Brought to you by HSE.
“Do you smoke?”
Is the answer “Not really, but I might have a couple on a night out”? If so, you're leaving yourself open to many of the health risks that affect regular smokers, not to mention a whole heap of setbacks when it comes to your athletic performance.
It's probably worth knowing exactly what happens with your body when you make that choice, whether you enjoy an occasional ciggie or just do it for social acceptance. That way, you can decide if those trips to the smoking area are worth it.
Each cigarette
reduces your life by five and a half minutes so that puts to bed the idea that "one won't hurt."
We all know smoking is bad for your health. What you might not know is the effect that even a small intake of nicotine can have on your body. If you’re an athlete of some description, there’s even more reason to understand the effect that social smoking has on your performance.
Along with the much-touted risks of heart disease and lung cancer, social smoking has the potential to seriously hinder your athletic ability.
Just one drag
Imagine you’re in the smoking area of a pub with your mates. You’ve gone out to keep them company but sure you may as well just have a smoke now that you’re out there.
That first puff causes your nervous system to react. You get a surge of adrenaline as the nicotine makes its way around your body via the bloodstream, causing you to breathe heavier. Ultimately, a lot of problems associated with the habit come from the reduction of oxygen in your system.
Your blood pressure and heart rate increase as soon as nicotine enters the bloodstream. As an athlete, giving your heart that extra workload will lead to you getting tired much quicker than people who don’t smoke at all.
When it comes down to the small margins in sport, the difference between social smoking and not smoking at all are likely to come into play.
Them bones, them bones need...
They might need calcium, but what they certainly don’t need is for you to be smoking. Your risk of osteoporosis increases significantly. So you can throw that on to the pile of reasons why you should stay well away from cigarettes, whether or not you're an athlete.
To top it all off, smoking also impedes the speed that your body recovers from injury, slowing down the production of collagen in the body. Collagen is needed in order to heal damaged bones, tendons and ligaments.
I don't smoke... much
The other thing to consider is that smoking is one of the most addictive substances on the planet. So it's easy to drift from social smoking into full-time smoking. A few cigarettes can easily turn into a dependency.
Even the odd "social" cigarette will cause your performance and fitness levels to drop significantly. You wouldn’t want to let the side down huffing and puffing on the sideline now would you? Your teammates will be less than impressed if they see you struggling to cover the ground as a result of those occasional cigarettes!
Having a
strategy in place to resist temptation on a night out is important. As with any bad habit, you're best cutting it out completely rather than dabbling.
Thinking of quitting cigarettes? Getting help makes you twice as likely to quit. Check out the website today, freephone QUIT at 1800201203 or freetext QUIT to 50100.
Brought to you by HSE. 
