Tobacco and Stress: A Highly Effective Technique to Break Free from the Trap

"Smoking helps me manage stress." This widespread belief among smokers is one of the main obstacles to quitting.Yet nothing could be further from the truth. Here are a few explanations.

This article was not written by an AI.

When working on smoking cessation, I always ask about the meaning behind each cigarette smoked. What does it represent? What emotion or sensation is associated with it? At what moment of the day does it occur? It’s an interesting reflective exercise, because smokers are often surprised by their own answers.

Among the most common reasons given for smoking, stress appears in all its forms."Smoking relaxes me," "smoking calms me," "when I’m stressed, I go out for a cigarette and I feel better", sentences we hear all the time.

This is a major paradox. Nicotine is a stressor. Chemically speaking, nicotine’s action on the body is to increase stress. Yes, you read that correctly. Worse: it increases sensitivity to stress, meaning the more nicotine you consume, the less capable you are of tolerating stress (1).

A vicious cycle quickly takes hold.

Nicotine activates the sympathetic nervous system, triggering the release of adrenaline and noradrenaline, the classic fight-or-flight response associated with danger or threat. It raises heart rate and blood pressure, and disrupts the sympathetic/parasympathetic balance, creating a heightened state of alertness.

Nicotine intake therefore produces not only an immediate spike in stress, but also a chronic stress state. And while the physical consequences of smoking (cardiovascular risks, cancer, etc.) are widely known, its impact on mental health is much less discussed. I’m sharing below one of the most recent studies on this topic, published this year, examining the link between nicotine and depression.(2)

So why do smokers feel calmer when they smoke?

While answering this question, let me share with you a highly effective technique for reducing stress, without changing the ritual that smoking imposes.

What does a smoker do when they feel “tense”? Often, they step away to smoke or pause whatever they’re doing. This means they leave the stressful situation.

This first step is crucial. Adrenaline has a very short lifespan in the body. By stepping away from the source of stress, the adrenal glands simply stop pumping out adrenaline.

Next, for about five minutes, the person breathes more deeply. Yes, they inhale smoke, but they still breathe more deeply.

The effect of breathing on activating the parasympathetic nervous system is well established. Breathing techniques are among the most effective ways to regulate stress and emotions.

In summary, to calm yourself during stress without relying on cigarettes, all you have to do is keep the same ritual:

1. Step away from the stressful situation (walk out of the room, for example).

2. Breathe deeply for five minutes.

It is these two combined actions that produce the calming effect, not the nicotine.Nicotine actually works against relaxation.

I tell all my smoking cessation clients to keep the ritual of taking a break, ideally involving some physical movement, and then to breathe deeply for a moment.

EVERY ONE of them has reported that the calming effect is stronger than when smoking. Which makes perfect sense: we keep what reduces stress, and remove what increases it.(3)

This is exactly the kind of functional “hack” I love.

Of course, this is combined with hypnotherapy work, whose effectiveness in smoking cessation is also well established. I will soon publish a more detailed article on hypnosis and quitting smoking.

Feel free to contact me with your questions or experiences.It is always a pleasure to hear from you.

Alexandre Guilmard, MA

(1). Nicotinic receptors mediate stress-nicotine detrimental interplay via dopamine cells’ activity. Morel C*, Fernandez SP*, Pantouli F, Meye FJ, Marti F, Tolu S, Parnaudeau S, Marie H, Tronche F, Maskos U, Moretti M, Gotti C, Han MH, Bailey A, Mameli M, Barik J**, Faure P** (2017)

(2) van Hooijdonk, K. J. M., van den Broek, N., Tan, C. Y., Vink, J. M., & Larsen, J. (2025). Current nicotine use and the development of depressive symptoms across adolescence and adulthood: A multi-dataset study exploring moderation effects of body mass index and sex. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction

(3) I am fully aware of the effect smoking has on the dopaminergic system, but there are many possible “hacks” for that as well!