We're not going to sugarcoat it – quitting vaping is hard, but the benefits are well worth the struggle. Giving up nicotine can actually lead to reduced stress, anxiety, and depression. It's true. In fact, quitting nicotine may have as strong an impact on your mental health as taking antidepressants.
Smoking and vaping, even in small amounts or only sometimes, can be harmful to your health while also increasing your chances of becoming addicted. Even if you're only smoking or vaping sometimes, the effects can be just as risky to your health as a daily smoking habit.
Nicotine exposure during the teenage years can harm brain development, which continues until about age 25. It can impact learning, memory and attention, and increase risk for future addiction to other drugs. Young people who use e-cigarettes may be more likely to go on to use regular cigarettes.
Vaping overall, even without nicotine, can have harmful effects. Vaping, the act of vaporizing a liquid to inhale, is an increasingly popular alternative to cigarette smoking. However, it could damage health by irritating the lungs and throat and introducing toxins into the body.
Understanding whether the lungs can heal from any damage vaping might cause may depend on the extent and type of damage. The lungs can regenerate some damaged tissue . However, when damage is too extensive, it may be permanent.
The Benefits of Quitting
Additionally, quitting vaping will improve your blood circulation and enable your lungs to begin healing. This will result in fewer coughing episodes and improved breathing ability during physical activity.
Benefits of vaping
Vaping can help some people quit smoking. Vaping is usually cheaper than smoking. Vaping is not harmless, but it is much less harmful than smoking. Vaping is less harmful to those around you than smoking, as there's no current evidence that second-hand vapour is dangerous to others.
Try changing your daily routine to avoid “triggers” that cause you to want to vape. It may be best to avoid certain situations in the early stages of quitting. Prepare for cravings and withdrawal symptoms. Learn about stress-reducing activities like meditation or taking a brisk walk to keep yourself busy.
By inhaling tobacco smoke, the average smoker takes in 1–2 milligrams of nicotine per cigarette. When tobacco is smoked, nicotine rapidly reaches peak levels in the bloodstream and enters the brain. A typical smoker will take 10 puffs on a cigarette over the roughly 5 minutes that the cigarette is lit.
A smoker typically puffs on a cigarette around 10-15 times before putting it out, so let's be conservative and estimate that puffing on a vape 15 times is approximately equal to smoking one cigarette. If that's the case, then a disposable vape that delivers 600 puffs is equal to about two packs of cigarettes.
Vaping and Popcorn Lung
Diacetyl is frequently added to flavored e-liquid to enhance the taste. Inhaling diacetyl causes inflammation and may lead to permanent scarring in the smallest branches of the airways — popcorn lung — which makes breathing difficult. Popcorn lung has no lasting treatment.
There's no cure for popcorn lung. You'll need to have life-long care to manage the symptoms, which may not always respond well to treatment.
Physical symptoms include “headaches, sweating, tremors, insomnia, increased appetite, abdominal cramps, and constipation,” Dr. Djordjevic says. These are the first effects you're likely to feel, often within four to 24 hours after quitting.
Nicotine from e-cigarettes also reduces the saliva in your mouth. Lack of saliva can lead to dry mouth, plaque buildup, increased bacteria, and ultimately tooth decay. Nicotine inhaled during vaping acts as a muscle stimulant. This can cause you to grind your teeth (bruxism) or can make the problem worse.
While more research may determine the overall harm from vaping, it is already clear that using “homemade” or unregulated vape juices can introduce unknown and potentially harmful substances into users' lungs. Another main concern is the addictive nature of nicotine in vape juice or any tobacco product.
1: Vaping is less harmful than smoking, but it's still not safe.
Water will most likely soak right through the wick, flooding the coil and creating significant leaks. This can damage your vaping equipment permanently. If you attempt to vape with water using normal vaping hardware, you'll find that the tank spits hot droplets into your mouth.
The FDA has warned that wellness vapes are “unsafe”, “ineffective” and “unproven”. We must carefully weigh the benefits and risks of use. Many of the supplements in these devices may help improve our lifestyles, but there is no evidence to support the benefits of inhalation over traditional methods of delivery.
Some of the most popular vapes on the market are advertised as coming in nicotine strengths of 0mg, 10mg and 20mg/ml, so a 2ml vape typically contains 0, 20mg or 40mg of nicotine, and allows for between 600 and 800 puffs.
In the short-term, vaping nicotine may feel good by stimulating production of the “feel good” chemical in the brain called dopamine which can create feelings of pleasure and relaxation. Vaping nicotine also creates social opportunities to connect with other people and provides a distraction from stressful situations.