Why does smoking make me feel good?

Cigarette smoke is a stimulant and will give you the feelings similar to caffeine. It acts on receptors in the brain to make you feel better by stimulating the pleasure center.

A cigarette is nothing more than a delivery system for the highly addictive drug known as nicotine. Like many other addictive chemicals, nicotine causes changes in the brain that bring a sense of calm and contentment. Unfortunately, your body quickly adapts to nicotine. That means you need more of it to get the same response, so you keep reaching for another smoke. On the flipside, the pleasurable sensation brought on by nicotine also explains why quitting smoking is so difficult.

Most substances that have stimulant qualities, including the nicotine in cigarettes, produce brief feelings of improvement in mood. Once a person is addicted, smoking usually suppresses symptoms of withdrawal, which the smoker then associates with feeling relaxed.

It releases dopamine the same reason you feel good after cocaine, heroin, sex, or having sugar. There are other ways of feeling good that do not make you sick alongside them, such as sex, or doing good for others, and those are what we believe you should do. Remember smoking makes you feel good in the short term but causes you disability and premature death in the long term.