Quit Smoking – My God, what happened to my adrenals?

When we think about the effect of quitting smoking, most of the attention is focused on the lungs. I’m sure you know a lot about lung cancer and emphysema to begin with. But the lungs are just the celebrities in the world of the risks of smoking.

There are many other parts of the body that also suffer. Your adrenal glands are very helpful for them to function well. They perform many useful functions including:

1. By producing adrenaline, it helps you react quickly in times of increased stress or danger.
2. Release cortisol, which wakes you up, acts as an anti-inflammatory and influences metabolism.
3. By secreting DHEA, which is your long-lived hormone, you feel great, it converts to testosterone or estrogen, it helps you sleep better and have more energy.
4. Also, your adrenal function affects your blood sugar levels.

So how does smoking affect the adrenal glands? The enemy of adrenal function is stress. Physical stress, emotional stress and/or chemical stress.

Each cigarette is a powerful stress on your body, over time your adrenal glands try to cope by creating more adrenaline and cortisol. This action creates some serious hormonal imbalances.

As cortisol increases, DHEA decreases, plus melatonin, which is the sleep hormone, is displaced by elevated cortisol.

This in itself is bad enough news, leading to increased stress and anxiety, a greater inability to control depression, and heightened responses to pain.

But over time, the adrenal gland stops producing cortisol and levels drop. This has a huge impact on blood sugar and consequently on energy, concentration and general well-being.

I’m sure you can now see the problems related to smoking, stress and hormonal balance. When you quit smoking naturally, your lungs will recover quickly, due to rapid turnover of lung cells, but it will take a while for your adrenal glands to restart.

Vitamins B5 and B6 are essential, plus the herbs Avena Sativa (Oat) and Licorice plus the Chinese herb Buplerium.

More direct stress management tools, whether Yoga, Qigong Meditation or specific techniques provided as part of your quit smoking hypnosis session.

You need to take your adrenal recovery seriously, because if you don’t, you won’t have the emotional reserves to handle life’s trials and tribulations as they come your way, whether you like it or not.

The added bonus is that not only will your recovery after smoking be faster; you will feel better than you have in years and it is very unlikely that you will smoke again in the future.