Caffeine And
Smoking Cessation

There's always been an interesting relationship between smoking and caffeine. Many people have reported that coffee and cigarettes go well together, yet we don't hear the same thing as much with caffeinated soda and smoking or even tea. It seems that there is some kind of relationship between the two, though, and that coffee just happens to be the more effective drink because it has more caffeine in it. And, it seems that caffeine may have an effect on people trying to stop smoking as well.

First, let's take a look at what caffeine is. It's considered a psychoactive stimulant drug. It stimulates the central nervous system, temporarily getting rid of tiredness and making people more alert. In the United States, more than 90% of the population has some kind of caffeine every day. In comparing the amount of caffeine in coffee, tea, and soda, coffee runs anywhere from 40 milligrams in a small shot of expresso up to 120 milligrams for one cup of regular coffee. Tea actually has more caffeine, but because of the way it's brewed by most people, which is relatively weak, it ends up having less per cup. Soda has the least amount of caffeine, usually ranging from 10 to 40 milligrams.

The odd relationship between smoking and caffeine is in what's known as "half-life." This is the amount of time it takes for half of the effects of a drug to wear off. In this case, the half-life of caffeine for most people is around 5 hours. Smoking cuts the half-life literally in half, down to 2 1/2 hours. This means that the effects of the caffeine in coffee don't last as long when people are smoking, which makes them drink more coffee. And, since the dopamine that's created when people smoke makes them want to continue smoking, you can see the relationship.

Of course, the problem with too much caffeine is that the body has problems shutting down to rest, which helps them continue smoking later in the evening because eventually the calming influence of cigarettes will help people eventually get tired enough to sleep.

This now brings us to the issue of why smokers who continue putting caffeine into their systems have so many problems. When smokers decide to quit, many of them continue drinking coffee or other caffeine related products at the same level as when they were smoking. Only, at this point nicotine isn't cutting the half-life of caffeine anymore, and this means there's way too much caffeine in the body.

This is what helps make people even more jittery and anxious than they normally would have been if they were trying to stop smoking and never had caffeine. A study was conducted and showed that people who continued drinking at the same levels three weeks after starting smoking cessation had a concentration of around 203% more than normal. It also showed that, for people who were able to keep to moderate levels of caffeine consumption, that quitting smoking caused them to have headaches, lethargy, fatigue, muscle pain and stiffness and mood swings during the process.

People who drink a lot of caffeine need to be prepared for this when they're ready to give up smoking. It's not a good idea to start drinking more caffeine to counter the effects of giving up smoking, but it might not be a bad idea to integrate your smoking cessation process with cutting down on the amount of caffeine intake, instead, picking up an exercise routine along the way to help replace the energy you might feel you're losing by reducing your caffeine intake.

Thinking about the changes as a positive move towards better health by quitting smoking and cutting back on caffeine will help you in the long run.

© Smoke Not So Much 2009

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