Why Am I Experiencing Anxiety After Quitting Smoking?

Quitting smoking is a significant life change, and it’s common to experience a range of emotions and effects, including anxiety, severe irritability, difficulty breathing, and more.

Nicotine, the addictive substance in cigarettes, has been shown to have mood-altering effects (even if it is relatively harmless). 

When you stop smoking, your body undergoes a period of adjustment due to the lack of nicotine in your system – your brain keeps on ‘begging’ you to consume nicotine whenever possible, which leads to feelings of anxiety as your body slowly learns to function without cigarettes.

In this post, we’ll take a look at why you’re experiencing anxiety after you’ve just quit smoking.

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Why Is My Anxiety Worse After Quitting Smoking?

There’s no doubt that your anxiety levels will skyrocket after you’ve started to quit smoking. Nicotine, while highly addictive, calms your brain’s consistent ‘buzzing’ when it detects that there are low to zero nicotine levels in your body.

For many smokers, cigarettes have become a huge part of their lifestyle. They even claim it has helped them relax or think more objectively when faced with challenges in any situation.

Unfortunately, these statements are all subjective — it has been proven that smoking only alleviates your anxiety for not having cigarettes or nicotine, not exactly the overall root cause of anxiety.

Hours or days into your quit journey, you will feel much more intense withdrawal symptoms as your body adjusts to zero nicotine — which means you have lower dopamine levels than ever before.

Nicotine triggers the release of dopamine in the body, and as it tries to adjust to its absence, withdrawal symptoms like irritability, restlessness, mood swings, and others will intensify up to a month or beyond.

However, after you’ve gone through the worst of it in your first three weeks or month of quitting, you’ll start feeling these symptoms melt away. Your lungs have started to clean all the toxic chemicals of tobacco smoke in your body, enabling you to breathe easier and give you further motivation to quit cigarettes for good.

How To Deal With Anxiety After Quitting Smoking

Embarking on the journey to quit smoking is no small feat, and dealing with post-quit anxiety is a significant part of the process. To help you understand the anxiety that often accompanies this journey, let’s delve into some practical strategies that can help you forget smoking for good.

Stay Active

The exercise you’ll need during your first weeks of quitting smoking won’t focus on breaking personal records or comparing yourself with the best athletes. We’re only talking about walking, brisk walking, or jogging, whichever you prefer.

Any form of physical activity that involves a huge part of the body gets it focused on one activity and causes tiredness. Doing something challenging or out-of-the-loop from your daily routine will release endorphins.

These natural chemicals are natural mood boosters and are extremely helpful in reducing your nicotine withdrawals. Even non-smokers benefit from exercise’s ability to keep stress and anxiety in check.

So, now it’s time to tie your shoes, wear your sweatshirt, and see the streets and the world outside. Your body will thank you for staying busy and being physically active.

Mindfulness and Meditation

When we say meditation, we’re not talking about the traditional meditation practices taught by gurus and masters. It’s more of being mindful about your actions and everything you’re doing at present.

Mindfulness and meditation are helpful because they keep you grounded. They ensure you’re always present and centred.

The best way to do it is to just close your eyes, observe the way your body is breathing, and think about how far you’ve come in quitting smoking — even if it’s just one hour, one day, one week, or one month, it’s a feat nobody can quickly accomplish.

Meditation isn’t about chanting ‘ohm’ or any mantra. It’s all about thinking about everything you’ve accomplished and feeling thankful that you’re extending your life and improving your health every single day.

Support Groups

Join a support group or have a yarn with friends who’ve been through the same quitting process. Sharing your story, hearing others’ experiences, and swapping advice can make a world of difference in your efforts to quit smoking. Knowing that you’re not flying solo in the anxiety department makes the journey more like a group hike rather than a solitary trek.

If you consider talking to a GP to help you quit, they can refer you to active quitting groups that you can listen to, share, and learn from to help yourself quit smoking. You can also talk to your family and friends to help you quit smoking for good and design an environment suited for smoking cessation.

Consider a Chat with a GP

If the anxiety is getting a bit too much, don’t be shy about reaching out to a GP. They’ve always been a huge part of the success of many former smokers. 

Aside from lending an ear and helping you navigate these stormy waters, they know how to dig into what’s causing the anxiety and work out some personalised strategies to help you stop smoking for good while dealing with these challenges.

They can also prescribe you with the right tools to alleviate the symptoms, such as nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) and nicotine vaping products (NVPs)

In a nutshell, quitting smoking is more than just tossing them aside – it’s a lifestyle shift. 

Anxiety After Quitting Smoking: How Long Does It Last?

Anxiety is a short but significant part of your quitting journey. Short because it will only disrupt you for a week or two, and significant because once you’re done with it, the quitting process gets easier.

The first day is often the most challenging because you’ve just quit tobacco for a few hours. The cravings are strong, and it feels so easy to cave into them. It also feels like it doesn’t get better by the second and third day as the withdrawal symptoms grow stronger, even though your body is actually removing nicotine from your body completely.

However, after six days of quitting smoking, you’re already feeling much better. Your body has better oxygenation, you’re breathing easier, and you have more antioxidants in your body, helping your lungs and various parts of your body heal from the constant tobacco smoke.

You can only expect things to get better during your first month of quitting smoking. Your body is completely free from carbon monoxide and nicotine. Your lungs have almost completed healing themselves (you always feel like you can take a deep and satisfying breath), and you have improved circulation.

After four months of quitting (a big milestone, by the way), you have significantly less shortness of breath and can walk and run for longer. You have fewer bouts of irritability and mood swings, and you often forget about cigarettes at this point.

Within a year of stopping smoking, every withdrawal symptom and effect of smoke chemicals in your body have all but disappeared. Your lungs are much more resilient and are functioning as they were before you started smoking. You might have gained some weight, but now, you have the physical capacity to go through exercise without any difficulties at all.

Summary

Quitting smoking will always bring anxiety, but it only takes a short time to deal with this withdrawal symptom – along with other symptoms – and won’t even take a month of your life. 

However, when you quit smoking after a week, a month, or a year after making your decision, the benefits only go up and ensure you’re living a life that keeps you healthy mentally and physically as you age.

We know that the idea of quitting alone can make you anxious, but that’s where we can help you.

Smokefree Clinic gives you access to many medically reviewed and trustworthy resources that can inform and aid you in your path to wellness, so have a look around! 

If you’re ready to get started, Smokefree can connect you to Australian healthcare professionals who excel in helping patients quit smoking for good.