The reality behind the calming illusion of cigarette smoking

By: Alisa Samuel 

Published on: April 30th, 2024


Smoking is known as an expensive habit with physical health-related consequences, such as lowered immune system function, higher risk for heart attacks and strokes, and various cancers including lung cancer.  

According to a 2021 study in the Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health, people who immigrated to Canada over the past several years contribute greatly to the country’s smoking population. Researchers including Anna Oda, the refugee integration and long-term health outcomes project coordinator at York university in Toronto, Ontario, examined cigarette smoking trends among 1805 Syrian newcomers to Canada. They found that 70 out of 1,309 non-smoking participants started smoking during their first two years here, while the overall number of light smokers in the study also increased.  

“New immigrants experience resettlement stress related to schooling, employment, and absence of social networks and smoking may be used and initiated as a coping strategy to help newcomers reduce their stresses,” says the research team. “Consistent with this, our sample showed that those who were moderate/ heavy smokers seemed to be in difficult circumstances, as they had lower likelihood of employment and high posttraumatic stress scores.” 

While a newcomer might pick up a cigarette to cope with past and present stress, quitting cigarettes, or smoking cessation, is a healthy lifestyle choice that not only saves a person money and reduces their chances of getting sick with the acute or chronic physical conditions. It may also help boost their mental health in the process. 

“Although smokers think that smoking offers mental health benefits, there is a strong association between smoking and poor mental health, and smokers with mental health disorders tend to be heavier smokers and more dependent,” researchers in The British Medical Journal (BMJ) explain. “Three broad explanations have been proposed to explain these associations: smoking and poor mental health might have common causes; people with poor mental health smoke to regulate feelings such as low mood and anxiety; or smoking might cause or exacerbate mental health problems.” 

In 2014, the BMJ researchers searched several databases of published medical literature and, from nearly up to 30 studies, analyzed information that shows mental health changes in continuous smokers and quitters before and after interventions. They found that anxiety, depression, combined anxiety and depression, and stress significantly decreased in majority of the studies. Some quitters experienced these decreased weeks after being studied, while other quitters didn’t feel the positive effects of smoking cessation on their psychological quality of life until several months later.  

Between quitting and seeing improvements in their mental health, symptoms of nicotine withdrawal can discourage quitters: “Smokers experience irritability, anxiety, and depression when they have not smoked for a while, and these feelings are reliably relieved by smoking, thus creating the perception that smoking has psychological benefits, while in fact it is smoking that caused these psychological disturbances in the first place.” 

Repeatedly failing to quit can also lead to disappointment. Find local support through initiatives like the Canadian Cancer Society’s Smoker’s Healthline to stay motivated against relapses.  

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