Smoking is like murder; it’s risky. In the beginning, it might seem fun and exhilarating, but after a while, reality hits you like a punch from Dwyane “The Rock” Johnson. There will be numerous severe consequences waiting for you. That is why I will never smoke, or even be near a pack of cigarettes. And you shouldn’t either. If you’d like to learn about why you shouldn’t smoke, and the terrible effects of smoking, continue reading.
Smoking is extremely harmful for your health, physically and mentally. You will think you’re suffering in the beginning, but that’s nothing compared to what's to come. When you first start smoking, you will begin to have terrible breath, always be fatigue, and have tainted yellow nails and teeth. You will also have a reduction in taste and smell, and will be constantly coughing. At this stage, you might lose some people who are close to you, because who would want to be around someone who’s breath reeks of cigarettes, and is basically killing themselves? If you continue to smoke for an extended period of time like 5 years, your condition will worsen drastically. As stated by nhs.uk, long term smoking enhances your risk of developing deadly illnesses like heart attack, stroke, heart disease, osteoporosis, pneumonia, cancer, and more. When people think of the effects of smoking, they usually think of the physical effects, but there are several mental effects to smoking too. Smoking can alter your behavior to make you feel more irritable, anxious, and stressed. Long term smoking can even lead to developing mental illnesses like anxiety or depression.Your health will only deteriorate more with time, so you should quit smoking as soon as possible.
Not only is smoking damaging for our health, but it is also awfully expensive and costly. Smoking is a huge waste of money. According to quora.com, the average price of one pack of cigarettes in Canada is $15. If you purchased one pack of cigarettes per day, you would be wasting $5,475 per year on cigarettes. As claimed by mymoneycoach.ca, the average amount of money a Canadian citizen spends on food per month is $214. With the money you waste on cigarettes per year, you could pay for the food for a person for over 2 years! The money you’re wasting could be used for a better cause like charity. You could be giving starving homeless children a warm meal, instead of wasting money on cigarettes. What kind of monster wouldn’t want to help a homeless child in need? However, if you aren’t interested in donating to a charity, you could be spoiling yourself with the money you saved from quitting smoking. Think of how much money you would be saving if you didn't smoke.
To understand why you should avoid cigarette use, you first have to understand what a cigarette is and it’s contents. A cigarette is essentially tobacco that is wrapped in paper. According to lung.org, there are approximately 600 ingredients in a single cigarette. One of the ingredients in a cigarette is called tar. The tar in cigarettes is the same kind of disgusting dark and thick tar that is used to pave roads. Just imagine your precious lungs, with black gooey tar all over them. The website also suggests that when just one cigarette is lit, it releases over 7,000 chemicals into the air. At least 69 of the chemicals released have been proven to cause cancer. There are also several toxic chemicals in cigarettes. One of the toxic chemicals found in cigarettes is called arsenic. According to healthline.com, arsenic is an extremely poisonous chemical, that can cause serious illnesses like lung cancer and heart disease, or prolonged death if small doses are consumed or inhaled over a long period of time. Arsenic is also found in rat poison. Your practically inhaling rat poison- the toxic liquid used to kill rats in households! If you are still craving cigarettes, just remember that you are basically putting the same ingredients found in tar, rat poison, household cleaners, and more absurd things into your body.
Have you ever wondered what makes cigarettes so dangerously addictive? We already know that cigarettes mainly consist of tobacco, which is a plant that contains a chemical called nicotine. Nicotine is incredibly addictive, it is so addictive that quebec.ca and the book, “Tobacco And Nicotine (Dangerous Drugs),” by Micheal Burgan even suggests that nicotine dependency is comparable to heroin or cocaine addiction. It doesn’t take long for someone to become dependent on nicotine. Just one pack of cigarettes can make your brain crave cigarettes non- stop for the rest of your life. Nicotine will not only make you hooked on cigarettes, but will also increase your blood pressure and heart rate. You could argue that nicotine might have positive effects, but those effects only last for a short period of time, and are ineffective. Nicotine is a stimulant like caffeine, so it may help with focusing or concentrating, just like how a cup of coffee might make you feel energized. But are the prices you have to pay, and consequences of inhaling nicotine worth being able to focus for a limited amount of time?
If someone was educated and fully aware of the terrible effects of smoking, why would they even start smoking? It is very common that someone begins smoking because they are pressured by somebody they trust, like a family member, close friend, or significant other. This type of pressure is called peer pressure. Peer pressure is when somebody makes you do something that you initially wanted to abstain from doing. Peer pressure usually occurs with adolescents, when someone is influenced to smoke to boost their social status, impress someone, or fit in with others. According to the book, “Teen Smoking,” by Lydia Bjornlund, over 80 percent of current smokers began smoking before the age of 18. You can resist peer pressure by making an excuse like, “No thank you, I have to go home now,” or you can just straightforwardly refuse to smoke. Others usually begin to smoke because they’re struggling with their mental health. People who suffer from a mental illness like PTSD or depression might use smoking as a way of forgetting their suffering for a limited amount of time. In this case, you can resist from resorting to drugs like cigarettes to help make you feel better. Instead, you can seek help from someone you trust like a family member or friend, or you can consult with a professional doctor, therapist, or psychologist . You have to know that you're not alone when you are trying to resist cigarettes, or drug use in general.
If you are a smoker, not only are you deteriorating your own health, but also the health of the people who are constantly near you when you smoke, like your beloved family. When you smoke, you are releasing over 7,000 different harmful chemicals into the air around you. When you light a cigarette, you aren’t inhaling all of the smoke being released, so the smoke escapes to fill the air in the surrounding area. That means that everyone near you is put in danger too. If someone near you inhales the smoke being released from your cigarette, they are secondhand smoking. As claimed by canada.ca, secondhand smoke causes 800 devastating deaths in Canada, each year. Secondhand smoke is especially detrimental for children and infants. Would you choose cigarettes over the health of your own precious family and children?
This may sound surprising, but smoking can greatly affect fertility in men and women. Smoking decreases sperm count, sperm motility, and sperm quality in men. All of those factors lower your chances of becoming a father, drastically. Smoking also damages genetic material in sperm, which might be passed down to the baby. The website, yourfertility.org.au suggests that you quit smoking at least three months before trying to conceive, if you want to have any probability to conceive. According to quitgenius.com, Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, decided to quit smoking for good, because he wanted to start a family with Meghan Markle. For women, smoking can lower the total quantity of eggs in your ovaries, and cause your ovaries to age prematurely. Smoking can still affect your baby, if you decide to begin smoking again, right after giving birth. Smoking transmits dangerous chemicals to your baby, through the breast milk you feed them. Women who smoke also produce a reduced supply of breast milk, and produce breast milk that might have changed compositions. The website, reproductivefacts.org suggests that both male and female smokers are twice as unlikely to conceive than nonsmokers. The more cigarettes you smoke, the more fertility problems you will face.
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Smoking as the Slowest Form of Suicide.
(2022, Jun 09). Edubirdie. Retrieved December 25, 2024, from https://edubirdie.com/examples/smoking-as-the-slowest-form-of-suicide/
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