The Downside of Smoking

As you go through life’s ups and downs, you need to find ways to deal with stress. Oftentimes, your solution would be to take a night off or enjoy a day with your loved ones. If stress becomes a constant factor in your life, you need to find an easier way to cope with it. This is when smoking enters the picture. Ask any smoker and they’ll immediately tell you that this habit, unhealthy as it is, helps them relax. It’s an addiction, there’s no doubt about that. But if you are conscious about the way you look, you have to realize just how much you will age when you keep this habit up.

In fact, people say that you add ten years to your looks when you become a smoker. You also put your health on the line because you increase your chances of acquiring lung diseases. Consider yourself lucky if you get away with a simple cough. The others pay a higher price for it because they are suffering the ill effects of lung cancer. 

Look at your skin and compare it with that of a non-smoker. You’ll see that you have more wrinkles because your skin is drier. The smoke can irritate your skin because when you inhale it, you destroy the collagen inside your body. And without collagen, you are more prone to fine lines. The sad part is, your skin will never go back to the way it was. You’ve caused a permanent damage in you, and you can only fix this problem with expensive treatments and operations.

So how does smoking make you look older? This habit causes your blood vessels to narrow. This then restricts the blood flow to the surface of your skin. If you went back to elementary science, you’ll know that blood carrier oxygen and nutrients to every part of your system. These two elements make your skin more elastic so that wrinkles don’t easily form through time. Heavy smokers, in particular, pay a greater price. You will notice that some of them have dark gums and nicotine-stained teeth. There’s also what people call the smoker’s face. This means that your cheeks look sallow from all the puffing. Because your muscles are constantly drawn inwards, you’ll see the lines first form around your mouth and lips.

If you’ve been a heavy smoker in the past several years or so, you have to quit right now. You may think that giving up the habit is pointless because you already have the signs of aging in your face. While you may not make your wrinkles disappear, you can still stop new ones from forming. Drink lots of water and see how your skin now has a healthy glow only after a couple of weeks. It’s now time to think about not just yourself but also the people around you. They have been forced to inhale the second-hand smoke that came from you. You are also putting their health at risk, and that is very selfish of you. It’s now time to love life more and get into healthier habits instead.

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