5 Reasons Why Teens are Encouraged to Quit Vaping

At such a young age, many teenagers commit to unhealthy lifestyle choices, which they’ll eventually regret later in life. These lifestyle paths are often influenced by peer pressure and curiosity, aggravated with the absence of good parenting. 

Teenage Smoking

According to the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, every day, 1,600 teenagers under 18 try their first cigarette in the United States alone. Among this population, around 200 of them continue as daily cigarette smokers. This number is exceptionally alarming because millions of teenagers die young due to smoking-associated medical conditions.

To put a stop to smoking and vaping addiction, teenagers can withdraw from tobacco through a nicotine cessation. If you’re one of the smoking teenagers who plan to lead a better and healthy life, here are the top 5 reasons you’re encouraged to quit smoking:

Decrease Risks of Developing Medical Conditions

The detrimental consequences of cigarette smoking are always emphasized in the medical landscape. Although smokers know what they’re getting themselves into, they pay no attention to their health and the people around them. Through quitting the path of smoking, teenage smokers can reduce the risks of developing smoking-related illnesses and give their health a new better chance.

If you’re still skeptical that your health can worsen because of smoking, here are some of the short-term health effects of smoking:

• Increased phlegm and chronic coughing
• Bronchitis and emphysema 
• Shortness of breath
• Vision problems, hearing loss, and increased headaches
• Reduced olfactory sense
• Bad breath 
• Simple airway obstruction
• Slowed growth of lung function

As your smoking consistently worsens until your adult years, there is a certainty that you will get lung cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and respiratory ailments. Imagine at an early age; teenagers are already destroying their health by smoking. 

Improve Physical Ability and Involvement 

The core of maintaining good health and shape between adolescence and adulthood are healthy lifestyle habits, like physical involvement. Eating a healthy diet isn’t enough, as physical activity keeps your body fit and in good shape. By stopping the consumption of tobacco, youth can focus on their physical fitness and avoid the repercussions of smoking in their physical health. 

When you smoke, carbon monoxide from cigarettes combines with red blood cells and replaces oxygen. Oxygen-rich blood is required in physical endurance, and with the lack of oxygen, smokers can quickly get tired with simple activities.

Have a Better Mental Health

Youth and adolescence is a challenging life stage, both mentally and emotionally. Some teenagers become curious about trying out tobacco due to its stress relief promises to lessen emotional baggage. However, what teenagers don’t know is that smoking becomes your number one stressor once you incorporate it into your routine. If you quit smoking now, there are higher chances to improve your mental health and discover other stress relievers that are good for the mind. 

Additionally, a study from the journal Addictive Behaviors found out that Nicotine Dependence In Teens (NDIT) possibly increases the likelihood of developing depressive symptoms. In this research, they emphasized the self-medicating effects of smoking cigarettes, but it only brings an advantage when used temporarily. However, frequent usage resulted in teenage smokers having elevated depression symptoms than those who had never smoked.

If you’d like to know more about how cigarette smoking impacts your mental health, read this article, and quit smoking now. 

Focus on Keeping Life’s Control

Despite the immediate ‘cloud nine’ that smokers can experience upon lighting a cigarette, smoking affects the mind in extraordinary ways that can take control of your cognition and decision-making. If you want to keep back on the right track and focus on your studies, saying goodbye to cigarettes permanently is your best decision. 

A part of the brain known as the prefrontal cortex is accountable for higher cognition, social behavior regulation, decision-making, and personality expression. The prefrontal cortex continues to evolve during adolescence, but nicotine intake can disrupt this progress and make it less active. Hence, teenagers make lousy life decisions without thinking of its consequences.

Eliminate Bad Peer Influences

If you’re smoking because your friends and peers encouraged you to do so, then it is time to reevaluate whether these people are indeed your friends. Because smoking becomes a “must” for teenagers, they succumb to these temptations that their fellow peers offer them. 

Instead of helping a friend quit, adolescents are more influential in encouraging their friends to start smoking. Social influence is a strong emotional pull. It is easy to tell a friend to smoke, buy them cigarettes, and teach them how to smoke. However, encouraging someone to quit is more difficult because of the lack of resources and proper counseling. 

Additionally, the importance of good parenting comes into this picture. Parents are the first to help their teen children quit smoking by seeking professional counseling help, providing natural remedies for quitting smoking, offering nicotine replacement products, and especially supporting their child. 

Final Word

Before trying out cigarette smoking, an adolescent would never know its consequences except if they have established a definite line that they would not. There is no such thing as good addiction, and smoking belongs to one of these. Before it is too late, help a teenager out to quit smoking and encourage them with these reasons discussed in bidding goodbye to smoking.