It's Time to End Your Love Affair with Smoking If you are a regular smoker, it's time to quit or you might face serious depression and schizophrenia problems
By Priyadarshini Patwa •
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
You're reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media.
How many times do you get up from your chair and move out for a smoke? How many times do you smoke stating you are stressed or under pressure? A lot of us tend to follow this saga. It's a routine we are used to. Starting our day with smoke and maybe even ending it. And let's just forget the count of it during the course of the day.
A fight with the boss, an argument with your partner, too much work pressure, nothing to do, we often tend to turn towards smoking. However, if smoking is your regular affair, it's time to bid goodbye to your lover.
Why? Researchers have found that taboo smoking is injurious to health. Something we all are very well aware of but it also increases one's risk of developing depression and schizophrenia.
Let us tell you that various studies have established the fact that smoking is much more common amongst people with mental illness – especially those who are suffering from depression and schizophrenia.
Smoking & Mental Health:
"Individuals with mental illness are often overlooked in our efforts to reduce smoking prevalence, leading to health inequalities," said study lead author Robyn Wootton from the University of Bristol as reported by IANS.
Their work shows how we should try to prevent smoking initiation and encourage smoking cessation because of the harmful effects it has on both our mental and physical health.
Cause-And-Effect Relationships:
As per a study published in the journal Psychological Medicine, the researchers used UK Biobank data from 462,690 individuals of European ancestry, comprising 8 percent current smokers and 22 percent former smokers.
Using an analytic approach Mendelian randomisation, which uses genetic variants associated with an exposure (e.g. smoking) to support stronger conclusions about cause-and-effect relationships. They found how tobacco smoking directly increases the chance of depression and schizophrenia. Not only that but also these two mental health issue increases chances of smoking as well. Though, the study couldn't support the latter strongly.
Smoke-Free Zone:
In past government, health bodies had suggested how psychiatric hospitals and clinics should be smoke-free. With this research, it only adds more weight to the whole demand.
The whole thing is a cause-and-effect relationship. Not only smoking causes mental problems but even mental health issues lead to high mortality.
Understanding The Behaviour:
In the study Marcus Munafò, Professor of Biological Psychology in Bristol's School of Psychological Science and senior author on the study said, "The increasing availability of genetic data in large studies, together with the identification of genetic variants associated with a range of behaviours and health outcomes, is transforming our ability to use techniques such as Mendelian randomisation to understand causal pathways. What this shows is that genetic studies can tell us as much about environmental influences – in this case, the effects of smoking on mental health – as about underlying biology."
The body of work simply states the fact of how smoking has detrimental effects on our mental health. Previously they had also published another study that gave references to how tobacco smoking also increases the risk of bipolar disorder.
