercises.

3. Smoking promotes pleasure

This is also quite common reason for smoking. And many smokers are so attached to cigarettes because they do not know how to receive positive emotions in positive ways. Therefore, if you also belong to this category, you need to answer only one question: “What will make me happy?” And then just start doing it.

4. Smoking as a way to relax

One of the main reasons for smoking is the association of cigarettes and relaxation. That is, people think that smoking helps to relax, rest and put their thoughts in order.

And if you smoke for this reason, then you need to try other ways to relax. For example: you can take baths, go to nature or read your favorite book.

Some people use cigarettes as a focus aid. It illusory helps to think, reflect, comes to some decisions.

What can replace smoking here? Concentration, meditation and contemplation of beauty contribute well to concentration.

6. Smoking helps switch attention

Some people are used to using smoking as a kind of switch. Once, completed the case, you need to smoke a cigarette. Otherwise it's difficult. What to do here? Look for another way. For example, you can wash your face cold water and if time permits it is better to take a shower. This will help not only to switch, but also to relieve unnecessary energy from you.

Many people know that cigarettes have negative impact for the whole organism. Often such knowledge comes down to understanding that after a while an active smoker develops coughing, shortness of breath may occur, teeth will turn yellow. Not everyone knows what happens inside the body. And the fact that smoking is the first and most basic cause of mental disorders, most people do not even suspect.

Numerous studies by scientists have long proved that smoking not only changes the character of a person in the worst side, but also makes him more aggressive, anxious, very irritable. Mental capacity and memory is drastically reduced.

The effect of smoking on the psyche

Smoking is classified as a special type of addiction, which leads to the destruction of the psyche. But the effects of smoking are not so obvious in comparison with alcoholism or drug addiction. At the same time, none of the smokers consider craving for cigarettes to be something very dangerous and destructive for their psycho-emotional state. Many active smokers often compare their addiction to chocolate, thrill or special types products.

Is this really so, and is it even possible to compare such habits?

1. Cigarettes, like any drug, are physically addictive.
2. Both of these addictions negatively affect the human psyche at any age. Especially such manifestations are observed in adolescents, when their body is still in active development.
3. Compared to drugs, changes in the psyche occur much more slowly during smoking than during the use of drugs or alcohol.

These comparisons show that smoking is different from narcotic substances only weaker external manifestations but over time they become more pronounced.

Why is it that a completely healthy, active and adequate person, when he says that smoking destroys his health, only nods his head indifferently and continues to smoke? Cigarettes like alcohol and fast carbohydrates, are dangerous to health, but at the same time a huge number of people around the world regularly use them. The answer is very simple - in all these cases, the subconscious programs of a person or psychosomatics are involved.

Contrary to common sense, anyone can become addicted to such harmful substances. This does not mean at all that he is weak or he does not have willpower, he just has not yet fully realized what programs control him and why he regularly reaches for a cigarette, alcohol or another dose of drugs.

Negative effects of nicotine on the psyche

Smoking and the psyche are things that are inextricably linked. nicotine as well a large number of toxic substances found in cigarettes is a substance that penetrates the human brain very quickly. Regular smoking produces the "hormone of happiness" in the body.

After the first three or five cigarettes smoked, the brain and subconscious remember a certain chain: smoking a cigarette - excitation of certain systems in the body - pleasure. That is why, the body begins to demand another cigarette.

But the main reasons that mental and physical health smoker is greatly worsened, are that over time the body needs much large quantity nicotine. Many experts say that long-term active smokers often feel “nicotine hunger”. The brain is occupied with the same question: "how to smoke the next cigarette as soon as possible", and not with how to cope with nicotine addiction.

Such changes do not appear immediately, the first signs may appear only after 2-3 years of smoking.

At first, cigarettes cause calm and relaxation, but only after a while - aggression, irritability and mental imbalance.

In addition, nicotine and toxic substances lead to hypoxia of the cells of the nervous system and vasospasm. Over time, cells die and mental activity is greatly dulled.

The effect of nicotine on the brain during passive smoking

Many people are not irritated by the process of smoking, but by tobacco smoke. If a person is passive smoker, when it enters his body, tobacco smoke affects all nerve receptors. small particles cigarette smoke give the brain a certain signal, this is manifested by aggression, nervous breakdowns, headache, nausea and other negative factors.

Why do people smoke? “Thank God for creating cigarettes that allow a person to collect his thoughts or, at least, take on a philosophical look” (Christopher T. Buckley “Smoking Here”). Non-random quote.

It is the desire to concentrate, prepare for a responsible step, get rid of stress for a while, muffle pain and fear - the main reasons to move the ashtray closer, strike a match or lighter, bring a cigarette to the fire and take the first puff. This is what most smokers think.

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As psychological prerequisites that provoke the initial craving for smoking, but are always strictly individual, are often called:

• desire to imitate parents, idols, peers
• the desire to attract the attention of the opposite sex (to create the image of a "cool macho" or "mysterious stranger")
• the need for communication (and, conversely, the need to isolate oneself from everyone)
• kind of protest against existing conditions(at home, outdoors, at work, etc.)

These prerequisites look frivolous only at first glance. After all, all of them really lead to the formation of a stable psychological dependence from the process of smoking. Gradually, a kind of ritual appears, supposedly ordering a troubled life: a morning cigarette, a cigarette after a meal, a cigarette before bedtime, etc.

And, mentally giving up tobacco, the smoker loses many illusions: the illusion of communication, the illusion of the team, the illusion of calmness. But the most important thing is the illusion of one's individuality.
The wrong fight against smoking

It is obvious that the problem of nicotine addiction cannot be solved at the state level, since this does not take into account the psychology of smoking and the way of thinking of the smoker. So, for an experienced smoker and often for those who are just about to start smoking, legislative preventive actions aimed at combating this bad habit. Including offering some alternative. Usually this:

• total ban on tobacco advertising
• healthy lifestyle promotion
• visual aids psychological impact(for example, inscriptions on packs)
• smoking ban in public places
• multiple price increases for tobacco products
• sale of cigarettes only in specialized stores

To all these measures, smokers often find witty, in their opinion, solutions:

• “I know what brand of cigarettes to buy even without advertising”
• “Healthy lifestyle is the choice of rich people who have nothing to do”
• “I wonder what they will write on the next pack?”
• “Time to change jobs (favorite restaurant, hotel, social circle)”
• "I'll switch to self-garden"
• “These are all the intrigues of the lobby of retail chains”

Such protest and justification statements better than any definitions illustrate the psychology of smoking as a process to which the life of a nicotine-dependent person is subject.

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How the psychology of smoking can help you quit smoking

So, if the psychology of both a beginner and a heavy smoker is always based on the illusion of individuality, then in order to turn him away from this bad habit once and for all, you should destroy it (the illusion) or show its reverse side. Coming to oneself with the help of a cigarette (for example, in the morning with a cup of coffee, after a hard conversation with a boss, during a period of hard work), a person acquires for a while the ability to drown out all the experiences associated with an abundance of impressions. And not only negative, but also positive.

In other words, the smoker, acquiring an imaginary individuality, voluntarily gives up a significant part of his "I". Only from these positions is it possible to fight this bad habit and on the condition that the impact will just be of a strictly individual nature - with the help of a psychologist or at the cost of independent efforts.

Specially for Alexandra Maksimova

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 puff.

“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 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 necessary.

But this is where 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 then 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 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.”

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. “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 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.

In order to quit smoking, you first need to understand what exactly cigarettes give: what sensations, emotions, feelings the process of smoking causes.

Everyone has it smoking person there are psychological reasons for continuing to smoke, and, in his subjective opinion, are so significant that they outweigh the potential harm from smoking. Moreover, the psychological addiction to cigarettes is much more persistent than the physiological one, and without getting rid of it, it is practically useless to fight nicotine addiction.

There are several main causes of psychological dependence and, accordingly, its types. Basically, they are all based on myths about smoking and its effect on the emotional state.

Smoking helps you relax

This is the most common myth about smoking and the most common excuse given to smokers. It is believed that smoking relieves stress and helps to get rid of emotional tension. One has only to get nervous, go through an unpleasant conversation or quarrel, as he first of all reaches for a cigarette.

However, nicotine has a rather stimulating effect on nervous system than relaxing, and the calming effect in many cases is imaginary. It is not nicotine that causes relaxation, but the process of smoking, familiar and familiar. Three minutes spent smoking one cigarette allows you to collect your thoughts, distract and calm down, just like a short walk on the fresh air or a cup of hot tea, not to mention breathing techniques created specifically to relieve stress and get rid of emotional tension.

Smoking helps you focus

Many smoke in order, on the contrary, to concentrate, and believe that smoking helps to work better and more efficiently. Therefore, the more intense the work process, the more often a cigarette is in the hands, which supposedly contributes to mental activity.

Indeed, nicotine causes an adrenaline rush, but addiction to nicotine develops so quickly that in order to achieve the same effect again, you need to smoke more and more often. People who smoke for this reason develop not only a strong psychological, but also nicotine dependence. Over time, nicotine is detrimental and destructive action to the nervous system.

Smoking helps with social interactions

For this reason, timid and shy people most often begin to smoke, and in some cases they continue to smoke only with other people in the company.

The smoking room becomes a place for establishing informal social contacts, over a cigarette people begin to communicate and get to know each other.

Others, on the contrary, hide behind tobacco smoke from prying eyes. Smoking allegedly justifies their silence and unsociableness. In this case, it is psychological dependence that comes to the fore, people literally cling to a cigarette when they don’t know what to say or how to behave, or when they are looking for a reason to make contact with other people.

Quitting smoking will help only the solution of emotional problems. Only then will the need for cigarettes disappear by itself, and it will be much easier to quit smoking.

Smoking as a ritual

For some people, the main pleasure in smoking is a ritual, a process. Smoking is accompanied by all sorts of beautiful and often expensive attributes: mouthpieces, pipes, lighters, cigarette cases, etc. Often this type of smoking may not even be accompanied by nicotine addiction, because, as a rule, such people smoke in exceptionally certain situations and companies, they do not need an hourly cigarette. Therefore, these fans of beautiful rituals do not see special reasons to quit smoking.

Whatever the reason behind the psychological dependence on smoking, in order to quit smoking, you need to get rid of it. When quitting smoking, nicotine is gradually replaced with an anti-nicotine patch, lozenges, chewing gum. The same should be done with psychological reasons. You need to find other ways to focus, relax, communicate with other people. If you find a replacement for smoking, then it will become much easier to give up smoking.