My 3-year Smoke Free-er-versary!!

QUITTING RESOURCE: 

Here is the National Cancer Institute guide to quitting, preparing to quit, etc:

http://www.smokefree.gov/qg-index.aspx

As much as I say that there has to be zero tolerance for falling-off-the-wagon, failure is a part of quitting. Relapse happens. So if you do relapse, you may still succeed. Just don't give yourself permission to, if you know what I mean. If it happens, don't waste time being angry at yourself, but don't give yourself a free pass either.  Don't act like our public schools, in which children are told "we're proud of you, you're great" and celebrate every useless little milestone, every F grade, making bottom-of-the-line standards acceptable. Be demanding and uncompromising, but also have mercy on yourself. It can be a hard tightrope to walk. Failure is acceptable - ONLY so long as you "don't let it happen again" -lol! None of that "I'm still proud of myself for quitting for five hours." Be more like "I fell of the wagon, damn it - I will get up and try again."

Anyway, here is a useful nugget from the guide:

Quitting isn't easy. Just reading this guide won't do it. It may take several tries. But you learn something each time you try. It takes willpower and strength to beat your addiction to nicotine. Remember that millions of people have quit smoking for good. You can be one of them!

QUITTING RESOURCE 

Ok, while I continue to search for articles linking smoking to breast cancer which can be understood by someone other than the researcher and her mother.....

Here is a really cool "craving journal" created by the Canadian Cancer Society - scroll down the page and look at the last link under "Stop Smoking Print Resources":

http://women.smokefree.gov/hp.aspx

Sometimes writing down when you have a craving can be cathartic and "put it out there" so that you deal with it emotionally before you "act out" by smoking. This kind of emotion recording has been used with success for a variety of mental health afflictions, including other substance addiction and disorders of emotional regulation. The act of handwriting itself can produce therapeutic effects - it may influence chemicals in the brain.

I felt more intelligent after stopping smoking. But I didn't make the connection until fairly recently, when I learned of studies suggesting an association between smoking and impaired Executive Function (EF)

Let me explain....

Before I stopped smoking, I was quite good at the work I did, but constantly plagued by what I called absentmindedness. Then, when I stopped, I suddenly also stopped making silly mistakes. I thought it was simply the brain continuing to develop better functioning, which it can do into one's early forties.

Executive functionsare located in the pre-frontal cortex of the brain (roughly behind your forehead). They are instruments of "higher thinking." In people with ADHD and other neurocognitive disorders, such as learning disabilities, they are impaired.

Executive functions are what give us the ability to:

--plan,

--organize,

--prioritize and

--follow through on tasks.

Executive functions enable us to inhibit impulses that may cause negative consequences. They are what allow us to focus on what is important, shift our focus if something more important comes back, and then shift again.

EF has been compared by one leading expert to the conductor of an orchestra. The instruments and parts of ideas are there, but a central coordinator is needed to time, prioritize and sync the different bits. People with deficient EF are therefore "scattered" if you will.

People with EF deficits (mostly with ADHD, often with other disorders such as mood disorders, schizophrenia or anxiety) experience the following difficulties:

--They have trouble with daily organization and time management

--They find it hard to complete what they start, which often leads to a sense of under-achievement or constant frustration and low self-esteem

--The are chronically late, have trouble estimating time, or always miss deadlines.

--They may find that they are not productive. Projects are begun but never seen to completion, deadlines are either not met or met with great difficulty.

--Accidents, bad situations and PREVENTABLE problems are common. People with EF impairments often "didn't see it coming."

--They have seeing the forest for the trees. They may get easily distracted by a detail, and forget or be unable to get back on track with the main project. Their house or office may be a total mess.

--Low motivation may be part of EF deficits, even though motivation is more tied in neuroimaging studies with differences in the nucleus accumbens (limbic system) of the brain than with the prefrontal cortex. But the lack of execution and sense of accomplishment may affect motivation.

Many people have these impairments to a lesser or greater degree. I had small impairments (my house and office were tidy) but only recently did I noticed that I really have NO EF impairments at all (unusual for someone with my comorbidity, BTW).

It appears that tobacco smoking is associated with lower executive functioning. In day-to-day living, this means that tobacco smoking may cause impairments in the areas mentioned above.

In some adults, serious deficits in EF have been linked to lower cognitive ability. Smoking won't help you! If you have trouble planning, prioritizing, knowing what to focus on and when, then your work and home life won't be what you would like it to be. If you smoke, tobacco may be partly or completely to blame.

I noticed a SIGNIFICANT improvement in my efficiency...and I attributed it to the trauma from the cancer. So when I read that smoking and executive functioning are related, I gasped.

Off to get the links to studies....

NOTE: If anyone wants to know the sources for my info of EF, please PM me. I can list them here, but I thought I'd save the space. Briefly, the two world-renowned experts on EF that I am most familiar with are Thomas Brown Ph D and Russell Barkley Ph. D. A lot of their work focuses on ADHD and associated disorders but can be useful for those wanting to know about EF generally. 

Anyone diagnosed with cancer should learn to have a healthy disrespect for statistics. Statistics are maths. It's the science which still eludes us.
Dx3/2009, IDC, 3cm, Stage IIb, Grade 3, 3/8 nodes, ER+/PR+, HER2-

The relationship between smoking and executive functioning may also go the other way - that is, disorders which affect executive function may predispose people to substance abuse, including tobacco smoke addiction. There are studies --both stististical and neuroimaging ones-- suggesting this. This means that behavioral and social support for the quit may be more important for people who already have executive function deificits and wish to stop smoking.

If you have a disorder that affects executive functioning, then consider a smoking cessation treatment plan coordinated by a healthcare professional who knows about your other disorders....cold turkey may be harder for you - I may be wrong about this point, though, which is the only one I make in this particular post that is not backed by research. 

The following link, from the US National Library of Medicine, is a good place to start finding studies on this:

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/

In the search tab, type "smoking executive functions"

Here is the whole url, but I had to add spaces because otherwise it doesn't print completely. You can copy and paste it onto the address bar of your browser and delete the spaces:

http://vsearch. nlm. nih.gov/ vivisimo/cgi-bin/query -meta?query=smoking+ executive+functions&v% 3Aproject= nlm-main- website

1)

Ready for more information on smoking and lower intelligence? here goes:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22309970

CONCLUSIONS:

Compared with never smokers, middle-aged male smokers experienced faster cognitive decline in global cognition and executive function. In ex-smokers with at least a 10-year cessation, there were no adverse effects on cognitive decline.

Ready for this one:

2)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21992872

CONCLUSIONS:

Results from this middle-aged cohort replicated previous research and provides novel findings indicating that chronic smoking was associated with inferior performance on measures of general intelligence, visuospatial learning and memory and fine motor dexterity. Research that relates measures of neurobiological function/integrity to neurocognition is needed to better understand the mechanisms contributing to the poorer performance across multiple domains demonstrated by smokers.

Ok, so this is probably my last post on this thread. It is a one-month celebration, so I am supposed to turn ino a pumpkin very soon. :-)

I wish I had a great article to post as a send off, but I don't.....

I have been free of cigarettes for three years, and yet, I had a dream last night that I had cravings. Incredible! They are rare for me these days. It's nice to be able to talk about cravings as occasional urges. But the fact that they exist is a testament to the enduring stranglehold of this addiction.

Final note: this new formatting seems to eat up the links, but they do work - simply click on them. If you can't and need the full address, PM me and I will gladly look it up for you.

Congratulations nwest125! 

De-pumpkinizing for a second: 

Just came across another study showing the relationship between smoking and decreased executive and other neurocognitive function:

http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/7/10/3760

The abstract says, in part:

Chronic cigarette smoking appears to be associated with deficiencies in executive functions, cognitive flexibility, general intellectual abilities, learning and/or memory processing speed, and working memory. Chronic smoking is related to global brain atrophy and to structural and biochemical abnormalities in anterior frontal regions, subcortical nuclei and commissural white matter.

.

ETA: Link to the study abstract:

http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/02/26/jnci.djt023.abstract

PS - I am 1 1/2 months away from my FOURTH smoke free-er-versary!