Most smokers lean heavily on cigarettes to help them manage stress, and when we quit, we must learn how to cope without smoking. It's awkward at first, but with time and some redirection of that energy into an alternative stress reliever like exercise, we can begin to reprogram old responses.
42 days since my last cigarette.
While other parts of my life are speeding along, the putting smoking behind me part of my life continues to move at a snails pace. At least the progress is steady.
I have had more control over my snacking lately. I find that getting good sleep helps tremendously and that means getting to bed at a decent time so that I can get 7 to 8 hours of sleep. I can't rely on coffee and cigarettes to get me through the day anymore. For one thing, if I drink more than one cup of coffee in the morning, I have trouble sleeping at night. For the past 4 days, the only caffeine has been one cup of coffee in the morning. I haven't even been drinking caffeinated soda.
I am trying to do about 20 to 25 minutes of pilates every other day. I have been on track with that for a week now and Monday I was able to do a few exercises that I had not previously been able to do. If I get good sleep, and I exercise the next day, and I drink lots of water... I am so full of positive energy that I am sure it annoys people.
Thursday or Friday we will be flipping the switch to power on a computer chip we have been designing for the past year and a half. We do a lot of calculations and analysis to make sure it will work, but we never know for sure until we turn it on and see if the lights start blinking. It costs a serious amount of money to build the first few chips and so the tension is always high just before we power on a new design. Needless to say, the people who pay for this chip to be built will be very disappointed if the chip doesn't work. I have always smoked a lot around this time in the project. I used to say that I really enjoyed the high stakes of this kind of work, but I am starting to think, I just liked having a reason to smoke a lot. I have to say, work, or at least my current job, is not quite as much fun without the coffee and cigarettes.
Day 46
Friday morning started out as the best day of my quit to date. I woke up feeling more rested than any day since I quit smoking. I have been keeping to my exercise schedule for over a week including 20 minutes of pilates on Friday morning. And on Friday morning I had a long conversation with my wife about my quitting smoking. I felt like she really listened to what I had to say about my experience of quitting and that felt really great.
So, lucky for me I was in a pretty good mental state when I went into work on Friday, because Friday was an extremely disappointing day at work.
I have been working with a team of people for the past 18 months to design this little chip which is about one quarter inch x one quarter inch... tiny. There are millions of little electronic circuits on the chip. If any one of these circuits doesn't work properly the chip could be useless or severely limited. When we design the chip, we simulate how all these circuits will work together when we actually build the chip. The simulations are just computer programs. So we run these programs for hours and hours and hours for months on end and then we try to build the first chip. It takes many weeks and many thousands of dollars to build the first chip. And a small crowd usually gathers when we power on the chip to see if it works.
Well, we powered the chip up on Thursday and it seemed to be working and everyone was greatly relieved. Lots of high fives and smiles. I had an intense craving to smoke a cigarette after all the excitement, but I held out and did not smoke.
On Friday, we tested a few more features of the chip and ran into some serious roadblocks. It looks like we will have to redesign some very simple things in the chip to have the chip be useable. It will take many more weeks and more money to get to where we thought we would be on Friday. Lots of people were disappointed. There is tension and fear present among people working on the project. I reeeeeeeeeeally wanted a cigarette on Friday and on Friday night.
I am concentrating now on how I am going to be about this disappointment. I am going through a tough time. I am having a hard time being present. I keep drifting off into replaying conversations and events in my mind to understand where we went wrong. I don't handle disappointment well and in my life, I put a lot of energy into having things go well because its painful for me when things don't go the way I planned or promised.
Its Saturday morning and I haven't smoked, but I still want one and having lots of thoughts of having just one.
48 days since I smoked my last cigarette.
I have had an almost constant desire to smoke during the evening for the past 4 nights. This was triggered by stress at work. In terms of my quit, it feels like a set back since I haven't had a craving of this intensity or consistency for several weeks.
Our latest computer chip design at work had a couple of minor flaws which resulted in real concerns about whether the design would be useable or not. People were anxious and uptight because of the time and money to fix the design. It usually takes several days to sort these things out and some folks were short of patience.
This is the first really stressful situation I have encountered since I quit smoking. I have been anticipating this time for weeks knowing that we would be testing the chip soon. I also knew that if it went well I would probably want to smoke and if it didn't go well I would want to smoke.
Either way, this is an opportunity to train myself to not expect nicotine when I encounter this kind of stress. Its been a very long time since I have dealt with stress without nicotine.
Things have gone much better with the chip design the past 2 days. We made some progress in finding creative ways to have the chip work even with the flaws and so far tests are looking good. Big sigh of relief!
I have been very calm throughout the whole process and physiologically, I probably dealt with the stress better without nicotine.
And while I am proud of myself for not smoking and for maintaining calm throughout the past few days, I have a lot of room for improvement in how I deal with stress.
Its been 50 days since I quit smoking. That's over 500 cigarettes I have not smoked!
I am so glad I am not punishing my body anymore. The little aches and pains I was experiencing were a constant source of worry and discomfort. Not to mention coughing, wheezing, constant chest congestion, feeling tired all the time, sore throat.
In fact, I used to tolerate so many negative side-effects of smoking. It doesn't seem at all worth it right now, and it never really was worth it. Its not like smoking enhanced any of my talents or abilities or made me happy and smoking did not, as I am discovering now, help me deal with stress.
I was just addicted to nicotine and all of the accompanying side-effects of smoking became normal to me. It was normal to sound like I had a chest cold when I laughed at a joke. It never even occurred to me to ask myself if smoking was worth all of that. My brain, the brain of an addict, doesn't go there. The question I would ask myself is, "how much longer can I continue to get away with smoking before I get lung cancer?"
Ignoring the more immediate and obvious side effects of smoking and jumping ahead to a more serious life and death question was a way of avoiding the issue of quitting smoking. In fact, it would make me want to smoke more. It was almost like quitting smoking was "giving in" in some way. Quitting was an admission that I am no longer young and invincible.
David
42 days since my last cigarette.
While other parts of my life are speeding along, the putting smoking behind me part of my life continues to move at a snails pace. At least the progress is steady.
I have had more control over my snacking lately. I find that getting good sleep helps tremendously and that means getting to bed at a decent time so that I can get 7 to 8 hours of sleep. I can't rely on coffee and cigarettes to get me through the day anymore. For one thing, if I drink more than one cup of coffee in the morning, I have trouble sleeping at night. For the past 4 days, the only caffeine has been one cup of coffee in the morning. I haven't even been drinking caffeinated soda.
I am trying to do about 20 to 25 minutes of pilates every other day. I have been on track with that for a week now and Monday I was able to do a few exercises that I had not previously been able to do. If I get good sleep, and I exercise the next day, and I drink lots of water... I am so full of positive energy that I am sure it annoys people.
Thursday or Friday we will be flipping the switch to power on a computer chip we have been designing for the past year and a half. We do a lot of calculations and analysis to make sure it will work, but we never know for sure until we turn it on and see if the lights start blinking. It costs a serious amount of money to build the first few chips and so the tension is always high just before we power on a new design. Needless to say, the people who pay for this chip to be built will be very disappointed if the chip doesn't work. I have always smoked a lot around this time in the project. I used to say that I really enjoyed the high stakes of this kind of work, but I am starting to think, I just liked having a reason to smoke a lot. I have to say, work, or at least my current job, is not quite as much fun without the coffee and cigarettes.
Day 46
Friday morning started out as the best day of my quit to date. I woke up feeling more rested than any day since I quit smoking. I have been keeping to my exercise schedule for over a week including 20 minutes of pilates on Friday morning. And on Friday morning I had a long conversation with my wife about my quitting smoking. I felt like she really listened to what I had to say about my experience of quitting and that felt really great.
So, lucky for me I was in a pretty good mental state when I went into work on Friday, because Friday was an extremely disappointing day at work.
I have been working with a team of people for the past 18 months to design this little chip which is about one quarter inch x one quarter inch... tiny. There are millions of little electronic circuits on the chip. If any one of these circuits doesn't work properly the chip could be useless or severely limited. When we design the chip, we simulate how all these circuits will work together when we actually build the chip. The simulations are just computer programs. So we run these programs for hours and hours and hours for months on end and then we try to build the first chip. It takes many weeks and many thousands of dollars to build the first chip. And a small crowd usually gathers when we power on the chip to see if it works.
Well, we powered the chip up on Thursday and it seemed to be working and everyone was greatly relieved. Lots of high fives and smiles. I had an intense craving to smoke a cigarette after all the excitement, but I held out and did not smoke.
On Friday, we tested a few more features of the chip and ran into some serious roadblocks. It looks like we will have to redesign some very simple things in the chip to have the chip be useable. It will take many more weeks and more money to get to where we thought we would be on Friday. Lots of people were disappointed. There is tension and fear present among people working on the project. I reeeeeeeeeeally wanted a cigarette on Friday and on Friday night.
I am concentrating now on how I am going to be about this disappointment. I am going through a tough time. I am having a hard time being present. I keep drifting off into replaying conversations and events in my mind to understand where we went wrong. I don't handle disappointment well and in my life, I put a lot of energy into having things go well because its painful for me when things don't go the way I planned or promised.
Its Saturday morning and I haven't smoked, but I still want one and having lots of thoughts of having just one.
48 days since I smoked my last cigarette.
I have had an almost constant desire to smoke during the evening for the past 4 nights. This was triggered by stress at work. In terms of my quit, it feels like a set back since I haven't had a craving of this intensity or consistency for several weeks.
Our latest computer chip design at work had a couple of minor flaws which resulted in real concerns about whether the design would be useable or not. People were anxious and uptight because of the time and money to fix the design. It usually takes several days to sort these things out and some folks were short of patience.
This is the first really stressful situation I have encountered since I quit smoking. I have been anticipating this time for weeks knowing that we would be testing the chip soon. I also knew that if it went well I would probably want to smoke and if it didn't go well I would want to smoke.
Either way, this is an opportunity to train myself to not expect nicotine when I encounter this kind of stress. Its been a very long time since I have dealt with stress without nicotine.
Things have gone much better with the chip design the past 2 days. We made some progress in finding creative ways to have the chip work even with the flaws and so far tests are looking good. Big sigh of relief!
I have been very calm throughout the whole process and physiologically, I probably dealt with the stress better without nicotine.
And while I am proud of myself for not smoking and for maintaining calm throughout the past few days, I have a lot of room for improvement in how I deal with stress.
Its been 50 days since I quit smoking. That's over 500 cigarettes I have not smoked!
I am so glad I am not punishing my body anymore. The little aches and pains I was experiencing were a constant source of worry and discomfort. Not to mention coughing, wheezing, constant chest congestion, feeling tired all the time, sore throat.
In fact, I used to tolerate so many negative side-effects of smoking. It doesn't seem at all worth it right now, and it never really was worth it. Its not like smoking enhanced any of my talents or abilities or made me happy and smoking did not, as I am discovering now, help me deal with stress.
I was just addicted to nicotine and all of the accompanying side-effects of smoking became normal to me. It was normal to sound like I had a chest cold when I laughed at a joke. It never even occurred to me to ask myself if smoking was worth all of that. My brain, the brain of an addict, doesn't go there. The question I would ask myself is, "how much longer can I continue to get away with smoking before I get lung cancer?"
Ignoring the more immediate and obvious side effects of smoking and jumping ahead to a more serious life and death question was a way of avoiding the issue of quitting smoking. In fact, it would make me want to smoke more. It was almost like quitting smoking was "giving in" in some way. Quitting was an admission that I am no longer young and invincible.
David