I have always believed that herpes is a great signal from our body that all is not right. It can be related to stress either physical or emotional. The problem with me (one of them anyway) is that whenever I am faced with emotional stress I tend to revert back to old habits and unfortunately, my weakness has always been cigarettes. Sad but true. Smoking is very difficult on the body and can actually further increase stress by raising your heartbeat and compromising your immune system.
This is no way a lecture to get you to quit smoking or to chastise you if you smoke when under stress. If you are under stress, choosing cigarettes as a coping mechanism and then adding guilt on top of it, this is only going to make things worse. Just thinking about it is enough to give me a herpes outbreak! I also don’t want to get into a long and detailed description of the havoc cigarettes can cause to your body and thus possible trigger the symptoms of herpes. We all know that choosing to smoke is bad for you.
Enough said.
Herpes And Smoking: My Experience
What I would like to say is that choosing to smoke when under stress is no longer working for me. While I do feel an initial release, the fatigue and nausea that smoking gives me is not worth it in even the short term. The intense hit of nicotine after having not smoked for months (think: binge), gives me a horrible headache that actually wakes me up in the night, causes insomnia and adds to my stress by making me sleep deprived. I wake up desperate for a coffee and a cigarette and the cycle starts all over again. Within days I almost always am guaranteed a herpes outbreak.
Herpes | Smoking | What Can You Do?
The first thing is to be really kind to yourself. This is counter intuitive because if you are like me, the first thing you want to do is beat yourself up for having a cigarette and bringing on any herpes symptoms. Just recognize that you are human, and thus not perfect, take a deep breath and think about thinking about how you might stop this cycle of herpes and smoking. Being kind to yourself and giving yourself permission to smoke while you figure it all out will actually decrease stress, and you will find that you probably smoke less as a a result.
The best tools I have found (and am working with now) are the book, “The Only Way to Quit Smoking Permanently”, by Allen Carr (you would be shocked to realize how many people have beaten their addictions through Allen Carr’s books) and Vitamin B. Vitamin B does wonders for calming your nervous system and decreasing stress.
I wish you the best of luck kicking your genital herpes to the curb.
Peace.
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