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Share your quitting journey

FYI~spaciness....sun brighter...constipation...clearing your throat (for the new quitters)

JonesCarpeDiem
0 9 43

I guess some of us know about anxiety and depression in the beginning of a quit.

I'm going to cover the four topics in the title for you.

Spaciness

When we are smokers, our bodies introduce more oxygen into our blood stream to compensate for the carbon monoxide smoking introduces. When we quit smoking, this extra oxygen can make us feel spacy or lightheaded. Our bodies readjust over the first month. (I ran over a lot of curbs at the corners when I first quit LOL.Thomas' blog today said that the carbon monoxide particles can cling to the red blood cells for days.

Overt Brightness Outside

I noticed that sunlight seemed much brighter than normal to the point of being uncomfortable after I quit smoking. This too adjusts to normal over the first month.

Constipation

Honestly, nicotine makes our digestive system work better so without it, it takes some time to readjust but usually about a month after you stop using nicotine.

Clearing your throat

As soon as we stop smoking, the cilia that line our breathing apparatus become unparalyzed. Their job is to use a sweeping motion to bring out the impurites from smoking and anything that gets past the hair in our nose.

Some people cough. Some don't.

I didn't cough but i remember clearing my throat constantly because the impurites tend to collect there while we sleep  The stickiness tends to make us need to clear our throats. I believe this is why  when people wake, they tend to think they are actually tasing a cigarette. (please be careful that you don't get stuck to the seat. LOL) This throat clearing lasted just over a year for me.

Bonus Information

After you clean out your car., cut an apple in half and put it cut side up in a short margarine type container and put them under the front seat (s)

9 Comments
About the Author
Hello, My name is Dale. I was quit 18 months before joining this site and had participated on another site during that time. I learned a lot there and brought it with me. I joined this site the first week of August 2008. I didn't pressure myself to quit. HOW I QUIT I didn't count, I didn't deny myself to get started. When I considered quitting (at a friends request to influence his brother to quit), I simply told myself to wait a little longer. No denial, nothing painful. After 4 weeks I was down to 5 cigarettes from a pack a day. The strength came from proving to myself, I didn't need to smoke because I normally would have smoked. Simple yes? I bought the patch. I forgot to put one on on the 4th day. I needed it the next day but the following week I forgot two days in a row I put one in my wallet with a promise to myself that I would slap it on and wait an hour rather than smoke. It rode in my wallet my first year.There's nothing keeping any of you from doing this. It doesn't cost a dime. This is about unlearning something you've done for a long time. The nicotine isn't the hard part. Disconnecting from the psychological pull, the memories and connected emotions is. :-) Time is the healer.