Why We Experience Anger & Irritation
Anger is part of the grieving process.
The 5 stages of grief are Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance.
Some people may briefly go through all the stages, while others may go directly to the Acceptance stage.
It’s important to keep in mind that this is a process, and each stage will pass. This is not a preview of your future.
When and if you feel angry, remember that smoking made you feel that way. Not stopping smoking. Once you catch yourself feeling irritated, acknowledge it and don’t bottle it up. Otherwise, you might snap at your friends and loved ones and blame quitting for it.
It’s okay to feel angry, whether you are a smoker or a non-smoker. When you do, take a few deep breaths and report your feelings; don’t act on them.
3-5 days after quitting smoking, almost all nicotine is out of your system, so the cravings will peak, and the addiction will resist and throw tantrums.
It’s not you; it’s the addiction. When you feel it’s exploding, smile, knowing you’re winning.
In a nutshell, it’s okay to have emotional ups and downs. You have the right to feel angry or irritated but how you act upon that emotion (communicating vs. exploding or using a helpful mindset vs. an unhelpful mindset) has nothing to do with quitting smoking.
If you feel very angry after quitting smoking, you may be using willpower to say “no” to smoking. Using willpower will deplete the reservoir of your self-control. Research shows that when we’ve used up our willpower, we get angrier, lash out more and behave more aggressively.
What to Do
1. Remind yourself that these feelings are temporary. This is not the real you.
2. Reduce Your Caffeine Intake.
Nicotine metabolizes caffeine and makes our body expel it faster. So as smokers (vapers or users of any nicotine substance) we need more caffeine to get that alertness. As a non-smoker, you need less caffeine (about half) to get the same effect. If you stop smoking and drink the same amount of caffeine you drank as a smoker you will feel jittery, restless, and irritated.
3. Try Meditation or other Relaxation Techniques
..such as getting a massage, soaking in a hot bath, or breathing deeply through your nose and out through your mouth for 10 breaths.
4. Practice Gratitude
You can’t feel angry and grateful at the same time. You can’t even feel “craving” and grateful at the same time because craving is a state of lack, while gratitude is a state of abundance. I walk you through a gratitude exercise here:
5. Use Mindfulness & Feel the Emotion
I show you how in this mindfulness video:
6. Revisit and Rewrite Your Story from Day 4 of the CBQ Program
You can rewatch this video: https://cbqmembers.com/lessons/3-change-your-story/
7. Review this #LimitingBelief: “Smoking helps me control my emotions”
One of the false beliefs we have about smoking is that it helps us control our emotions. Cigarettes are pieces of rolled grass with chemicals and 0 intelligence so they never solve our problems, provide solutions, lend an ear or help us cope.
Lighting up a cigarette in an emotional moment, simply distracts you for a second – nothing more. Smoking is not a coping mechanism, it’s a distraction mechanism.If you’re in an argument, what do you do? You light a cigarette.
Or you physically remove yourself from the argument in order to smoke. You smoke a cigarette, and then you feel better.
Why? The cigarette did not solve the argument for you. So what changed?
It’s either that When you smoked, you fed the addiction and felt relief – even though the relief was irrelevant to the argument, it made you feel better because you were not craving anymore.
Or what helped was that you physically removed yourself from the stressful situation, so you were able to calm down and feel better.
The cigarette itself didn’t help you with your emotions. And if taking a moment to yourself helps, why not just do that without lighting up?
Let me give you another example. Most of us have pet peeves. So let’s say your significant other does something that annoys you. Maybe they chew loudly and this triggers you. Every time they do that, you bite your lips and light up a cigarette to push the annoyance down and avoid making a fuss. So you feel smoking helps you control yourself. Every time they do it… you light up… so you believe you’re in control of your emotions and smoking is helping.
But you’re not really dealing with the situation, you’re only suppressing your reaction – and what you resist, persists. So when you quit smoking, and they start chewing loudly you just can’t handle it.
The old dysfunctional way you used to cope is not there, so you explode. Then they tell you you’re cranky, you feel terrible for blowing up, so you blame quitting for turning you into someone irritable.
While in reality this was bound to happen. Smoking does not help you control anything- It makes you keep things inside until you can’t anymore, which is not only psychologically unhealthy, but also prevents you from addressing what bothers you.
Do you think you may have unresolved limiting beliefs around smoking?
Rewatch day 6 of the CBQ Program: https://cbqmembers.com/modules/day6/