Nasia Davos

If you’re like me, and most other smokers, you’re probably worried that quitting smoking will make you anxious, irritable, depressed, or lower the quality of your life.

Perhaps you’ve been smoking for a long time and don’t know any other way to cope.  

So how can you manage your emotions without smoking?

Read on to learn:

• A new way to think about emotions
• 3 ways to better manage your emotions 
• How quitting smoking affects your emotions
• A simple way to avoid lashing out after quitting smoking
• How long it takes for your brain to feel normal after you quit

Emotions and Quitting Smoking

Almost all smokers use smoking to cope with their emotions. But does smoking really help you manage and navigate your emotions?

Lighting up a cigarette when you’re angry or stressed only helps you ignore the root cause of that emotion and distract yourself for a moment.

So smoking is not a coping mechanism, it’s a distraction mechanism.

Think about it.

If smoking really relieved stress and depression then smokers would be the most relaxed and the happiest people ever. And of course, that’s not the case.

On the contrary, smoking is a source of mental distress all by itself: having cravings, not feeling in control of your life and your health, feeling self-conscious all the time, missing out on precious moments to smoke, feeling guilty, worrying about the cost.

And quitting smoking decreases anxiety and depression. There is a lot of research that shows quitting smoking decreases anxiety and depression even for people with psychiatric disorders. This is huge!

Your mental health will improve dramatically after you quit smoking. Yes, there will be an adjustment period after you quit as it takes about 3 months for your brain to recover and start regulating dopamine naturally.

So give your brain time to heal.

In the meantime, there’s no reason you can’t enjoy your life and learn new ways to cope and manage your emotions without smoking

How to Manage Your Emotions without Smoking

Managing your emotions doesn’t mean always feeling good. That’s not real or realistic.

Instead, managing your emotions means navigating the different emotions you experience.

Let’s see 3 ways you can start doing that today.

1. Befriend your Emotions

We tend to think that negative emotions are bad experiences that happen to us, and we need to avoid, drown, or suppress them at any cost.

But what if you were to see your emotions as your ally? Something that happens for you, to serve you.

Emotions are neither good nor bad.

Emotions are just signals.

They show you what to pay attention to. When you have a negative emotion it’s a signal that something needs to change.

For example, if you feel guilt, it means that you did or said something that’s not in alignment with your values.

If you’re overwhelmed this is a signal that you need to prioritize. Feeling anxiety is a signal you need to slow down.

If you feel down, this is a signal you need to make some changes in how you see a situation, how you act, or how you talk to yourself.

And of course fear, that’s so prominent in quitting smoking, is just a signal that you need to protect yourself and prepare for something.

For example, if you see a car coming your way you feel fear so you can be alert and prepare to run.

And when you feel fear of failure or fear of the unknown this is a signal you need to prepare for what you’re afraid of.

If you are afraid you won’t be able to cope with stress without smoking this is a signal that you need to learn more about how nicotine affects anxiety and prepare for stressful occasions.

All emotions are just signals, and negative emotions can be useful too.

2. Report Your Emotions, Don’t Act On Them

Many of us fear that quitting smoking will make us irritable, get us in trouble, and even ruin our relationships.

Of course, quitting smoking can’t change your personality or turn you into someone you’re not.

And what gets us in trouble with other people is not the experience of any emotion but our behavior. Being angry doesn’t get us in trouble, the way we express it does.

You may not be able to – and you don’t have to – change the emotion you’re experiencing. But you can change how you show it.

When you catch yourself feeling irritated, acknowledge it and don’t bottle it up.

Keeping anger and irritation inside may cause you to snap at your friends and your loved ones at a later time and then blame quitting smoking for it.

Remember, it’s okay to feel angry whether you’re a smoker or a non-smoker. When you do, take a few deep breaths and report your feelings, don’t act on them.

In other words, don’t show anger with your behavior. Instead, say: I feel that way… This irritates me….

Lashing Out

We usually lash out because we’re not responding to the event that happened, we’re responding to the meaning we give to that event.

We’re responding to the meaning we give to what happened. 

We had a member in our CBQ program who was struggling with how he showed his anger, and he was worried that after quitting smoking, his anger would get worse.

And after talking to him, he realized that the reason he got angry was because of how he interpreted things. He took things very personally.

And I think that’s true for most of us when we feel angry. We take things personally.

“He did that… this means I am not valued,” “She did that, it means she didn’t listen to me,” or “She doesn’t care about me and what I want.”

We make it about us and this makes us feel angry.

And even if at times we’re right to take things personally, lashing out never helps.

When you notice you’re feeling irritated, ask yourself:

“Is this about me?”

“What else could this mean?”

…and report your emotions. don’t act on them.

Say, “I feel that way.. this makes me think that …you don’t value me/ you don’t care about me.” This will help you express how you feel and also allow the other person to explain. It’s a win-win!

3. Start Developing Healthy Coping Skills

As we mentioned a few moments ago, smoking is not a coping mechanism it’s a distraction mechanism.

However, if it is the only coping tool you ever used or knew, it’s natural that you’re going to experience a void when it’s gone. So you need to fill that void with healthy coping strategies.

Some examples of healthy coping strategies are a daily 10- minute self-care routine, journaling, or meditation. You need to experiment with different things and see what works best for you.

And if you’re struggling to implement or learn healthy coping skills, asking for help, even professional help, is going to benefit you a lot.

The Best Coping Strategy

My favorite coping strategy is something that helps you take a step back and relax. You can do it anywhere and it’s very simple because it has to do with your breathing.

Our emotions affect our breathing.

For example, how do you breathe when you’re stressed, angry or tense?

Your breathing is shallow, fast, and interrupted.

And how do you breathe when you feel relaxed, relieved, or calm?

Your breathing is deep and slow.

Our emotional state affects our breathing. Same way, we can affect our emotions by changing our breathing.

When you’re stressed your breathing is tense. So as you inhale the first few puffs of a cigarette, your breathing has to change and become deep and slow. Otherwise, you can’t smoke!

So what really happens when you smoke, is that you inhale deeply and slowly. So you feel relaxed thinking the cigarette helped.

But in reality it was the deep and slow breathing that relaxed you. Not the cigarette.

And you can relax without smoking, just by breathing deeply as if you were smoking a cigarette.

Our emotions are a huge smoking trigger and learning how to weaken your triggers and your response to them is part of the third stage of the CBQ Method.

The CBQ Method has 4 stages in total and these 4 stages help you overcome the mental addiction and change how you think and feel about smoking so you can quit easily.

So if you want to start with the CBQ method, make sure you get the foundational video of the CBQ.

In that free video, I show you the 4 stages of the CBQ method, how they work together, and tips to get started with every stage. You’ll get an overview of your quit smoking journey and a PDF starter guide for the CBQ method with tips and notes you can use along your journey.

Get the foundational video of the CBQ Method here. 

What’s inside your cigarettes and how do these chemicals affect you?

In this article, you’ll learn:

• What chemicals are in your cigarettes
• Where else you can find the same chemicals
• If filters make cigarettes less harmful
• The truth about “light” cigarettes
• If tobacco with “no added chemicals” is healthy

And it’s important to know what are the chemicals in your cigarettes because most smokers have no idea what they smoke.

I didn’t know what was in my cigarettes when I smoked and I was shocked when I found out!

Also, knowing what’s in your cigarettes is going to help you see cigarettes objectively; not as a friend or a crutch– but see smoking for what it is, with clear eyes.

This article is not about health scares, it’s about facts. After all, you want to smoke it, at least know what’s inside.

25 Chemicals in Your Cigarettes

Your cigarettes have 600 different ingredients and when you light up and the cigarette is burning, these ingredients combine to form more than 4000 chemicals!

Have you ever wondered why every product you consume has a list of ingredients EXCEPT your cigarettes?

From foods to household cleaning products, everything has ingredients and warning labels about toxic chemicals. Your cigarettes don’t.

Below is a list of the chemicals in your cigarettes.

Nicotine

You already know that cigarettes have nicotine inside.

Nicotine is a natural pesticide that protects plans from being eaten by insects.

A common question I get asked is “does nicotine cause cancer?”

And the answer is: we are not sure. Although nicotine is not considered a carcinogen at the moment, studies have found that it can promote the genesis of tumors and can create resistance in some chemotherapy agents.

You can learn more about nicotine and how it affects your body here.

But there are a lot of toxic chemicals in a cigarette besides nicotine.

1. Methanol

Methanol is the main component in rocket fuel.

2. Benzene

Benzene is in rubber cement, gasoline and manufacturers use it to make dyes. Also, benzene is linked to Leukemia.

3. Hexavalent Chromium

You can find this chemical in textile dyes, wood preservation, anti-corrosion products, and colors in paints, inks, and plastics. It is toxic, carcinogenic and when inhaled, it can cause lung cancer and cancer of the nose.

4. 2-Naphthylamine

2-Naphthylamine is a carcinogen and you can find it in dyes. Even though it has been replaced by less toxic compounds in making dyes, the tobacco companies still put it in your cigarettes.

5. Cadmium

You can find cadmium in battery acid and paint. Cadmium can contribute to cancer, cardiovascular disease, and osteoporosis.

Cigarettes have cadmium inside because the tobacco plant absorbs heavy metals like cadmium from the surrounding soils, so when you smoke it, it enters your body. Smokers have 4 to 5 more cadmium in their blood than non-smokers.

6. 4-aminobiphenyl

There are two ways you can come in contact with this chemical. One, by being around chemical dyes or two, by inhaling cigarette smoke.

Researches have shown that this chemical is responsible for bladder cancer in humans and dogs by damaging the DNA. And because of its carcinogenic effects, the commercial production of this chemical stopped in the United States in the 1950s. (But the tobacco companies still put it in your cigarettes.)

7. Vinyl Chloride

This is a gas with a sweet smell. It is highly toxic, flammable and carcinogenic.

8. Ethylene Oxide

Ethylene Oxide is the main component of fuel-air explosives. They put it in tobacco to make the tobacco leaves mature more quickly and kill fungi.

9. Arsenic

Arsenic is used in rat poison. The United States Agency for toxic substances and disease registry ranked arsenic as the most harmful substance in 2001. Arsenic is classified as a group A carcinogen. It doesn’t get worse than that.

10. Nickel

Nickel is in batteries, metal surface treatments, and pigments. It is a carcinogen and it’s linked to lung cancer. Workers exposed to nickel have shown a high risk of lung cancer and other lung infections.

More Chemicals in Your Cigarettes…

11. Polonium-210

Polonium is the radioactive element discovered by Nobel Prize winner Marie Curie, and it is known to cause cancer. It is used to power artificial satellites and in initiators of atomic bombs, in reaction with beryllium.

12. Beryllium

Apart from being used in initiators of atomic bombs in reaction with polonium, beryllium can also be found in coal slag. The International Agency for research on cancer lists beryllium and its compounds as category 1 carcinogens.

13. Formaldehyde

Formaldehyde is a disinfectant, it’s used to preserve dead specimens, and it is linked to lung cancer.

14. Tar

Tar is a carcinogenic chemical. When you inhale tobacco, this leaves tar in your lungs. Tar coats the cilia in your lungs and causes them to stop working. The cilia in your lungs are responsible for keeping your lungs clean and healthy. Because your cilia stop functioning properly, this causes cancer and other lung diseases.

Tar also harms the mouth, makes your teeth and gums black, and destroys your taste buds.

15. Acetone

Acetone is the main ingredient of nail polish remover.

16. Cyanide

Cyanide is a deadly poison. Throughout history, people used this chemical to commit suicide.

Cyanide was also used to mass murder in the Holocaust in the gas chambers.

17. Acetic Acid

Acetic acid is an ingredient in hair dye.

18. Ammonia

Ammonia is a common household cleaner. We use it to clean windows and the toilet.

So why do they add ammonia in your cigarettes?

Because by adding ammonia, your lungs can absorb more nicotine, so your brain can get a higher dose of nicotine with each puff.

19. Butane

Butane is a gas you can find in lighter fluid.

20. Carbon Monoxide

Carbon Monoxide is a chemical released in car exhaust fumes and it is a poisonous gas.

21. Led

Led is used in batteries and it is poisonous in high doses.

22. Naphthalene

Naphthalene is an ingredient found in mothballs. It is used to create black smoke in simulated explosions, and it’s linked to cancer.

23. Methyl Isocyanate

This is a gas and its accidental release killed thousands of people in 1984 in the Bhopal gas tragedy in India.

24. Toluene

Toluene is used to manufacture paint.

25. DDT

DDT is a banned insecticide because it’s linked to liver cancer.

And what I just mentioned are only some of the thousands of chemicals that are in your cigarettes. Unfortunately, the list goes on and on.

Do Filters Make Cigarettes Healthier?

When cigarettes first came out, they were unfiltered because this allowed all the “flavors to come through”.

But when people started finding out that cigarettes cause cancer, they were worried, so Big Tobacco started putting filters to remove some of the tar.

However, this made cigarettes too bitter. So what did they do? They added even more chemicals to remove the bitterness.

The truth is that filters don’t make cigarettes any healthier, and they don’t remove nearly enough tar and chemicals. This is a marketing ploy to keep you smoking.

Are Light Cigarettes Healthier?

Lighter cigarettes used to be the cigarettes with less tar or less nicotine.

But this new name was misleading smokers into thinking that these cigarettes are healthier. So the tobacco companies were required by law to change their name to low-yield cigarettes.

Research shows that the risk of getting sick from smoking is virtually the same whether you smoke low-yield cigarettes or normal cigarettes.

And the thing is that when you smoke a low-yield cigarette, you inhale more intensely to get the same amount of nicotine that you used to get from a regular cigarette, so it’s not a low-yield cigarette anymore.

Is Tobacco with “No Added Chemicals” Healthier?

No added chemicals doesn’t mean chemical-free. For example, “natural” tobacco would still have the cancerous heavy metal Cadmium (see above) which the tobacco plant absorbs from the soil and it’s not added in the manufacturing process.

Normal tobacco has 4000 chemicals. Inhaling 1000 chemicals instead of 4000 does not make it healthier. It’s just a ploy to get you smoking without feeling “guilty”. At the end of the day, “natural” tobacco can even be worse because you still inhale fumes into your lungs, and you’re under the false impression it’s healthy so you don’t feel the urge to quit.

Why Your Pack Doesn’t List The Chemicals In Your Cigarettes?

I encourage you to think about why these ingredients are not on your pack. The warning labels that are already on your pack and show you what cigarettes do to your health, they don’t work.

Because we always rationalize “this is not going to happen to me”. This is a defense mechanism that allows us to keep on smoking.

Every smoker experiences cognitive dissonance: a conflict in your mind between wanting to smoke -because you’re addicted – and knowing it’s harming you.

And because your brain can’t live in conflict, it rationalizes that cigarettes can’t be THAT bad and that you’ll be fine. That’s why the warning labels on your pack don’t work.

On the other hand, seeing the ingredients that are in your cigarettes, takes away the illusion that there’s something magical in your cigarettes that helps you cope with life, socialize, and relieve stress. There’s nothing to it.

Every time you have a craving, think that chemists are having a meeting with the big tobacco executives and they try to figure out what chemicals to add in your cigarettes to keep you addicted. I don’t know if this sounds far-fetched to you but, truth be told, 600 ingredients didn’t end up in your cigarettes by accident.

What to Do

There are a lot of chemicals in your cigarettes, yes. But the good news is that your body starts recovering immediately after you stop putting these chemicals in it.

Our body is a genius machine. 20 minutes after smoking your last cigarette, your blood pressure has returned to normal. In 48 hours, your senses of taste and smell have started to improve. In 2 weeks, your heart attack risk has started to drop and in just 90 days, your lungs are healthier!

Every cigarette you don’t smoke matters and it’s never too late to stop – as long as you do.

So if you want to know how to quit smoking naturally in a way that works even if you have failed before, make sure you get the foundational video if the CBQ Method. It’s going to help you get started.

The CBQ method is a psychology-based method- it involves no drugs or medications. It has 4 quit smoking stages that are designed to remove the desire for cigarettes and change how you think about smoking and break the habit.

These 4 stages help you reprogram your brain so you can stop seeing cigarettes as a friend or as a crutch. Over the last decade, the CBQ Method has reached and helped millions of people quit smoking for good.

Get the Foundational video of the CBQ Method here

How can you say no to smoking without using any willpower?

Below I show you 3 little known ways to say no to smoking when someone offers you a cigarette or even when you’re alone and you think about having “just one.”

And NONE of them includes: hiding your cigarettes, avoiding smokers, or covering yourself with nicotine patches from head to toe.

Instead, they ALL show you how to use the power of your mind. 

Power you already possess but perhaps don’t know how to use to overcome this addiction. 

In other words, you’ll use mindpower instead of willpower!

The 3 strategies below will help you:

• Prepare for and handle tempting situations
• Feel more confident and in control
• Find it easier to beat this addiction

Tip # 1: Visualize Yourself Saying “No” to Smoking.

This is going to help you prepare for high-risk situations before ever facing them so that when you do, you will remain smoke-free.

But what is visualization?

Visualization is when you see something in your mind’s eye. It’s a mental representation of yourself, other people, an object, an idea, or a goal. It’s like imagination or daydreaming but you’re focused on a goal. And your goal is to see yourself saying no to smoking.

For example, if feeling anxious and stressed is a very strong trigger for you, imagine yourself being in stressful situations, and instead of lighting up, you relax without smoking a cigarette.

Why does it help to imagine yourself overcoming temping situations?

Because your mind can’t really tell the difference between reality and imagination.

For example, when athletes visualize themselves training and when they actually train, what happens is that the same areas in their brain light up! The brain doesn’t know the difference, Because when you visualize something, your mind thinks you’re experiencing it.

That’s why when you visualize yourself facing and overcoming triggers, your mind thinks it’s actually happening. So when it does happen, you feel like you’ve been in the same situation before and conquered it. This gives you incredible confidence to say “no” to smoking.

What if you can’t visualize?

Let’s do something together now.

Think now of your front door.

What color is it?

Where is the handle? On the left or on the right?

What’s the material of the door?

Is it a big door?

Does it have a mat or not?

Now see your hands opening the door slowly…

If you did this with me now, you created a mental representation of your door, so you visualized!

So starting today, visualize yourself saying “no” to smoking in every situation you can possibly imagine.

After an argument, when you’re with friends, where stressed, at work, when feeling overwhelmed or even feeling happy and celebrating something.

For example, imagine:

Being offered a cigarette by a friend and saying no. And notice exactly how you say it and what your friend says back.

Driving to the store, going to the counter feeling tempted to buy a pack, and not buying it. And you buy something else instead, what do you buy?

Seeing your partner’s or your friends’ cigarettes lying around and you are not taking one. What do you do instead?

Being at work and you see your colleagues smoking, how do you say no without feeling you’re missing out?

And include in your visualization, what you tell yourself for being able to say no to smoking and how saying “no” makes you feel.

I promise you, if your practice this, it’s can change everything for you. Because when you actually find yourself in these situations, it’s going to be easy to say no without using your willpower because you’re going to have experience.

Tip #2: Think of What Will Happen after You Smoke.

What do I mean?

What makes a cigarette seem tempting is thinking only about the next moment. The moment where you picture yourself just lighting up, the instant gratification.

A while back, we did an experiment.  We interviewed a group of ex-smokers who were happy about their quit and a group of ex-smokers who struggled.

So, one by one they came into the room, sat on a big wooden table and I put a cigarette in front of each of them and asked them, “do you want that cigarette?”

Those who were happy non-smokers said they didn’t want it and they didn’t have to use their willpower to say no.

But those who were struggling said, yes, they wanted the cigarette and they had to use their willpower to say no.

And then I asked, “what do you think when you look at that cigarette? What comes to your mind?”

Those who didn’t have to use their willpower, they thought how terrible they would feel after they smoke and they break their quit. They thought how guilty and regretful they’d feel afterward and how one cigarette can turn into many.

One is too many and a thousand is never enough

But those who wanted to smoke and had to use their willpower to resist it, they thought how they would feel right after taking the first puff.  And they rationalized that they could have just one cigarette.

As you can see, this is a very different way of thinking.

Those who use their willpower, they only think about the next moment and they rationalize why they can smoke. But those who don’t want to smoke and they don’t have to use their willpower,  they think what will happen after smoking. And they’re more realistic about it.

So I want you to use that lesson, and do what the people who don’t use willpower do:

To remove the temptation, don’t just think of yourself smoking, instead, create a bigger, a longer movie in your mind: think how you will feel 10 minutes after smoking, how 1 cigarette will make you crave it the next day, and how that could lead to you struggling to quit for years.

Think of the conflict and regret that comes after smoking a cigarette and how one cigarette can easily turn into a thousand.

Because the temptation goes when you think it through. The temptation goes when instead of thinking what you want right now, you think what you want for the rest of your life.

Tip # 3: Use Your Self-Talk

Your self-talk is probably the most powerful tool you have in your possession.

When you are addicted to something whether that’s nicotine, food, or alcohol – you have 2 minds:

• your mind
• and the craving mind.

Think of the craving mind as Gollum, that creature from Lord of the Rings. All it wants is its precious fix.

And the craving mind communicates to you in the form of a thought.

Because cravings are thoughts.

Cravings are just positive thoughts about smoking that create positive feelings about smoking.

CBQ Method Principles

Thoughts like: “I need a cigarette” or “a cigarette would make me feel better now” or “I can’t cope without it” whatever it is, they’re just thoughts.

And thoughts can’t hurt you, break you or make you do anything. But they can be very convincing if you let them.

So how can you manage those thoughts, so that they will not overpower you?

What you shouldn’t do

You shouldn’t resist those thoughts because what you resist, persists. And when you resist your craving thoughts, they become stronger.

Also, it doesn’t help to scare yourself or make yourself feel guilty. Because when we feel scared or guilty, we tend to go back to the illusion of comfort that smoking gives us.

What to do

Acknowledge the craving thought.

When your craving mind tells you “you need a cigarette right now” reply back to it and say, “thank you for sharing but you’re wrong, I don’t need a cigarette.” Or you can say “I heard you, sssh now.”

Just have a small conversation. And then let the thought go. Because if you have that small conversation and acknowledge that the thought is there, it is going to be easier to let it go.

Thoughts come and go all the time in your mind, so don’t hold on to the craving thought, just say to yourself, “next thought, please” and your brain will listen, your brain will provide you with a new thought.

You have a stream of thoughts at any moment, so why focus on the one thought that makes you feel bad? Just because your craving mind proposes a thought and seeks your attention, it doesn’t mean you have to listen and entertain that thought.

And the great thing is that the craving thoughts will eventually fade away.

What happens when your friends, your partner, or colleagues tell you to smoke?

When that happens, you have two people to reply to: 1) that friend, and 2) the craving mind. And many times, when a friend tells you to smoke, you can become defensive or feel pushed, or even worse, give yourself permission to smoke.

So just remember that those who smoke, would like to be non-smokers and tell yourself and others “I don’t smoke anymore” or “I am not smoking today”. And if someone insists, just be a broken record. Say “I don’t smoke anymore”, a thousand times, as many times as you need to.

So, to sum up:

Visualize yourself saying no to smoking in different situations.

Think what will happen long after you smoke that one cigarette.

And use your self-talk and reply back to the craving mind.

All the strategies I shared come from the CBQ Method so I hope you apply them to say no to smoking without using willpower whether you’re alone or with other people.

If you want advice and support to quit smoking and remain smoke-free, make sure you join our Facebook support group for more tips and advice about the CBQ method.

Join here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/cbqmethod/