Smoking Is Unhealthy For Our Daily Life
When your parents were young, people could buy cigarettes and smoke pretty much anywhere — even in hospitals! Ads for cigarettes were all over the place. Today we're more aware about how bad smoking is for our health. Smoking is restricted or banned in almost all public places and cigarette companies are no longer allowed to advertise on TV, radio, and in many magazines.
Almost everyone knows that smoking causes cancer, emphysema, and heart disease; that it can shorten your life by 10 years or more; and that the habit can cost a smoker thousands of dollars a year. So how come people are still lighting up? The answer, in a word, is addiction.
Once You Start, It's Hard to Stop
Smoking is a hard habit to break because tobacco contains nicotine, which is highly addictive. Like heroin or other addictive drugs, the body and mind quickly become so used to the nicotine in cigarettes that a person needs to have it just to feel normal.
People start smoking for a variety of different reasons. Some think it looks cool. Others start because their family members or friends smoke. Statistics show that about 9 out of 10 tobacco users start before they're 18 years old. Most adults who started smoking in their teens never expected to become addicted. That's why people say it's just so much easier to not start smoking at all.
How Smoking Affects Your Health
There are no physical reasons to start smoking. The body doesn't need tobacco the way it needs food, water, sleep, and exercise. In fact, many of the chemicals in cigarettes, like nicotine and cyanide, are actually poisons that can kill in high enough doses.
The body is smart. It goes on the defense when it's being poisoned. For this reason, many people find it takes several tries to get started smoking: First-time smokers often feel pain or burning in the throat and lungs, and some people feel sick or even throw up the first few times they try tobacco.
- Bad skin. Because smoking restricts blood vessels, it can prevent oxygen and nutrients from getting to the skin — which is why smokers often appear pale and unhealthy. An Italian study also linked smoking to an increased risk of getting a type of skin rash called psoriasis.
- Bad breath. Cigarettes leave smokers with a condition called halitosis, or persistent bad breath.
- Bad-smelling clothes and hair. The smell of stale smoke tends to linger — not just on people's clothing, but on their hair, furniture, and cars. And it's often hard to get the smell of smoke out.
- Reduced athletic performance. People who smoke usually can't compete with nonsmoking peers because the physical effects of smoking (like rapid heartbeat, decreased circulation, and shortness of breath) impair sports performance.
- Greater risk of injury and slower healing time. Smoking affects the body's ability to produce collagen, so common sports injuries, such as damage to tendons and ligaments, will heal more slowly in smokers than nonsmokers.
- Increased risk of illness. Studies show that smokers get more colds, flu, bronchitis, and pneumonia than nonsmokers. And people with certain health conditions, like asthma, become more sick if they smoke (and often if they're just around people who smoke). Because teens who smoke as a way to manage weight often light up instead of eating, their bodies lack the nutrients they need to grow, develop, and fight off illness properly.
Kicking Butts and Staying Smoke Free
All forms of tobacco — cigarettes, pipes, cigars, and smokeless tobacco — are hazardous. It doesn't help to substitute products that seem like they're better for you than regular cigarettes, such as filtered or low-tar cigarettes.
The only thing that really helps a person avoid the problems associated with smoking is staying smoke free. This isn't always easy, especially if everyone around you is smoking and offering you cigarettes. It may help to have your reasons for not smoking ready for times you may feel the pressure, such as "I just don't like it" or "I want to stay in shape for soccer" (or football, basketball, or other sport).
Why do people treat me like I am from Mars because I like to smoke? True, I am addicted, but I also love the sensation of a good smoke.
I also like other smokers, the "real smokers," the ones who have cigarettes on them at all times and get cranky when they get down to two or three left in their pack and smoke immediately when they get up in the morning. Not the ones who "smoke when they drink" or do it occasionally - get with it or quit it.
By the way, a note to all you nonsmokers - we (smokers) know cigarettes are going to kill us. We know they smell bad to you people. You don't have to tell us every time you get the chance. Do you honestly think smokers are oblivious to the fact they are detrimental to our health? Trust me, we know.
There is something so hypocritical about someone who is clutching their 20th cup of coffee of the day to look at me and tell me smoking is bad and they would never allow their bodies to become dependent on something. Someone would be more socially accepted if they were hooked on pills; at least there isn't second-hand Xanax.
My favorite of all the smoking community would have to be the former smoker; not only do they always have interesting stories about how they quit, (cold turkey, hypnosis, sabbatical to northern Canada, patches, gum, patches and gum,) but they always want to let smokers know how easy it was. But ask them, anyone who has quit smoking, how long it's been since they smoked, and you will get a reply like "two years, eight months, one week, three days, 14 hours, seven minutes and 22 seconds." They are constantly thinking about cigarettes.
And to the people who think by not buying cigarettes they have "quit" smoking, if you are going to kill yourself with harmful carcinogens: Please do it on your own dime. Also, smoking three or four cigarettes a day when you usually smoke a pack doesn't mean you have quit or practically quit. You still smoke.
So, now when smokers can actually find a place to smoke, it's like there is a big neon sign flashing above our heads with an arrow pointing down that reads "second-class citizens" or "gawk at these people so they know how terrible they are." It is really getting out of hand.
There is actually such a thing as a nonsmoking Alcoholics Anonymous, which is a place where reformed alcoholics can go without the hassle of that pesky smoke, which makes sense, considering the emphasis alcoholics place on their health. Plus, cigarette smoke could drown out the smell of their Aqua Velva and Jim Beam.
I'm not trying to pick on alcoholics since that would make everything I have said so far pointless. My point is that we are all different, and we all like different things. Life is too short not to do what makes you happy, and if smoking makes you happy, do it and be proud. Especially since, if you smoke, your life will be way too short to spend it unhappy.
Brandon is a senior journalism major from Belfry. He is a sports writer for The Progress.
They studied more than 630 people aged 65 and over. smoking and drinking habits were recorded at the beginning of the study. The volunteers' intellectual powers were also assessed. After excluding those who had already had evidence of intellectual impairment//, everyone else was followed up a year later to see whether there was any evidence of a decline in intellect.
Of the 415 people who could be retested, one in 14 had suffered significant intellectual decline. The researchers found that smokers were up to five times more likely to have evidence of significant intellectual decline than either non-smokers or former smokers.
This was after taking account of factors known to affect brain function in older people, such as depression and alcohol use. Researcher Martin Prince said: "Our results indicate that persistent cigarette-smoking into late life increases the risk of cognitive impairment."
Smoking contributes to vascular disease and atherosclerosis, conditions which narrow and harden the arteries and impair blood supply to all parts of the body, including the brain. The researchers suggest that this may explain why smoking has an impact on intellect.
The study also found that people who drank moderately before the age of 65 were marginally less likely to have a decline in their mental powers than either heavy or non-alcoholics.
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