What Is The Role Of Anxiety Sensitivity In Smoking?

We’ve all heard it once: “I’m pissed off, I need a cigarette.” So, the belief that tobacco has an anxiolytic effect is so widespread that it is now part of the collective subconscious. Many people believe that tobacco has a relaxing effect, similar to that of valerian infusion. This is why many continue to smoke for the sole purpose of containing their anxiety.

But the reality is quite different. Tobacco is an exciting substance. When we smoke, we become more active. We also get a lot more nervous. The “stillness” we feel from the first puff of a cigarette is related to the decrease in the need to use the addictive substance, not to any relaxing effect. In fact, our sensitivity to anxiety significantly influences tobacco use.

“The real face of tobacco is disease, death and horror, not the glamor and sophistication that the tobacco industry tries to portray”.

-David Byrne-

Anxiety and the first puffs

To begin with, what is anxiety sensitivity? Anxiety sensitivity is that fear that some people have about anxiety per se and its symptoms. They think that stress has very harmful consequences for them. So when they detect indicators that show that they are stressed, the symptoms increase.

Having a high sensitivity to anxiety when smoking can make these people believe that this primary reduction in their anxiety that they feel from the first puff is good for them. The fact that they perceive tobacco as an effective way of regulating anxiety will cause them to smoke in a habitual way. Plus, it will become a reason not to quit.

These people believe that smoking is an acceptable and “cost effective” way to reduce anxiety. In other words: they will make their tobacco consumption their strategy to regulate their anxiety. It is therefore essential to learn and put in place other types of coping strategies in the face of stress, in order to be able to manage it without adopting behaviors that are harmful to health, such as smoking.

What role does anxiety sensitivity play in continuing to smoke?

Just like when you start to smoke, sensitivity to anxiety also plays a role in whether you keep going. Not just because these people have a greater sensitivity to the anxiolytic effect of tobacco on the first puff. Other factors also have an influence.

“Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live. ”

-Jim Rohn-

Concretely, people highly sensitive to anxiety feel more positive effects after smoking. In addition, the psychological reward increases in them. Thus, not only is anxiety reduced, but positive emotions that encourage people to continue smoking appear.

This makes people who are very sensitive to anxiety more inflexible in the face of stressful situations that cause negative emotions. That is to say, that again, they use cigarettes to regulate their stress, instead of coping with it more adequately.

When it comes to quitting smoking, how does anxiety sensitivity work?

Sensitivity to anxiety is particularly important when it comes to quitting smoking. It directly interferes with attempts to quit smoking, as these people have more intense abstinence symptoms during the first week. This makes them less likely to quit and a higher risk of relapse.

They generally have more failed attempts to quit smoking to their credit. The consequence of this is that they feel less able to do it. In addition, they believe that the only thing they will be able to do is increase their feeling of unease. As we have said, these people are afraid of feeling more anxious and these experiences imply an additional handicap.

“Realizing that health is dependent on the habits we control makes us the first generation in history that largely determines our own destiny.”

-Jimmy Carter-

For all these reasons, it is interesting to concretely work on anxiety sensitivity with people who wish to quit smoking. It is therefore necessary that they expose themselves to anxiety gradually. That is, they must feel it. They will thus be able to see that they are able to manage it and will not be so afraid of it, which will reduce the negative effects of this sensitivity in giving up smoking.

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Images by Stas Svechnikov, Lucas Filipe and Dmitry Ermakov.