It’s difficult enough to get high-quality sleep each night with all of life’s distractions. Add cigarette smoking to the mix and you may develop a bad case of insomnia.
At Stat Care Pulmonary and Sleep, our sleep experts, Ashok Tyagi, DO, CPE, and Himanshu Chandarana, MD, specialize in treatment strategies to help you overcome insomnia. We can also provide resources to help you kick your smoking habit for good.
Insomnia is a sleep disorder that makes falling asleep or staying asleep difficult. When you have insomnia, you may often wake up too early in the morning and be unable to fall back asleep.
Occasional insomnia affects many people at one time or another. You may be prone to bouts of insomnia during times of stress. More serious trauma can lead to chronic insomnia that lasts for a month or longer.
Chronic insomnia can also result from:
You may also experience chronic insomnia if you use excessive amounts of caffeine, alcohol, or nicotine.
Cigarettes contain nicotine, a stimulant. Many smokers believe smoking calms them, but nicotine actually increases your heart rate and can keep you awake. Research shows smoking at night can increase your risk of insomnia and lead to shorter sleep times due to the nicotine.
Smoking can also contribute to sleep apnea, when you periodically stop breathing during the night and wake up gasping for air. The chemicals in cigarettes can irritate your throat and cause inflammation in your throat tissue and nose, limiting how much air you take in when you sleep.
Because of how disruptive smoking can be to your sleep and how damaging it is to your overall health, you should consider the benefits of the smoking cessation program at Stat Care Pulmonary and Sleep.
Smoking cessation is a program that helps you quit smoking when you’re struggling to stop on your own. Our specialists provide resources that support your success.
Because nicotine is an addictive substance, quitting cigarettes can cause withdrawal effects. These effects can be so overwhelming that you start smoking again to feel better.
Common side effects of nicotine withdrawal include:
Insomnia is also a side effect of nicotine withdrawal, so when you first quit, you may experience daytime sleepiness and persistent fatigue.
Our smoking cessation program offers medications, nicotine patches, and other resources that help you break your addiction to nicotine without severe side effects. We also provide preventive screenings for lung diseases like emphysema that smoking can cause.
If you’re tired of being tired, schedule an insomnia consultation at Stat Care Pulmonary and Sleep and we can help. Call the office in St. Petersburg, Florida, today.
