Studies show that vaping, such as the aqua collection, with or without nicotine, can affect people’s impulse control, especially a person whose brain has not yet fully developed.
This means young adults and adolescents who have already started smoking or vaping. Yes, they can indeed develop mental health problems, most likely due to their smoking addictions.
With that said, in this article, you’ll find out more about how vaping negatively impacts people’s mental health.
Vaping and Mental Health
Mental health is variable. Everything you do affects it. Sadly, there are things you unconsciously do that hinder you from taking good care of your well-being.
These activities might have already been included in your daily routine, and you unknowingly get so accustomed to it that you can barely notice how it impacts your physical and mental health. Well, if you’re a smoker and you smoke every day, here is what you need to know:
Whether you deny or admit it, 99.6% of electronic cigarettes contain nicotine. This means that those electronic cigarette products labeled as “no nicotine added” or “nicotine-free” can still have nicotine.
Why? It is because the FDA doesn’t regulate them. Therefore, there’s no assurance to that “nicotine-free” label.
Nicotine’s Effects on Your Mental Health
Stress
Stress happens when you feel like you are unable to cope with life’s daily struggles. Desperate enough to cope, you self-medicate. So, sometimes, when we self-medicate, we use “cures” that stimulate you and not actually “treats” you.
While assuming that the nicotine in smoke can help you relax, you’re mistaken. Research shows that repetitive behavior can result in dependence.
When withdrawal symptoms occur, it can worsen pre-existing mental health conditions. Nicotine dependence can exacerbate tension, anxiety, and depression. This entire cycle continues until the smoker is officially diagnosed with an addiction disorder.
Depression
Nicotine stimulates dopamine release in the brain. The dopamine chemical is responsible for triggering pleasure or positive feelings.
People with depression have low dopamine levels in their brains. The reason they smoke is to increase their supply temporarily.
However, vaping or smoking urges the brain to turn off its natural dopamine-producing mechanism. So, when the dopamine supply decreases in the long run, the smoker will already become highly dependent on nicotine’s dopamine-producing effect.
Schizophrenia
People suffering from schizophrenia resort to smoking to manage or control some of their symptoms. They also smoke to reduce their medications’ side effects.
Again, this repetitive cycle results in dependency, and dependence disables the body’s natural mechanisms to fight against a person’s pre-existing illness.
A study has shown that it is highly possible for schizophrenia and smoking to be linked. Nevertheless, there are still plenty of factors that cause schizophrenia, and more research will be needed to confirm these assumptions.
Final Thoughts
Although many people suffering from a mental health condition testified that smoking indeed reduced their symptoms, they also admitted that they started smoking before their mental health conditions began.
The short-term benefits of smoking have always been outweighed by the increased rates of mental and physical problems caused by it.