Health Effects of Smoking on the Brain

The brain is considered your body’s center for mood and conscious thought. It controls most of your voluntary and involuntary movements and makes thinking and physical, emotional feelings possible. It also regulates unconscious body processes, such as digestion and breathing. The arteries leading from the heart and lungs carry oxygen and other chemicals to the brain. When you smoke a cigarette it sends chemicals to the brain, changing its chemistry, which affects a smoker’s mood. It only takes 10 seconds for nicotine to reach the brain after being inhaled into the lungs.

The Health Effects of Smoking on the Brain

Smoking cigarettes is one of the major causes of strokes in adults.

There are approximately 600,000 strokes per year related to smoking cigarettes and about 30% of those strokes result in death. Strokes are the third leading cause of death in the United States.

Recent studies have also shown that smoking may reduce memory and cognitive abilities. (Biol Psychiatry. 2005 Jan 1;57(1):56-66)

Benefits of Quitting Smoking

When a person quits smoking the risk of having a stroke will decrease steadily and after five to fifteen years of not smoking, the risk of a person who previously smoked is about the same as a person who has never smoked.

Along with the physical benefits of quitting smoking on the brain there are also psychological effects that take place. Rather than depending on smoking to get you through stress, anger, controlling your appetite, etc a person is able to develop healthy alternatives which will lead to an overall well-being.

Source: Surgeon General's 2004 Report

Health Effects of Smoking on the Body

Brain

Eyes

Mouth, Throat Larynx, Esophagus

Lungs

Heart

Stomach

Kidneys

Bladder

Pancreas

Pregnancy

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