Smoking And Mental Health

Anxiety is caused by stress and can causes a person to feel a sense of nervousness and fear. Studies have shown that anxiety can lead to habit forming usage of unhealthy substances. For example, chain smoking has been connected as a response to stress. Typically, people with a higher anxiety level have a higher desire to smoke cigarettes. For most people the nicotine in cigarettes helps regulate negative thoughts and emotions. It has also been supported that people are two times as likely to begin smoking regularly if they have a diagnosed anxiety disorder (Wiggert, Wilhelm, Nakajima, al’Absi). About 50% of college students who smoke cigarettes have a higher level of anxiety from classes.

But there is research that shows that smokers tend to have higher levels of stress than non-smokers and this is due to their smoking habits. Smoking may feel like it is reducing stress but in actuality smoking habits may be the exact cause of the subjects stress. Consistent cigarette smokers have reported that smoking alters their mood, and they have reported that they feel a heightened sense of stress in between cigarettes but once they smoke the nicotine relaxes them and changes their mood to a more calm state (Parrott, A.C. 1999).

In the United States, smoking cigarettes is the number one preventable cause of morbidity and death (Bergen, 1999), and accounts for $300 Billion in health care costs and economic productivity loss (Jamal, 2015). While the national smoking rate is 16.8% (CDC, 2016), specific demographics are more susceptible to developing smoking habits: people who live below the poverty line (10.9% higher), disabled or with a limitation (6.2% higher), and males (4.7% higher) (Agaku, 2014).

This essay will consider how each of the 5 psychological perspectives explain smoking. I will cover the psychodynamic, the behaviouristic, the biological, the cognitive and the humanistic approach.

This essay aims to address the issues associated with smoking, its impact on the public health and how this can be tackled through health promotion, therefore the role of the nurse will be explored in respect of the nursing contribution, especially primary care in community settings. The current national and international policies will be considered as a recognition of its impact to the public health, conjointly how these can support the nurse in delivering the health promotion. Finally, the implications for future for Public Health will be considered.

Most often seniors in high schools can purchase cigarettes because they are 18, so they distribute them to underclassmen or friends. Nearly 21 percent of high schoolers in public schools smoke cigarettes, which would be about 3.13 million students (Preidt). My survey shows that only four percent, or two out of 49 people admit their addiction to cigarettes. The two students admitted that stress is their reasoning for why they began smoking and continue, but only one has support to end their need to smoke. While the student with assistance is continuing to smoke, they are attempting to stop; however, the effects of smoking are obviously severe (lung disease, cancer, bronchitis, etc.) and cannot continue. Cigarettes may be a partial stress reliever although the permanent and long-term effects should be proof enough that this addiction is a necessity to prevent in our high schoolers even if it is four

Realizing that people with MHD’s have been identified as having a higher rate of nicotine use and that MHD’s range in severity (both between disorders as well as within a disorder) from mild to extreme. Using The Clinical Global Impression – Severity Scale, to rate the severity of the patient's illness at the time of assessment, a patient is assessed on severity of mental illness rating 1, normal, not at all ill too 7, extremely ill. That being said, I wonder, of the remaining smokers, how many have symptoms of a MHD, but whose symptoms do not rise to a diagnostic level, are high functioning and have never been identified, or have simply fallen through the cracks. Does chemical imbalance account for an even higher rate of smoking than is currently known or reported? Is there a connection between MHD’s and other chemical dependencies that correlate to specific chemical imbalances within specific disorders and patients? Are cigarettes, as a gateway drug, an initial drug of choice due to accessibility, acceptability, legality, and lack of overt adverse societal

Smoking rates are particularly high among patients diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a mental health condition triggered by a traumatic event (Hawkins & Cougle, 2013). Most research on the relationship between PTSD diagnoses and smoking rates usually consider the disorder to be uniform in nature with a comprehensive symptom diagnosis. On the contrary, the disorder involves a multi-dimensional compilation of cognitive and behavioral manifestations (Greenberg et al., 2012). The inappropriate diagnostic generalization has hindered the examination of specific symptoms that could be

Participants included in this study were those who self-identified as never-smokers. Approximately, 77.4% survey respondents were nonsmokers; this sample included 51.7% females, and 48.3% males. Majority of the participants in this study self-identified as “Hispanic/Latino” (45.1%). Almost a quarter of respondents self-identified as “White” (24.8%), while 14.1% were “Asian/Pacific Islander”, 5.5% were “African American”, 0.5% were “American Indian/Alaska Native” and 6% of respondents identified as “other” being two or more races.

Smoking is a particularly common and intractable addictive disorder and is the leading preventable cause of many preventable chronic illnesses and death, responsible for approximately six million annual mortalities Yet, despite the well documented consequences of smoking, despite the unequivocal benefits of quitting and despite facts such as that approximately 17,000 people die each day in the world from smoking prematurely, over a billion people around the world still continue to smoke people continue to engage in this health risk behaviour(www.who.int). This leads us to question what motivates an individual to smoke, and not to smoke.

The table that was chosen from Health United States, 2014 report, was on the following determinant of health: “Current cigarette smoking among adults age 18 and over, by sex (female), race and age; United States, selected years 1965-2013”; this table (below) was listed as table 52 on the report, found on page 182. Using the data from the selected table, a specific health problem that should be the focus of one research subject in public health is cigarette smoking. Cigarette smoking is a specific health problem because the table, shows the trend of cigarette smoking (with some variation), on the decline for all categories for females (race and age) as years progress. The problem of cigarette smoking still needs to be addressed

Our mental health is very important, but sometimes it works against our will. We are forced to a lifestyle that is not the best one, the pressure a human being suffers to survive can't destruct the mental health, and as I learnt on the biopsychosocial model, we need to understand it all, not only know that the person smoke, but why? What led this person to this lifestyle? We also need to consider the variations. Does the person realize that smoke is a bad habit? The person does something about

Around the 1980s, however, researchers and medical professionals began studying the ways that addiction and mental health issues interacted with each other ("Addiction," 2014, para. 3). A survey from 1989 suggests an even higher connection between mental disorders and smoking addiction, with more than 70% of all respondents listing that they have both a mental health issue and a smoking addiction ("Addiction," 2014, para. 3).

In the community assessment of San Fernando valley part, A, it was mentioned that there are many chronic illnesses such as heart disease, asthma, diabetes and obesity that are caused by poor health management, high cost of healthcare and inadequate knowledge of the disease. One factor that could cause these chronic diseases is the Tobacco usage among adults. According to Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC) (2017), Smoking may cause cancer, heart disease, stroke, lung disease, diabetes and COPD which includes emphysema and chronic bronchitis.

Have you ever been in a room full of people who are smoking? Have you ever questioned why they would put their health as well as yours in jeopardy by smoking? Did you ever think smoking could be good for you? Peter Brimelow says just that in his article “Thank You for Smoking…?” In Brimlow’s article, he explains all the health benefits smoking can provide you. Such evidence as that of D.M Warbutton, a British researcher who said that smoking stimulates alertness, dexterity, and cognitive capacity(141). Citing a number of scientific journals, Brimlow has also found that smoking can reduce the risk of developing such diseases as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s,