Key takeaways
- Smoker's lungs heal after quitting smoking.
- Recovery takes about a year or more.
- Cilia regrow to clear tar and toxins.
- Short-term effects include improved circulation, breathing.
- Long-term recovery includes improved lung function.
If you’ve been smoking for decades, you can bet your lungs aren’t in good shape. You’re probably breathing a lot harder after heading up a flight of stairs or struggling with a cough that just won’t go away.
While you may think the damage is done and your lungs won’t get better, they will if you stop smoking – just not by tomorrow or the end of the week.
Let’s learn more about this in today’s post.
The Impact of Smoking on Lung Health
The dangerous chemicals in cigarette smoke directly head to your lungs. Your bronchial tubes and alveoli get irritated; your cilia (tiny hair-like structures that help prevent mucus buildup) will even start to dissipate with smoke passing in and out of your lungs.
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Tar is probably the most destructive chemical you can find in cigarettes. While aldehydes, carbon monoxide, cadmium, and other heavy metals can cause long-term health problems, tar physically attaches and blocks your bronchial tubes and lung tissue.
Aside from making breathing much more difficult, tar can trap more hazardous chemicals from smoke, increasing the risk of COPD, cancer, emphysema, and other problems.
How Long Does It Take Lungs To Heal After Smoking?
On average, it takes about one year for the lungs to recover to their normal function.
Again, as we’ve mentioned, stopping smoking will help your lungs heal and recover. If you stop smoking at a certain age, your lungs may recover significantly and work as they did before you even started smoking – regardless of whether you smoked for a decade or more.
Once you stop smoking, the cilia grow back and start clearing all the tar and toxic chemicals from your lungs – an explanation for the nasty coughing fits you might have a few days to a week after stopping smoking.
A few more weeks, and your lungs clean away the toxic chemicals much more efficiently and produce more recovery-aiding tissues.
Without carbon monoxide to hamper your oxygenation, your body’s cells and immune system aids your lungs’ recovery. More hydration also speeds up your lung recovery by disposing toxins from smoking in the blood and giving your body enough oxygen for better cell production.
Short-Term Effects of Quitting Smoking on Lung Health
Quitting smoking for at least one day helps your cilia recover and start cleaning your lungs. While you might not feel immediate relief by breathing better or making your cough disappear, your pulse will return to normal and your circulation will have already improved.
By the 6th day, you’ll definitely feel different. You might still have bouts of coughing and wheezing, but that means your cilia are becoming more efficient at cleaning away toxins and chemicals – it’s a good thing.
Remember, this is just the beginning of your recovery – and everything’s bound to get better as the days you’ve stopped smoking pile on.
Long-Term Recovery Timeline for Smoker’s Lungs
By two weeks of stopping smoking, your withdrawal symptoms will have weakened, and you’ll also be breathing a lot better by this time as your cilia will have removed a huge amount of dangerous chemicals from your lungs.
Because your dopamine levels have reset, you will feel less mental and emotional strain from withdrawal symptoms and even enjoy new hobbies and activities if you’ve picked some up.
By a month, you can probably start some heavier exercises like jogging and hiking. You’ll feel far less tired taking a short flight of stairs too. You can expect this to get better and better as the months go by.
Once you’ve reached the milestone of one year, you’ll surely feel a major difference in the way you breathe and feel about yourself physically, mentally, and emotionally. Your lungs may even have returned to their normal function by this time, as if you never smoked at all.
Summary
It takes a year and a few more months for the lungs to return to their reliable function after stopping smoking. But, quitting smoking is the hardest yet simplest step you can take, and the good news is that it’s easy to quit today with the help of a GP to monitor and guide you through the journey.
And if you need a little motivation to get through the two weeks of initial difficulty in quitting and beyond, we can help.
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.