Key takeaways
- Smoking raises heart rate due to adrenaline.
- Nicotine stimulates adrenal glands, raising adrenaline levels.
- Effects include rapid heart rate, tachycardia, heart strain, hypertension
- Quitting smoking improves heart health significantly.
- Work with a GP to quit smoking effectively.
If you’ve once asked, “why does smoking raise my heart rate,” it’s because your adrenaline levels increase with every hit.
Nicotine, although relatively harmless on its own, is a highly addictive chemical that stimulates your adrenal glands and raises your adrenaline levels. This can temporarily raise your heart rate above the average.
In this post, we’ll learn everything about smoking and how it raises your heart rate.
Nicotine’s Impact on Heart Rate
While more synonymous with cigarettes, nicotine can also be found in everyday items we consume like tomatoes, potatoes and eggplants, albeit in very small amounts.
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The amounts of nicotine found in these aren’t enough to raise your heart rate, but a single cigarette delivers a high level of nicotine – this is the reason it feels pleasurable and why your heart beats faster each time.
As mentioned, nicotine stimulates your adrenal glands and raises your adrenaline levels, and the dangerous chemicals in cigarette smoke also narrow your blood vessels and make your heart work much harder.
You can imagine that this can be particularly problematic for people with comorbidities and other existing conditions.
Immediate and Long-Term Effects of High Heart Rate
Tachycardia (also known as rapid heart rate) is extremely dangerous in the short and long term.
Aside from the heart wearing out faster, it also compromises blood flow to the rest of the body as its chambers never get full due to the rapid beating.
Smoking, especially while having coffee, can cause extreme bouts of tachycardia within a few minutes due to caffeine compounding the effects of nicotine to your heart.
You may feel nauseated, have rapid palpitations, and shortness of breath for half an hour to an hour. You might also feel some form of discomfort in your chest.
Anyone who has had tachycardia for years risks experiencing heart failure and death, in extreme cases. Prior to this, they may experience severe heart and blood-related symptoms that could affect other organs and systems in the body later on.
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.