why the timer?
If you smoked, you were addicted to nicotine. That means simply that at
some point soon after you put out a cigarette you’d begin to feel symptoms
of nicotine withdrawal. The first symptoms are physiological i.e. general
muscle tension which could be tension in neck and shoulders and/or
abdominal tension that might feel like the sort of ‘almost nauseous’ that
Pamela was talking about earlier today and shallow breathing. These first
subtle physical sensations triggered urges to smoke. Most smokers/quitters
are aware of this primary physical connection and take steps to address it
when they quit. This is the area of NRT or cold turkey or alternates such
as hypnotism or acupuncture etc.
However, there is a secondary physical connection which includes all the
reasons why you feel general muscle tension and/or shallow breathing that
have nothing to do with a fluctuating nicotine level. Reasons like anger,
fatigue, hunger, anxiety, boredom, etc provide the body cues that are the
‘why’ behind most of the cigarettes you’ve ever smoked.
The association between a body cue and a smoking response is one that
happens fairly automatically. Because you’ve never had any reason to
’second guess’ your smoking associations, you’re not very adept at being
self aware in the area of body cues. Many new cog quitters have a hard time
recognizing their body cues. And some of you are so tense so much of the
time that you don’t really know what we’re looking at because there isn’t a
‘not tense’ state for comparison. If you’re having a rough time identifying
your body cues, consider doing a bit of stretching and deep breathing 2 or
3 times an hour so you can create a contrast and begin to recognize what
‘relaxed’ feels like so you can identify ‘tense’.
There are a bunch of you who have just started your quit. Now is the time
to post your timer notes or ask questions. If you haven’t set a timer yet,
now is the time to do it.
Steve