What Your Cigarette Smoke Is Masking

Many people are constantly shadowed by their habit of smoking. Some are aware of the consequences that come with this habit, while others prefer to remain in denial.

We could give you an endless list of medical reasons to stop smoking, although it is likely that you have already read them and were not shocked by them.

Here, instead of looking at the health effects, we explore the psychological factors that reinforce your need to smoke. Below are the many ways s moking masts parts of your personality and parts of your experiences, and prevents you from seeing clearly, both physically and psychologically.

• Cigarette smoke prevents you from having your hands free. This indicates that you do not feel completely prepared to take control of your life or to lend yourself to any unforeseen situation.
• Cigarette smoke does not let you look at another person continuously. It may be because of the physical way in which you smoke, and with evasive movements you put up a protective barrier to avoid involving yourself more deeply in relationships with others. 
• Cigarette smoke prevents you from forming routines that do not include smoking. It contaminates your concentration and pollutes your moments of rest, even though to you it may feel like the opposite.
• Cigarette smoke blocks you from seeing your own loneliness. In your window, in your bed, in your office… It prevents you from being conscious of the fact that you are alone (either negatively or positively), because, in reality, you lose your full awareness of the moment. 
• Cigarette smoke does not allow you to contemplate. A sunset, your child’s first steps… these moments are always interrupted by lighting a cigarette.
• Cigarette smoke prevents you from knowing whether or not you feel like eating a certain foods. The taste left by a cigarette is one that mixes with everything, and all flavors seem to taste the same.
• Cigarette smoke does not let you endure frustration. For example, it prevents you from calmly looking at a map when you are lost, and it leaves you without the patience to plan things of both great and small importance.
• Cigarette smoke prevents you from having free time. You have to smoke a cigarette just in order to feel like you are doing something, to the point where you believe that it is directly related to your productivity. 

• Cigarette smoke doesn’t allow you to go out in a relaxed and easy-going way. You go out because you want to buy cigarettes, any way you can, thus mentally and physically abandoning yourself for just 20 tubes of tobacco and nicotine.
• Cigarette smoke inhibits you from displaying your best manners, if you have them; the “necessity” to have a cigarette invades any situation, no matter if it is appropriate to have one or not.
• Cigarette smoke stops you from running 8 kilometers, and causes you to stop at 4 instead. At your age, on a beautiful day, you should be able to be much more active.
• Cigarette smoke prevents you from realizing that the money you spend each month on cigarettes could be spent on other things, like gifts for the people you love, or an airplane ticket.
• Cigarette smoke makes you smell bad, even if you buy expensive perfume.
• Cigarette smoke prevents you from seeing that you are losing your health, time, and money. 

Put down the cigarette and pick up new habits!