It seem to me that the issue here is whether a cigarette can relax you, despite the fact that it increases blood pressure, heart rate, and so forth. I think that maybe it can both relax someone, and give them a buzz, depending on circumstance.
Let’s take someone who has never had a cigarette before, they smoke one, what happens? he nicotine causues vasoconstriction (or, at the very least, prohibits vasodialation.) This increases the blood pressure, causing the hrat to puymp harder and/or faster to get the same amount of blood flow. Let’s say that this person’s body overcompensates, releases too much adrenaline, and the heart pumps too much, resulting is more blood flow and mroe oxygen to the brain, perhaps giving a buzz-like feeling, or just making someone more alert and awake.
Now, if just the opposite happens, the body doesn’t respond enough and the heart doesn’t pump enough, then the brain oesn’t get enough oxygen, causing the person to possibly feel lethargic and relaxed.
Just my theory. And seeing as it comes from but one semester of human physiology, feel free to yell at me and say I’m wrong, because I probably am, and you probably know a lot more than me.
London_calling, I apologize for being insulting earlier, but I stand by what I said.
The article you link to is speaking of a condition that is common in long term smokers and is a precursor to artery disease. It is not though very descriptive of the average effects of nicotine on an otherwise healthy person.
It also fails to mention the Cerebrovaso-dilation that occurs even in long term smokers, and is one of the primary effects of nicotine.
Further, what one finds “relaxing” is completly subjective. Some people 'relax" by watching horror flicks or going skydiving, while others can’t seem to relax in a knitting class.
The point I was trying to make with my post is that if you ask smokers, they will tell you all sorts of things that they believe cigarettes do. Unfortunately they are all crap - it is the habituation talking, just the natural inclination to make excuses for yourself. Cigarettes don’t achieve all these often contradictory effects. Having not smoked for a few years now I can guarantee that I know what effect smoking a cigarette will have - the same effects as my first ones, the same effects as when I had one after not smoking for a while - it will make me dizzy, I will feel sick and I’ll get a “buzz” (not a great one, but OK).
Regardless of any actual physiological actions of smoking the OP asked about the "relax"ing qualities of having a smoke. This is a purely psychological question. All this stuff about heart rate and blood pressure and endothelial dysfunction really isn’t relavent. That fact is that given the paraympathic and sympatetic nervous systems that we have you can not make grand assumptions about how one feels and what thir body is doing. Afterall, I’m completely relaxed in the morning, yet a certain part of my body seems to be “quite aggressive” as my girlfriend would attest.
As for smoking as a whole, I honestly think that its really quite complex and that there really won’t be a answer. We have any effect at all thanks to nicotinic receptors that were part of our genetic makeup long before RJ Reynolds came along. Same for coke and dope and all the other vices. Catnip doesn’t do much for me, but it seems to for my cat.
Well, vague memory from freshman psychology textbook saying that nicotine flattens the highs and lows of emotional swings, but don’t recall if there was a psysiological explanation attached.