The amount of nicotine in your bloodstream is eliminated fairly quickly once you put out that cigarette. That is the reason that you start reaching for another. When you smoke a cigarette, you receive nicotine immediately to your blood and to your brain. Within 10 seconds after inhaling the nicotine reaches your brain.
Various factors contribute to how long nicotine will remain in your body.
Various factors contribute to how long nicotine will remain in your body.
- Women metabolize nicotine faster than men
- If you exercise you will break down nicotine faster
- If you drink water or fruit juices you will break down nicotine faster
- Menthol cigarettes take longer to metabolize than regular cigarettes
The half life of nicotine on average is about 2 hours, give or take a little depending on the conditions above. An average cigarette has 1 mg of nicotine in it. So if you want to determine how long it takes your body to metabolize one cigarette just do the math.
1 MG Cigarette = 1 MG of nicotine in your body as soon as you smoke it
After 2 hours you will have .5 MG of nicotine in you body
After 4 hours you will have .25 MG of nicotine in your body
After 6 hours you will have .125 MG of nicotine in your body
After 8 hours you will have .0625 MG of nicotine in your body
After 10 hours you will have .03125 MG of nicotine in your body
After 12 hours you will have .015625 MG of nicotine in your body
After 14 hours you will have .007 MG of nicotine in your body
As you can see, it really doesn't take a long time for your body to metabolize the nicotine and excrete it through your body. And if you exercise and drink some acidic fruit juices you can increase it even further.
How much nicotine does your cigarette brand have in it? Check my post on Nicotine and tar levels by cigarette brand . Then you can do the math and see how long it will take you to eliminate the nicotine from your particular brand. Just take the MG of nicotine and divide by 2 for every 2 hours.
We've looked at how long it takes to metabolize an individual cigarette, but what if we smoke a pack of cigarettes in a day? An average pack of cigarettes that contains 1 MG of nicotine per cigarette will give you 20 MG of nicotine. Of course you will metabolize some of that between cigarettes but for just basic comparison lets assume you have 20MG of nicotine in your body after smoking a pack.
1 Pack = 20 MG of nicotine
After 2 hours you will have 10 MG of nicotine in your body
After 4 hours you will have 5 MG of nicotine in your body
After 6 hours you will have 2.5 MG of nicotine in your body
After 8 hours you will have 1.25 MG of nicotine in your body
After 10 hours you will have .625 MG of nicotine in your body
After 12 hours you will have .3125 MG of nicotine in your body
After 14 hours you will have .15625 MG of nicotine in your body
After 16 hours you will have .078 MG of nicotine in your body
Even after smoking a pack (and the above assumes you smoked it all at once) it really doesn't take long to metabolize the nicotine through your body and free yourself from this drug. If you can make it 24 hours without smoking most of the nicotine will be out of your body and you are then on the path to healing. In a few days you will be completely nicotine free.
Do the following to speed the process of eliminating nicotine from your body when you quit smoking:
For those of you who are thinking of switching to electronic cigarettes, check out my post on nicotine content of the popular brands of ecigs http://ecigfacts.blogspot.com/
We've looked at how long it takes to metabolize an individual cigarette, but what if we smoke a pack of cigarettes in a day? An average pack of cigarettes that contains 1 MG of nicotine per cigarette will give you 20 MG of nicotine. Of course you will metabolize some of that between cigarettes but for just basic comparison lets assume you have 20MG of nicotine in your body after smoking a pack.
1 Pack = 20 MG of nicotine
After 2 hours you will have 10 MG of nicotine in your body
After 4 hours you will have 5 MG of nicotine in your body
After 6 hours you will have 2.5 MG of nicotine in your body
After 8 hours you will have 1.25 MG of nicotine in your body
After 10 hours you will have .625 MG of nicotine in your body
After 12 hours you will have .3125 MG of nicotine in your body
After 14 hours you will have .15625 MG of nicotine in your body
After 16 hours you will have .078 MG of nicotine in your body
Even after smoking a pack (and the above assumes you smoked it all at once) it really doesn't take long to metabolize the nicotine through your body and free yourself from this drug. If you can make it 24 hours without smoking most of the nicotine will be out of your body and you are then on the path to healing. In a few days you will be completely nicotine free.
Do the following to speed the process of eliminating nicotine from your body when you quit smoking:
- Drink water or fruit juices. Fruit juices with high levels of acidity will work best, grapefruit juice or cranberry juice are the best. Try to find natural juices without a lot of sugar.
- Do some light exercise, enough to break a sweat. When you sweat you excrete nicotine faster. You may even want to find a steam room.
- Don't put nicotine back in your body. That means patches, gum, chew, or even standing around others who are smoking will only send you back to start.
Once you remove the nicotine and are no longer a slave to a drug addiction you can properly focus on quitting smoking forever. The physical addiction to smoking is rather easy to cure, but you will still have to deal with the psychological addiction. Read my post
Breaking The Psychological addiction to smoking for help with that.For those of you who are thinking of switching to electronic cigarettes, check out my post on nicotine content of the popular brands of ecigs http://ecigfacts.blogspot.com/
Good luck on your journey to becoming a happy, healthy non smoker!!!!