Physical recovery is the layer of healing associated with the physical and chemical changes that occur within the body and brain once nicotine use ends.
What's important from our standpoint isn't so much the science associated with the actual physiological changes which occur, but the symptoms those changes may generate. And the keyword is "may."
For while neurochemical and tissue healing changes are very real, the majority of objective nicotine cessation symptoms are self-induced. Most can be diminished, corrected, or eliminated. Need proof?
Have you ever been so tired that you slept for ten to twelve hours? Nicotine reserves at less than 3%, why didn't withdrawal awaken you?
Have you ever been so sick that you went a day or more without using? But how?
And how does the single-session traveling stop smoking hypnotist cause a day or two of total cessation calm and bliss before relapse?
While every attempt is different, why does a physician's warning that smoking's damage is now so profound that "it is time to either quit or die" so often result in a near symptom-less recovery?
Could it be that most recovery symptoms are the result of some combination of self-induced fears and anxieties, correctable blood sugar issues, caffeine overdose, or the need for a medication adjustment or treatment of a hidden condition that appears only after ending use of the thousands of chemicals present in tobacco?
The primary anxiety culprit is the prefrontal cortex.[1] The large thinking lobe just above our eyes, it senses mid-brain dopamine fluctuations and is hard-wired to the brain's fire alarm, the amygdala.
Our cortex is filled with thousands of old nicotine use memories. The greater the need for replenishment in the seconds prior to use, the more profound wanting's satisfaction, and the more vivid and durable the use memory that was recorded.
Not understanding that our mind's priorities teacher had been hijacked, or that our thousands of durable nicotine replenishment memories were tied to nearly every aspect of daily life and as real as steel prison bars, we invented scores of explanations as to why that next nicotine fix was so important.
So, what's the common thread in not experiencing symptoms during extended sleep, an illness, following hypnotism, or when told that we're standing at death's door? A higher priority.
Whether the higher priority is biological, a subconscious suggestion, or a death threat, in each case both the lure of old use memories and the appeal of our scores of use explanations were, at least briefly, somehow, totally consumed.
Recommend Skipping Balance of Chapter Until Needed
If your own personal resolve and understanding are at this moment sufficient to suppress most symptoms, why fill your prefrontal cortex with page after page of symptom suggestions?
Why load the recovering junky-mind with weapons that can destroy it, when, as yet, there's no foe to oppose?
In fact, unless experiencing and concerned about a specific symptom, I recommend that you skip the balance of this chapter for now. It'll be here later if needed. But should you proceed with reading it now, as you do, ask yourself this, can this symptom be minimized, corrected, or avoided?
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