h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

But you also forget, that smoking is a form of meditation at its best. If you think about it - when you smoke, you take long slow breaths in and out. Same as with meditation - slow breaths, in and out...

In this way, smoking is a great relaxant (as many smokers will say, and have said on this site), and the reason for which many start - stress....it stops them from being so high strung. On the other hand though, it is thought to be a cause of high blood pressure, so it's entirely strange.

But as a smoker, i have to say this. I love smoking.

I really do.

It's just a pity it's so bad for me.

So, you can meditate on the damage it's doing to your body

so you can meditate with the comfort of relaxation....

maybe we need to get a smoking smiley??

I find it easy to relax without deliberately breathing carcinogens, but there you go.

Buddhists claim that drugs impair the ability to meditate because they cloud your mind. There's a little bit more to meditation than just breathing slowly, btw...

I know that....but the first (and most crucial) step to be able to meditate, is the ability to control and regulate breathing. If not, then the mind is not able to be controlled.

I didn't say that smoking IS meditation, but that the habit of the regulatory breathing is a reason as to the addictiveness of it (as non-chemical explanation). It's not just the checmical properties of cigarettes which induce the 'addict' status of them. It's the entirety of the hand-mouth and meditatory aspects of it.

That's true. One of the quiting techniques is to inhale and exhale sharply when you feel you need a ciggie...

me personally, when i quit a while back (did for two years, then started again due to high stress levels from uni!!! ) i found that whenever i had a craving, I used to quickly drink a glass of REALLY cold water. It would do the trick!

Um, inhale deeply ..... hold breath for a count of two ...... collapse in paroxysms of bronchial coughing. Nope, can't see it myself

I am an occasional smoker. I usually manage to fight the spasms and coughing fits when I smoke. In fact I enjoy the feeling of smoking. Good point though.

I smoke, been smoking for seven years.. four years of occasionally smoking and the three last I`ve been smoking on a daily basis...
I love smoking, It`s delicious....
I started smoking because it was "cool"
and it was, itreally really was....
I am seventeen years old now, so.. when I started smoking....I was ten...Now, when I look back at it, I really regret starting, cuz it`s destroying my body..
BUT IT`S GOOD THOUGH!! :D:D

Cause you said you started smoking because it was "cool":

I can't see any coolness in smoking a burning paper-wrapped roll which stinks and causes cancer.

That's just the thing- smoking IS cool. "Cool" is doing the same thing all your frineds do, following the crowd and being the same as them just because you aren't comfortable with your own identity.

I see gangs of teenagers moping around town, all wearing the same clothes, portraying the same bands and listening to the same music, all with a fag hanging out of their mouth. THAT is cool, which is precisely why I'm not, nor ever will be "cool".

There is no other reason to start smoking- just that "must follow the crowd" reflex, it's just another step in denying yourself your own personality.

TK

Well, i just have an only thing to tell you,
smoking is much more than meditation ; to me, it's the onliest (barbarism "i" have created in oz during the most amazing journey of my short life =) ) so it's the only way to know that i am alive.
Sad, but true, when we smoke, we know we are alive because we can actually see our breath, and we can also wonder (and wander) why in this strange life we need to be dying to know we are still alive... =)

You can see your breath if you turn the heating down.

Exhaling cigarette smoke isn't your breath, anyway.

well, one thing i can tell you as a smoker is that there is a world of difference between adulterated and unadulterated tobacco. in other words, tobacco which has benzene, formaldehyde and and agents to make it burn faster is much harder to regulate the use of and about four hundred times more expensive. additive-free tobacco, on the other hand, is cheaper, less harsh, and easier to go without. so, if you are going to continue smoking, i'd suggest finding a source of additive free tobacco. in fact there is some guy in the uk who has a website to sell you the seeds you need to grown your own. www.coffinnails.com. not a very appealing name, i'll admit, but i think he's onto something. he even will sell you the plans to make your own curing box. nicotine, btw, is a stimulant, not a sedative. it makes the mind race. it can make you anxious and fretful. but it can also put you in touch with something transcendental, which is, i believe, why people smoke. it puts you in a transcendental state of mind. to quote a character on coronation street, "the three pillars of life my son, beer, cigs, and nookie." cheers.

Smoking kills over 400,000 Americans every year. That’s more people than are killed by alcohol, cocaine, heroin, murder, suicide, car accidents, fires, and AIDS… COMBINED!

What if three jets crashed head-on, killing all on board. That would be a tragic event. But that’s how many people die from smoking in this country…every day

Tobacco is the only legal U.S. product that can cause harm to the user when used correctly

On average, smoking takes eight years of a life

One cigarette contains over 4000 chemicals. 401 are toxic and harmful. 43 are known to cause cancer.

The odds of being murdered are 1 in 100
The odds of being in a traffic accident are 1 in 100
The odds of being killed by smoking if you are a smoker is 1 in 3!!!!!
You people lock your doors at night and buckle your seat belt, but you refuse to quit smoking.

I never smoke and I never will smoke.

Once for a final, way back when I was in 8th grade, I had to write and persuasive essay about banning cigarettes in America. I resolved never to smoke after reading all about the bad things of smoking



If you are smoker, be a non-smoker today. NOW.
You harm non-smokers around you as well. A non-smoker
that hangs around smokers, "smokes" at least a couple
cigarettes a day.

STOP the deaths, now


-ihatesmoking

Wow, way to swallow everything fed to you by your parents.

If you dont smoke, cool.

If you do smoke, who cares?

The person that wrote all that stuff about cigarettes being bad, didn't get fed that stuff "from their parents". It was statistics they researched for a grade 8 paper! And even if they didn't smoke because their 'parents told them not too'...what's wrong with that?! Parents 'gave' you life...most parents wouldn't want you to detroy the beautiful pink lungs they helped God put in your chest.
If you don't smoke, you respect life. If you do smoke, 'who cares' you ask? I care. Because if i'm standing next to you, i'm breathing in your dirty cancer causing toxic smoke. I like my lungs to work the way nature intended. And parents love you if they tell their children about the harms in this life, they aren't trying to wreck your "fun"...