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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   2304 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for May 1, 2024

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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I have a great deal more empathy for all the poor bastards I've advised to quit smoking over the years when I had found myself cold-turkeying a rather strong nicotine addiction. A puff on my vape once I got home hit harder than sex.

(I had to catch a flight, and vapes are illegal to carry aboard here, I still refuse to smoke actual fucking cigarettes, so all I did was suffer rather grumpily for the better part of a week)

Nicotine seems very tough to quit. A lot of people with not hugely addictive personalities who can control their gambling / drinking / weed use / etc seem to very much struggle with it.

Use gum to get a mild stimulant effect and weak habit forming. Suuuuper easy for me to stop using it weeks at a time, like for just taking a trip or something.

That's hardly surprising, or else we wouldn't have so many people offing themselves from COPD or lung cancer. Though the claim is that there are additional substances in cigarettes that are addictive in of themselves, or potentiate the addictive properties of nicotine.

At least in my case I can claim it was an informed decision, I don't really have many vices, and I did come to the conclusion that if vaping is bad for you, it's an order of magnitude or less so than getting your fix through cigarettes. Certainly it's gotten me through some real stinker shifts, with far less hassle. And just nicotine, by itself? Unless you're some poor bastard with diabetes so bad your toes are liable to fall off, it's not really any worse for you than coffee is. I wouldn't call it a nootropic, but it at least lets you choose when to be at your 110%, paid back by the fact that you're 90% when not on it.

What are your thoughts on Zyn?

I just started using zyn. It's good but the 6mg is much too strong. I'd suggest the 2mgs or lozenges instead.

6 is enough to give me head and stomach aches.

I've been thinking about using it to get addicted to exercise.

Well, as a pure form of nicotine it's even less likely to cause any harm as compared to vaping, which is already reasonably close to net neutral in terms of effects on your health.

I prefer vaping for the convenience, but if I knew I was going to go through nicotine withdrawals, I'd buy some gum or buccal formulations. Otherwise, I don't really see the appeal myself.

Yeah I agree I don’t think there are major issues with regular nicotine consumption from vapes. One of the few smart policy decisions from the UK in recent years is allowing large scale advertising of vaping which I think has contributed to the decline in smoking. Vaping is essentially harmless as far as I’m aware, fears of health issues were always overblown.

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