If you have been trying to quit smoking then you must have searched for alternatives that will help make the transition easier. E-cigarettes are vape pens that have become the rage because of their accessibility and the apparent claim that they help you quit smoking. In this article, we will be dealing with the research which supports the claim of e-cigarettes helping a person to quit smoking or making the transition towards it easier.
Table of Contents
What is the Difference?
Source: ucsf.edu
First of all, you need to understand that e-cigarettes are not good for your health but have a reduced risk to your lungs than smoking cigarettes has. The main difference is that regular cigarettes are eventually so detrimental to your health that regular smoking proves to be toxic.
The damage of regular cigarettes eventually permeates all the different organs and gives you the chance of getting 14 different types of cancers. You are smoking e-cigarettes as well but the key difference lies in the fact that you are getting nicotine from the tobacco leaves without burning them. Get your vape pen now from reliable sellers like vaposhop.com.
When you are using a vape pen, the essential shift is through the vaporization which is inherently different from the burning of the tobacco leaves which happens in a cigarette. If you are smoking an e-cigarette you are in healing vapors and a range of other chemicals that are significantly less damaging than the smoke of a cigarette.
For Quitting Smoking
If your end goal is to quit smoking then making the transition to e-cigarettes before finding the courage to quit smoking altogether is a good approach. But, on the other hand, if you think that just shifting to e-cigarettes and then continuing to smoke them will be good for your health the answer is unfortunately no.
What you need to understand is that while e-cigarettes are way less harming than regular alternatives, they have some drawbacks as well. Understanding the long term effects of vape pens has been difficult because they are relatively new and the scale of monitoring has not been that extensive. So if you want to quit smoking then it would be better for you to make the shift to e-cigarettes before eventually leaving smoking altogether.
Can you do both?
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You can do both but that does not mean that you should. If you are serious about the transition and your motivation towards quitting then you will have to stick to smoking e-cigarettes only. It might seem like a simple enough seat to achieve but here is the tricky part: Once you start with an e-cigarette the likelihood for you to go back to regular cigarettes is not eliminated.
You should be ready for a chance that you will eventually be smoking both of them extensively without reducing the frequency of either one. Smoking both regular cigarettes in e-cigarettes is actually worse than smoking either of them alone. So, the simple approach is that once you make the shift you should stay committed to your new choice and try not to mix both of them.
How do they help?
If you are wondering how e-cigarettes help then it all depends on your mindset and how resolute you are in terms of quitting the bad habit of smoking. You will have to limit the amount of nicotine intake once you make the switch to e cigarettes. If you are still smoking as much as you used to with an equal nicotine amount then the difference in your habit is negligible which will not help you.
The benefit of a vape pen is that you can control the amount of nicotine going into your system. This helps you manage how much nicotine intake you are giving yourself in a day. Nicotine dependence is the primary cause why people find it difficult to quit smoking. Since you can control the amount you are inhaling everyday, it falls on your shoulders to resist and take as much nicotine as is required in a particular moment of craving.
There has been significant evidence (wherever studies have been conducted) to support that e-cigarettes along with adequate counseling helps people quit smoking down the line with continued reinforcement. You will have to understand that when you get into vaping it will only benefit you as long as you eventually plan to quit.
Try out a Cessation Program
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Quitting cigarettes cold turkey rarely works because the cravings are sometimes too hard to manage. Rather than disappointing yourself by getting back into the habit of smoking, try to enroll in a cessation program which will help you quit step by step.
You might argue that since you have the motivation to quit you will eventually make the shift to vape pens and then quit them too. But it is not as simple as that. It is because evidence suggests that e-cigarettes also have a significant amount of nicotine that you can get addicted to as well. So a cessation program will help you in managing the amount of nicotine you are putting in your system and reducing it gradually until you are no longer dependent on it.
Understand that you are dealing with an addictive substance even if the medium changes to be far less dangerous. If you do not want another problem in your hands in terms of an e-cigarette addiction then enroll in a cessation program and seek help so that you can complete the process at once.
The Takeaway
Vape pens, therefore, are the less harmful alternative as long as your goal is to quit smoking altogether. It all comes down to your nicotine addiction and how you are going to fight it. Making the shift to e-cigarettes and sticking to them without going back to regular cigarettes is just the first step. You will have to realize that external help like a cessation program might be needed to overcome the new dependency which vape pens will probably expose you to.
