BBC Health -- People who smoke because they are stressed are less likely to be able to quit than other smokers. Researchers found smokers wrongly think cigarettes will help relieve stress. In fact, smoking exacerbates stressful feelings, exerts told the British Psychological Society conference in Stoke-on Trent. They said counsellors helping smokers quit should tackle the causes of stress and offer other ways of coping with problems. Researchers from Hillingdon Hospital in north-west London followed 550 smokers on a seven week cessation programme. The smokers received a combination of nicotine replacement therapy and group counselling. People were then followed up four weeks after the programme ended to see if they had successfully quit smoking. Dr Christina Chryssanthopoulou, who led the study, told BBC News Online: "We found that those people who used smoking as a way of dealing with stress were not as successful at stopping as people who didn't." She added: "Stress is one of the most important reasons people smoke. "Most smokers report that even when they give up successfully, one of the most important causes of relapse is stress." (09/05/03)
When I successfully returned to life as it was before my addiction to nicotine (twenty years ago), there were two factors that allowed me to succeed where previous attempts had failed. One was temporary nicotine replacement with Nicorette gum. The other was adopting the attitude that I was regaining full use of my senses -- the ability to see, taste, and smell to the fullest extent of my senses, without a film of nicotine, tar, filth, and pollution getting in the way. I was in fact one of the people who used smoking - wrongly - as a means of dealing with stress. It took a re-framing (though I didn't know at the time that was what I was doing) to get things set right.
12:32:19 PM
Saturday, September 06, 2003
BBC Health -- People who smoke because they are stressed are less likely to be able to quit than other smokers. Researchers found smokers wrongly think cigarettes will help relieve stress. In fact, smoking exacerbates stressful feelings, exerts told the British Psychological Society conference in Stoke-on Trent. They said counsellors helping smokers quit should tackle the causes of stress and offer other ways of coping with problems. Researchers from Hillingdon Hospital in north-west London followed 550 smokers on a seven week cessation programme. The smokers received a combination of nicotine replacement therapy and group counselling. People were then followed up four weeks after the programme ended to see if they had successfully quit smoking. Dr Christina Chryssanthopoulou, who led the study, told BBC News Online: "We found that those people who used smoking as a way of dealing with stress were not as successful at stopping as people who didn't." She added: "Stress is one of the most important reasons people smoke. "Most smokers report that even when they give up successfully, one of the most important causes of relapse is stress." (09/05/03) 
