Stop Smoking (satire)

On Saturday I stopped smoking, once again. This has probably been the fifth time that I decided to quit. So this article is being written to remind me to cut the nicotine habit.

First of all, most of my nicotine addiction is psychological. Most of the physiological symptoms disappeared by Sunday. However, all of these psychological symptoms were present before I took up smoking.

From my perspective, the hesitant procrastination, the frantic racing thoughts, and the occasional mood swings are easily remedied by just not thinking about it.

Since I have been meditating off and on for 25 years, it is easy to get over procrastination. I just go out and do my important tasks. On days when I'd rather stay home, I'll either be writing a blog article, creating a song, or most often contributing to Google Plus.

Meditation also helps me with racing thoughts. I just patiently wait them out, and usually they disappear one by one over time.

Mood swings are unpredictable, but subject to patience. Most of the time, my mood is neither extremely happy nor extremely sad. For both feelings are difficult to sustain for long periods. Instead, I feel positive and easy-going.

It also is not important to fixate on happiness as a goal. Rather, happiness is an emotion which inspires the positive mood.

By writing this article, most of my psychological symptoms are kept in control. Writing as self-expression tends to keep my focus on how to remedy the immediate situation. It is difficult to procrastinate on how to present the psychological symptoms, and thus so easy to present the main symptoms.

This is why I like to post on my blog. With all the energy that used to sustain procrastination and racing thoughts now being focused on writing, it is as though my concern about each one of the symptoms fades away.

Now that all of my concerns about the psychological symptoms have been explained, I will present one physiological symptom that has arisen since smoking cessation began: tinnitus.

While I cannot control the tinnitus in my left ear, it is easy to concentrate on writing by using the same method I use for breath meditation. My breathing slows down, and I feel less concerned about that noise in my left ear.

From what can be surmised, having lived with it for decades, a tiny artery that provides life-giving blood to the left side of my head pulses in rhythm to the beating of my heart. With each beat of my heart, that artery pulses near nerves that transmit sound to my brain. An alternate scenario is that my brain "hears" a sound when nerves that used to keep my balance and transmit sound are stimulated by the pulsing of the artery.

In order to accept tinnitus, I think of it as the thunderous flow of life synchronized with the beating of my heart.

When the tinnitus is at its worst, sometimes I think there is an invisible fan somewhere making the noise. However, this is not a hallucination. Rather, this is a coping mechanism in response to the noise that tinnitus causes to the sufferer.

While smoking did not cause the tinnitus, the tinnitus did not cause me to smoke. Most likely, it is an indication that my blood pressure is higher than normal due to the effect of nicotine.

Most likely over time, meditation will help me to cope with tinnitus and the few psychological symptoms I experience everyday. Even the occasional bouts with insomnia have recently subsided.

As well, I have discovered that the noise that tinnitus causes goes away when out in public, where street noise drowns it out almost completely. It is possible that listening to music will help relieve tinnitus symptoms, too.

Returning to smoking cessation, I know that regular exercise does help control the symptoms. So my plan for the future is to continue with the meditation and regular exercise to recover from smoking. Additionally, I will be listening to more music to deal with tinnitus.

My Experience With Nicotine Replacement Therapy

Ten days ago, I started the Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) gum. This is a free, one-time supply of Thrive Gum consisting of three boxes, each containing 108 pieces of gum (324 pieces in total).

After obtaining the prescription number from the Quit Now website, I went down to the pharmacist to obtain it.

Once I received it, I knew that my craving for nicotine would be relived by using it. In each piece of gum is four milligrams of nicotine. My reasoning for choosing the four milligram dose was because I could keep my intake of two pieces of gum per day.

At a maximum of eight milligrams per day, it is enough to relieve the craving pf smoking, but not enough to get addicted to nicotine.

Since I had quit smoking three weeks before getting the prescription, I realize that following the suggested tapering schedule was not in my interest.

Over the ten days using the gum, I have maintained the eight milligram maximum by having the first dose after eating breakfast and the second dose a few hours after dinner.

Thus my plan is to use the NRT gum to maintain enough nicotine to benefit from the metabolite conitine, which has antidepressant properties.

The effect of nicotine itself is primarily stimulant, which improves mood, resulting in positive feelings of satisfaction.

Overall, I find Thrive NRT to be a safer alternative to smoking.

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Thrive NRT: http://www.quitnow.ca/tools-and-resources/guide-to-nrt-and-medication/medication-guide/nicotine-gum.php
Nicotine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine
Conitine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotinine