Your Body on... Smoking

If you think lighting up on girls’ nights out is a harmless vice, think again.

By Laura Beil, Women’s Health

The average cigarette is gone in 10 puffs and five minutes, but that’s five minutes of havoc as 4,000 chemicals infiltrate your organs.

0 to 10 Seconds

As you take the first drag, smoke passes through your mouth, leaving a faint brown film on your pearly whites. Toxic gases such as formaldehyde and ammonia immediately put your immune system on alert, causing allover inflammation.

8 Ways to beat bad breath.

Once in the windpipe, the cigarette smoke temporarily slows your cilia, the tiny sweepers that work to clear your respiratory system of mucus and invading particles. Meanwhile, airborne nicotine passes instantly into your bloodstream through the millions of capillaries in your lungs.

Your body gets a jolt of energy as that nicotine hits your adrenal glands, triggering an outpouring of adrenaline that raises your blood pressure and heart rate. Your heart is unable to relax fully between beats–and you are now at a higher risk of having a stroke.

At the same time, carbon monoxide (a toxic component also found in car exhaust) from the smoke is starting to build up in your blood, limiting your body’s ability to transport oxygen to your vital organs.

Via the blood-stream, nicotine hits your brain, where certain nerve cells respond by letting loose a torrent of the feel-good neurotransmitter dopamine.

How to improve your senses.

1 of 2

Read more: Family, General Health, Health, Home, Mental Wellness, asthma, bad breath, brain, breathing, cancer, cigarettes, disease prevention, dopamine, emphysema, health, healthy lungs, lung disease, lungs, nerve cells, nicotine, oral health, secondhand smoke, smoke, smoking

Linda F.

10:45AM PDT on Jul 15, 2011

thank you!

July 15
send a green star

Patricia G.

12:26PM PDT on Jun 21, 2011

Thanks.

June 21
send a green star

Andrea H.

4:54AM PDT on Jun 20, 2011

Keep trying

June 20
send a green star

Eternal G.

5:25PM PDT on Jun 19, 2011

Never start is the best remedy.

June 19
send a green star

Annemarie W.

1:54PM PDT on Jun 2, 2011

I've never smoked, but I'm sure second hand is just as bad. Stop smoking people!!!

June 2
send a green star

Robert T.

11:59AM PDT on May 22, 2011

wow, good to know.

May 22
send a green star

Brenda G.

5:32AM PDT on May 21, 2011

If anyone still needs any encouragement to stop smoking surely reading this will do it! Thank you.

May 21
send a green star

Margaret D.

12:25PM PDT on May 20, 2011

pure sensationalism. there's a lot worse things out there you should be addressing.

May 20
send a green star

Lauren T.

3:46PM PDT on May 17, 2011

I use to smoke, on bad days a pack and a half to 2 packs a day. I did this for 8 years and then I had to stop. I just had to! So what I did was try my best to seperate for a little while away from other "smoking buddies' and really give my body a chance to fully start to "heal' as best it could. Then instead of lighting one up in the car I would sing! Yeah I slipped up, but those weren't failures, they were stumbling blocks. After doing the same thing over and over each day by avoiding cigs and anything to do with them, each day because easier! If you are contemplating stopping smoking DON'T GIVE UP!!! YOU CAN DO IT!! BABY STEPS!!! :) If you want some encouragement, email me I will be right there with you!!! :D