smoking & RelaxationMost smokers think that a cigarette helps to relax them. The truth is that nicotine is a chemical
stimulant. If you take your pulse and then smoke two consecutive cigarettes, there will be a marked
increase in your pulse rate. One of the favorite cigarettes for most smokers is the one after a meal. A meal is a time of day when we stop working; we sit down and relax, relieve our hunger and thirst and are then completely
satisfied. However, the poor smoker cannot relax, as he has another hunger to satisfy. He thinks of
the cigarette as the icing on the cake, but it is the little monster that needs feeding.
The truth is that the nicotine addict can never be completely relaxed, and as you go through life it
gets worse,
The most unrelaxed people on this planet aren't non-smokers but fifty-year-old business executives
who chain-smoke, are permanently coughing and spluttering, have high blood pressure and are
constantly irritable. At this point cigarettes cease to relieve even partially the symptoms that they
have created.
I can remember when I was a young accountant, bringing up a family. One of my children would do
something wrong and I would lose my temper to an extent that was out of all proportion to what he
had done. I really believed that I had an evil demon in my make-up. I now know that I had, however it
wasn't some inherent flaw in my character, but the little nicotine monster that was creating the
problem. During those times I thought I had all the problems in the world, hut when I look back on my
life I wonder where all the great stress was. In everything else in my life I was in control. The one
thing that controlled me was the cigarette. The sad thing is that even today I can't convince my
children that it was the smoking that caused me to be so irritable. Every time they hear a smoker
trying to justify his addiction, the message is ' Oh, they calm me. They help me to relax.'
A couple of years ago, the adoption authorities threatened to prevent smokers from adopting
children. A man rang up, irate. He said, 'You are completely wrong. I can remember when I was
a child, if 1 had a contentious matter to raise with my mother, I would wait until she lit a
cigarette because she was more relaxed then.' Why couldn't he talk to his mother when she wasn't
smoking a cigarette? Why are smokers so unrelaxed when they are not smoking, even after a
meal at a restaurant? Why are non-smokers completely relaxed then? Why are smokers not able
to relax without a cigarette? The next time you are in a supermarket and you see a young housewife
screaming at a child, just watch her leave. The first thing she will do is to light a cigarette.
Remember seeing, say, Steve Davis and Hurricane Higgins on television? Notice the difference?
Which of the two was more relaxed? Start watching smokers, particularly when they are not
allowed to smoke. You' ll find that they have their hands near their mouths, or they are twiddling
their thumbs, or tapping their feet, or fiddling with their hair, or clenching their jaw, Smokers
aren't relaxed. They've forgotten what it feels like to be completely relaxed. That's one of the
many joys you have to come.
The whole business of smoking can be likened to a fly being caught in a pitcher plant. To
begin with, the fly is eating the nectar. At some imperceptible stage the plant begins to eat the
fly.
Isn't it time you climbed out of that plant?