Why Does Smoking Raise Your Heart Rate?

Have you ever felt your heart racing or pounding? 

If you’re a smoker, it could be down to nicotine, which triggers your adrenal glands and boosts your adrenaline.

Nicotine isn’t just addictive—it can also make your heart rate spike above normal levels, even if it’s only temporary.

Read on to find out how smoking affects your heart rate and why it matters for your health.

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Nicotine’s Impact on Heart Rate

Even if you don’t smoke, you might not realise you’re already taking in tiny amounts of nicotine from everyday foods like tomatoes, potatoes, and aubergines.

But don’t worry, the amounts in these foods aren’t enough to affect your heart rate.

However, if you smoke even one cigarette, you’re getting a large dose of nicotine—enough to give you a buzz and make your heart beat faster.

Nicotine triggers your adrenal glands, boosting adrenaline, and the harmful chemicals in cigarette smoke can narrow your blood vessels, putting extra strain on your heart.

If you’re a smoker with other health issues, smoking could be even more dangerous, and potentially life-threatening.

Immediate and Long-Term Effects of High Heart Rate

Tachycardia is something you definitely don’t want.

It’s when your heart beats too fast, which is dangerous both in the short and long term.

Your heart wears out quicker, and blood flow gets compromised because the chambers don’t fully fill up due to the rapid beating.

Smoking, especially when paired with coffee, can trigger serious bouts of tachycardia within minutes, as caffeine and nicotine together put extra strain on your heart.

You might feel nauseous, have rapid palpitations, shortness of breath for up to an hour, and even discomfort in your chest.

If you’ve been smoking for a while, these heart and blood-related issues can start to affect other organs. 

Long-term tachycardia can even lead to heart failure or, in extreme cases, death.

Carbon Monoxide, Oxygen and Constricted Vessels

The dangerous chemicals in cigarette smoke like carbon monoxide, aldehydes, cadmium, and heavy metals can cause short and long-term problems to your heart and entire body. Narrowing your blood vessels is one of them.

Anyone with compressed or blocked blood vessels – similar to people with high cholesterol – will experience hypertension and possible high blood pressure over time. 

Smoking can shrink your blood pathways – its chemicals will start forming vessel-blocking plaques (atherosclerosis) in various areas.

Lastly, the chemicals in cigarette smoke will cause your blood oxygenation to drop – the reason why you feel weaker than usual each time you smoke a ciggie. 

Carbon monoxide from cigarettes binds to the haemoglobin (the protein responsible for blood oxygenation) and reduces oxygenation.

If You Have Comorbidities, Stop Smoking Quickly

Anyone diagnosed with a pre-existing condition related to the heart, lungs, or stomach should stop smoking immediately.

As mentioned, nicotine, while harmless, spikes your adrenaline and directly affects your heart. Your pre-existing conditions and comorbidities will likely worsen with the heart working much more than it should. 

So, if you have comorbidities, stop smoking quickly. See a GP if you need immediate help in stopping smoking.

How to Quit Smoking for Good

We understand how extremely challenging it can be to stop smoking, but today’s quitting journey is much easier to manage and will help you effectively stop smoking for good. You can take the following steps to start your stop-smoking programme.

Go Through First-Line Solutions First

Some motivated smokers can handle cold turkey just fine and see success within a few tries, but oftentimes, smokers have strong withdrawals that can draw them back to lighting a stick.

That’s where nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) products come in. These are readily available and stocked at your local pharmacy.

NRT products are the most trusted quitting option available for motivated smokers. They might not imitate cigarettes, but they contain a small dose of nicotine that may be enough to alleviate your withdrawals. These come in the form of patches and gums for easy and convenient nicotine delivery.

While NRTs can be effective, they don’t work for everyone. If these haven’t done the trick for you, you may now be eligible for a nicotine prescription to use nicotine vaping products (NVPs).

Chat to a GP

As mentioned, NRT products have worked for many successful ex-smokers. But, you might have ingrained behaviours and triggers that only something that mimics a cigarette can successfully address, such as the hand-to-mouth motion, and needing something to use while having a drink with friends. 

That is where Nicotine Vaping Products (NVPs) become very handy in helping you fight the urge to consume tobacco.

You need a nicotine prescription before you can purchase NVPs, so you’ll need to consult with a GP to help you on your smoking cessation journey. 

And, if your GP deems it necessary, they can write you a nicotine prescription for NVPs. 

You can chat to your usual GP more about this.

Visit Your Local Pharmacy

Once you have your nicotine prescription, you can pop down to your local pharmacy. Over 2,200 pharmacies across Australia hold these products in-store, but any pharmacy can order these in for you if they don’t currently stock them.

Both your pharmacist and GP can advise you on how best to use the product, such as the initial setup, and the number of puffs to take when you feel withdrawals.

Summary

Smoking raises your heart rate and risk of worsening any pre-existing conditions. But, by stopping smoking, you can prevent the short- and long-term dangers it can pose to your body.

We understand the difficulties of stopping smoking, but that’s where we can help motivated people like you the most. 

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 friendly Australian healthcare professionals who excel in helping patients quit smoking for good, including via the use of pharmacy NVPs.

Click here to book in with a doctor today.

Link Reference:

• https://www.pmiscience.com/en/smoke-free/nicotine/nicotine-from-plants-to-people/
• https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/sgr/50th-anniversary/pdfs/fs_smoking_cvd_508.pdf
• https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/subject_specific_writing/healthcare_writing/writing_as_a_professional_nurse/documents/20100217020347_922.pdf