Effects of Smoking Cigarettes

There are so many different areas in health that can be affected in short term and long term from smoking. Understanding and learning what can happen to your health is knowledge that should be considered extremely important and should be taken seriously. What can be a simple smoke will eventually turn into a lifelong amount of health problems. Quitting should be considered the easy part! Dealing with the aftermath of its effects on the body is the hardest.

Here are some ways that smoking will and can affect you and your health:

• What happens when you become sick? Your illnesses become a much longer process in trying to get rid of it. This is due to the immune system becoming weak from the nicotine within the bloodstream. You are able to sustain any type of illness when your immune system is at its weakest state. All bacteria, germs and viruses are able to multiply and become stronger while you get weaker. Never underestimate the strength of your immune system; it is by far the most important part of your health in being able to fight off illnesses.

• The survival rate for smoking post surgery is very low compared to nonsmokers. This is due to the body not being able to heal itself at the normal rate. Wounds don't heal as easily, infections are contracted and respiratory problems can become complicated.

• Peptic Ulcer: This is yet another reason smoking cigarettes is harmful to the body. Smoking not necessarily causes peptic ulcers but it does cause irritation making it difficult for proper recovery. This leads back to a weaken immune system and slow recovery due to the toxins in cigarettes.

• Your ability to work out becomes effected due to the Your ability to work out becomes effected due to the deterioration brought on by smoking and the damage taken to the red blood cells. You will find that your endurance levels are much lower with trouble breathing from simple endurance training.

• Brain damage is also shown to occur. This is because of the lack of oxygen supplied and the exposure of toxins to the brain.

A personal experience:

There are a couple of people in which I personally have seen and see that have the ill effects of long term smoking. There are a handful of guys that meet up in the morning for a decent tennis work out. To keep a long story short, during one of these mornings, one of the guys (a friend) had a heart attack on the court and suffered pretty bad respiratory problems. A short while later, a triple bypass was done and now his heart is working at a max of 60%. All indications of the heart attack pointed straight to smoking.

So why risk all the health effects of cigarette smoking? Is it worth it? Of course not! It never has been and never will be. Something to always remember is that this is just the tip of the iceberg as far as your health goes. There are so many related issues which branch off one another creating a plethora of health problems. Is this a valid enough reason to quit smoking? Everyone has their own views and the decision is ultimately your own, but logic easily would suggest... YES it is!