There are a whole host of quit smoking side effects and not all of them are pleasant. Besides the obvious health benefits, there are also a number of side effects associated with withdrawal from nicotine. Coupled to this, if you quit smoking using a medication such as zyban or chantix, you may pick up some other drug related side effects.

The most obvious reason why people quit smoking is for the health benefits but what are they specifically?

Notably, blood pressure, heart rate and lung efficiency all improve very quickly after quitting smoking - in a matter of days. Nicotine levels and carbon monoxide levels in the blood return to natural levels with in a couple of days. These are very positive quit smoking side effects.

Smokers will also develop a much better sense of taste and their breathing may well become easier. However, one frequently reported quit smoking side effect is the amount of coughing some ex-smokers suffer from. In my own experience, I found the first six months to be a rather cough filled period of my life. It was all 'wet' as the cilia (the little hairs in you lungs) got to work clearing 20 years of tar out of my lungs! I also contracted more colds that winter than ever before but that could be for completely different reasons.

Looked at from that perspective, perhaps quitting smoking side effects are not so bad. At least they won't kill you. But the popular conception of how hard it is to quit and the horrors that await the reformed smoker have some basis in fact. The trouble comes because quitting smoking side effects are both physical, in the classic sense of withdrawal, and psychological, where the component of "habit" has a very strong grip.

One reason smoking is so hard to quit is that nicotine is a very efficient drug and cigarettes are a very effective delivery system for that drug. Nicotine is a stimulant that binds aggressively with certain types of neurons. It does this so well, in fact, that it displaces some of the naturally occurring chemicals that ordinarily help to regulate mood and consciousness in the non-smoker. Part of the problem, then, is that it takes the body some time to start forming those natural bonds again, and while you are waiting for this process to get itself going, the quitting smoking side effects unpleasantly fill the void left by the lack of nicotine.

So what quitting smoking adverse reactions should you actually expect? It varies from person to person, but some are fairly common. Headaches are frequent, along with aches and pains in the stomach and, in fact, just about anywhere. Many people find that they cough more or that they are wheezy or short of breath after quitting. While this may seem like the complete opposite of what should be happening, it results from the body's attempts to clean out all those years of smoking-induced junk.

Insomnia is another possibility. This may seem paradoxical given nicotine's stimulant effect, but research has indicated that nicotine can actually deliver a mildly sedating effect and that the relative level of stimulation can be controlled, albeit subconsciously, by how the smoker inhales.

So far, those quitting smoking adverse reactions are the physical ones, seen more as part of nicotine withdrawal than as the result of psychological dependence. For the smoker, the difference is close to irrelevant. Both physical and psychological quitting smoking side effects are unpleasant experiences.

On the psychological side, quitting smoking side effects can include anxiety, irritability, fatigue and restlessness. It is not unusual for the ex-smoker to experience difficulty concentrating and to have trouble maintaining focus on the task at hand, especially for sustained periods. Many people find that they are more distractible and more vague and "spacey."

It pays to remember, though, that some of the side effects of quitting smoking are actually positive. The senses of taste and smell start to improve quickly. The coughing and wheezing clear up once the body gets a chance to clean house. The wallet starts to get a little fatter once the daily smoking outlay goes away. It pays to focus on some of these good "side effects" while getting prepared to deal with the bad ones.

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