What Does Smoking Do To Your Lungs?

Smoking tobacco is linked to 19 different types of cancer, including lung cancer, as well as a variety of other serious lung diseases.

Many of these conditions can be life-threatening and, let’s be honest, they all have a significant impact on your quality of life.

The good news? You can protect yourself from these illnesses by quitting smoking. 

When you kick the habit, your lungs begin to heal themselves, and your risk of developing fatal diseases decreases significantly.

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In this post, we’ll dive deeper into the harmful effects smoking has on your lungs and discuss how your lungs can repair themselves after you stop.

What Does Smoking Do To Your Lungs?

Smoking cigarettes can directly damage your lungs and hinder their proper function.

When this occurs, you might experience pain or discomfort while breathing, shortness of breath, and a decreased ability to exercise.

The Chemicals In Cigarettes

Lighting up even one cigarette can draw in around 7,000 chemicals into your body, including more than 70 that are known to cause cancer. Below are a few of the most alarming ones you’ll want to avoid:

• Nicotine: This is the addictive chemical in cigarettes. It increases your heart rate, raises blood pressure, and triggers the release of dopamine, which is why you feel good when you smoke.
• Tar: This sticky, brown substance comes from the solid particles in tobacco smoke. It contains carcinogens, which are substances that can cause cancer.
• Carbon monoxide: This poisonous gas is colourless and odourless. When inhaled, it binds to red blood cells, reducing the amount of oxygen that can circulate in your body. The body takes a long time to clear carbon monoxide—up to a day.
• Metals and radioactive chemicals: Cigarettes also contain harmful metals like arsenic, nickel, cadmium (the stuff found in batteries), and beryllium (used in nuclear reactors).

How Smoking Impacts The Lungs

When you smoke, your lungs become vulnerable to all those harmful chemicals we just talked about. 

This exposure can affect your lungs in several ways, leading to a range of health issues.

That’s why it’s essential to understand just how much smoking can impact your respiratory health.

Irritation And Airflow

Before cigarette smoke reaches your lungs, it first travels down the windpipe and past the voice box.

This journey can cause some unpleasant reactions, like swelling, irritation, a sore throat, and a persistent cough.

You might even notice that your voice changes, affecting its tone, quality, and pitch.

If you’re experiencing swollen and narrowed airways, it could be linked to your smoking habits.

When you inhale tobacco, it reduces the number of blood vessels and the air space in your lungs.

As a result, less oxygen gets circulated through your body, which can have some pretty serious effects on your overall health.

Smoking And The Cilia

Is your smoker’s cough usually worse in the morning? This might be due to the cilia, those tiny, hair-like structures that line your airways.

They’re supposed to help keep your lungs clear of bacteria and toxins, making it easier to breathe.

However, the chemicals in tobacco can damage these cilia, limiting their ability to effectively clear out debris and harmful pathogens like bacteria and viruses.

The good news is that you can help restore your cilia by quitting smoking.

When you go several hours without a cigarette, the cilia can regain some movement. 

Overnight, since they’re not exposed to cigarette smoke, they start to work again, helping to clear out the toxins that have built up in your lungs from the previous day.

Mucus Build-Up

Smoking prompts mucus-producing cells in the lungs to grow and multiply, meaning it is thicker and there’s more of it.

The build-up is made worse because the cilia cannot effectively expel it from the lungs, so the toxic substances accumulate and settle in the lungs for longer.

Damage To The Air Sacs

Alveoli are small sacs of air positioned deep within our lungs. Over time, smoking thins and breaks down the walls of the alveoli, turning them into larger, less efficient sacs of air.

The alveoli are naturally bouncy, and this structure makes it easier for oxygen to flow in and carbon dioxide to flow out. When they are damaged, they lose this elasticity and cannot effectively promote airflow.

Lung Diseases Caused By Smoking

Smoking is responsible for a number of lung diseases, including:

• Lung cancer. The CDC reports that women and men who smoke are 25.7 and 25 times more likely to develop lung cancer than non-smokers, respectively.

• Chronic bronchitis. This disease develops when there has been long-term inflammation of the bronchi. Symptoms include constant coughing, mucus, chest discomfort, and wheezing. It can lead to disability, severe infections, difficulty breathing, and heart failure, and is a contributing factor for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

• Emphysema. This occurs when the alveoli are damaged. Emphysema results in shortness of breath and coughing, and is an incurable disease. It often leads to the development of COPD.

• Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. COPD occurs when airflow to the lungs is blocked. It causes breathing difficulty, wheezing, and a cough. It is a progressive disease that usually gets worse over time.

If You Stop Smoking, Will Your Lungs Heal?

Our lungs are very resilient; they can actually repair some of the short-term inflammatory damage caused by smoking. Your lungs will begin to heal themselves as soon as you quit smoking. Even if you’ve been a chronic, long-term smoker, your lung health and breathing will improve when you quit.

After Quitting Smoking, How Long Does It Take For The Lungs To Clean?

You’ll notice changes in your lungs very soon after quitting.

• 12 hours after quitting, the carbon monoxide levels in your body return to normal, and oxygen flow through the body increases.
• 1 month to 9 months after quitting, you’ll experience a reduction in coughing, wheezing, and breathing problems.

• 2 weeks to 3 months after quitting, your lung function will begin to improve and you will be able to breathe more easily.

• 10 years after quitting, your risk of lung cancer is half of what it was when you smoked.

How To Heal Your Lungs After Smoking

Your lungs are self-cleaning, so they will naturally begin to heal when you quit smoking. However, there are a few things you can do to accelerate the process and ensure your lungs have the best chance of recovery.

Avoid Toxins and Pollutants

Mould, dust, smoke, and chemicals can all further irritate your lungs and slow down the healing process. Keep an eye out for mould and dust within the home, and safely remove it if you do notice it.

Avoid spending time in areas where people are smoking, as secondhand smoke can worsen the damage to your lungs.

It’s also a good idea to keep an eye on the weather, paying particular attention to pollution and smoke reports. Refrain from spending too much time outside on especially hazy days.

Stay Hydrated

Drinking water keeps mucus thin, which will make it easier for you to cough it up and clear it from your lungs. Aim for 2 litres of water a day. Warm drinks are particularly effective in loosening mucus, so reach for a cup of tea where you can.

Eat Well

Ensuring you’re nourishing your body with healthy foods is vital on your quitting journey. Make sure you incorporate protein, vegetables, fruits, and whole grains into your meals.

The nutrients in these foods will help to repair damaged cells and allow your body to create new, healthy tissue growth. Try to eat anti-inflammatory foods such as blueberries, kale, olives, and almonds.

Use A Humidifier

An air humidifier adds moisture to the air, which will help to loosen the mucus in your lungs and make it easier for you to cough productively (produce phlegm when you cough). Humidifiers are particularly helpful if you sleep in a very dry environment.

Steaming can also be used to loosen phlegm and reduce inflammation in the airways. Simply pour hot water into a bowl, lean over the bowl, and drape a towel over your head, ensuring it covers the bowl too. Inhale the steam in slow, deep breaths.

Stay Active

Exercise, particularly cardiovascular activities, helps to promote airflow and keep oxygen moving through your body. Activities such as running, swimming, cycling, and dancing will not only strengthen your lungs but offer an endorphin and dopamine-hit which your body will crave after quitting smoking.

Cough

Even though it can be uncomfortable, don’t be afraid to cough. Your body needs to rid itself of the toxins and mucus in the lungs, so coughing when you feel the urge will help you work through this process quicker.

Breathwork

Deep breathing can help to strengthen the diaphragm and slow your breathing rate. Quick breathing puts pressure on the lungs and forces excessive oxygen into the body, so by slowing down your breath, you are relieving your lungs of that pressure.

Make sure you focus on exhaling completely to release all of the trapped air from your lungs.

Breathwork is also one of the most effective relaxation techniques. Quitting smoking can give rise to anxiety, so incorporating deep breathing into your day will not only promote lung recovery, but will also help you manage stress.

Quit Sooner And Reap The Rewards

Smoking can lead to a number of debilitating and incurable lung diseases. When you quit smoking, you protect your lungs from the 7,000 chemicals found in cigarettes, many of which are carcinogens.

As soon as you quit, your lungs will start to heal themselves. In some cases the damage is reversible.

Even if you have irreversible deterioration, your lung health and breathing will rapidly improve when you quit, with the first changes showing up in as little as 12 hours after your last cigarette.

Take a closer look at the timeline of what happens to your body when you quit smoking.

Link Reference

• https://health.clevelandclinic.org/is-smokers-voice-real/
• https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/health_effects/effects_cig_smoking/index.htm