Are you looking to quit smoking, or know someone that you want to help kick the habit? If so, vaping might be the answer. Many people have claimed they stopped using tobacco products by switching to vapes, and there is a growing consensus that vaping could help you quit nicotine for good.
Why Quitting Nicotine Is So Hard
Nicotine is a stimulant that speeds up messages between your body and brain. It also releases dopamine, which makes smokers feel good after using tobacco. The sensations are experienced within 20 seconds of inhalation, making it a quick fix for users.
Nicotine is a problem because it is highly addictive. Your brain chemistry becomes altered, producing the physical desire for nicotine. This addition is also behavioral and mental as smokers desire the effects and feel withdrawals when they try to stop.
Why Does Smoking Tobacco Cause Health Problems?
There are several additional issues when using nicotine through smoking. Smoking means burning the tobacco (and agents used to add flavor or other characteristics), generating the thousands of chemicals in the smoke that cause so many health problems. Each puff of smoke includes things like ammonia, arsenic, benzene, carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, hydrogen cyanide, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, radioactive elements, tar, and tobacco-specific nitrosamines.
These chemicals can cause various health conditions and diseases, which has you looking into ways to quit your nicotine habit.
How Can a Vape Help You Stop Nicotine?
If you have tried to stop nicotine, you’re fully aware of the physical and mental withdrawals that make it near impossible for many. The cravings, anxiety, depression, confusion, irritability, nervousness, and insomnia are real. Cigarettes, cigars, and pipes use tobacco to supply you with nicotine, and the level of this stimulant is not adjustable.
Many vaping products also contain nicotine. So, how is a device containing nicotine going to help you quit nicotine? The key here is a vape allows you to adjust the amount of nicotine. How?
E-cigarettes and E-juices come in various nicotine concentrations (often ranging from 0 mg/mL to 25 mg/mL). You can start with a higher concentration and slowly reduce your nicotine intake in intervals by purchasing lower concentrations. Many former smokers have found success by reducing nicotine levels on weekly or monthly schedules, allowing them to still get the experience without the harsh withdrawals of going “cold turkey.” Products like the Monster Bar Vape contain just 5% nicotine, making them a great way to reduce stimulant intake.
A similar step that advanced vapers use is mixing their E-juice. You can add the desired amount of nicotine while enjoying your favorite flavors (which aren’t always available at lower nicotine levels).
Using a harsher tobacco flavor E-juice is another way to reduce nicotine. The sensation (throat hit) you feel can trick the mind into feeling like you got a higher dose of nicotine than you did. Another method some users try is using a sub-ohm vape because the lower nicotine does not hurt their throat as much in these E-cigarettes.
Are There Other Things to Consider?
A vape can also help you with the behaviors associated with smoking. Long-term smokers can develop an oral fixation that other cessation methods do not address as effectively as vaping. With a vape, you still get the device movement to your mouth and inhalation.
Another advantage of vaping is you inhale vaporized liquids and not smoke from burning leaves. The thousands of carcinogenic compounds in tobacco smoke are not present in a vape cloud.
Finally, what does science have to say about the effectiveness of vaping when it comes to stopping nicotine? Cochrane reviews are the gold standard of peer-to-peer scientific reviews. One 2021 Cochrane meta-analysis of 61 studies concluded there is moderate-certainty evidence that electronic cigarettes with nicotine increase quit rates compared to nicotine replacement therapy or electronic cigarettes without nicotine.
Vape Away From Nicotine
If you’re a smoker looking to break your nicotine addiction, vaping might help. You can reduce nicotine levels over time and eliminate thousands of harmful compounds in tobacco smoke. What matters most is the data shows that vaping has a higher success rate than other methods.
