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by payamb 3514 days ago
I've stopped smoking a week ago and brain fog is killing me, I'm not able to do my job any more, any advice ? I just sit and stare at monitor without my brain working :/
2 comments

Yes. This will go away after a couple of weeks. Depression is a common side effect of quitting, so hang in there. First 2 weeks are the hardest, then it slowly gets easier.

There are few short term advantages to quitting smoking - your sense of smell improves and you have more spare time on your hands - other than that, there's little to brag about.

By going through this short term suffering, you're improving your long term health.

If someone (God) came to you and said: "Hey, I'll add 10 healthy years to your life if you agree to go through a period of feeling shitty and some mental fog and restlessness and nervousness for a couple of months".

I guess we'd all agree to such a deal and it's pretty much the deal you have right now, so hang on.

Congratulations on your decision and good luck !

Nicotine gum? The danger is in the smoking, not the addictive substance.
> The danger is in the smoking, not the addictive substance.

Actually, that's incorrect. Nicotine acts as a stimulant and constricts blood vessels, which causes all kinds of serious circulatory problems in the long term - high blood pressure, heart attacks, strokes and so on.

Unfortunately there's no easy way around nicotine, you just have to stop ingesting it.

The gum/patch can alleviate the withdrawal symptoms, but you'll still have to quit the gum.

From http://whyquit.com/pr/082613.html

A 2013 Gallup Poll finds that 92% of successful ex-smokers did not use the nicotine patch, gum, Zyban, Chantix or Champix, that most quit smoking cold turkey.

Ehh, sez you..

http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/130/16/1418

"There are some studies of prolonged nicotine replacement therapies (NRT) in smokers who have quit smoking. In these studies, no adverse effects have been found when nicotine medication was administered for months to several years. Other studies indicate that patients with known cardiovascular disease tolerate NRT well for periods up to 12 weeks. "

By far, the danger is in the smoking, not the nicotine in your bloodstream.

The Gallup survey

http://www.gallup.com/poll/163763/smokers-quit-tried-multipl...

allowed an open-ended response, so someone "might have decided to quit" or quit because "it was time" but also used an NRT to help them through the cravings and not have mentioned that to the interviewer.

Smoking breaks are a social activity in many workplaces.

Its hard to get rid of those sort of addictions.