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Re:Smoking Is a Dying Habit. Not in Germany by jayski on Friday September 01, 2023 @10:38AM (#37351381)
What are the cognitive upsides? The only one that I can think of as an ex-smoker is that helps to control anxiety.

At the same time knowing I was harming myself by smoking added a lot of anxiety.

Re:Smoking Is a Dying Habit. Not in Germany by fidotron on Friday September 01, 2023 @10:40AM (#37351401)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine#Performance

> Nicotine-containing products are sometimes used for the performance-enhancing effects of nicotine on cognition.[57] A 2010 meta-analysis of 41 double-blind, placebo-controlled studies concluded that nicotine or smoking had significant positive effects on aspects of fine motor abilities, alerting and orienting attention, and episodic and working memory.[58] A 2015 review noted that stimulation of the α4β2 nicotinic receptor is responsible for certain improvements in attentional performance;[59] among the nicotinic receptor subtypes, nicotine has the highest binding affinity at the α4β2 receptor (ki=1 nM), which is also the biological target that mediates nicotine's addictive properties.[60] Nicotine has potential beneficial effects, but it also has paradoxical effects, which may be due to the inverted U-shape of the dose-response curve or pharmacokinetic features.

Re:Smoking Is a Dying Habit. Not in Germany by pluijzer on Friday September 01, 2023 @11:10AM (#37351837)
How susceptible to tolerance would the positive effect be? Would a long term smoker still have any benefit? Or is it like coffee, very quickly giving no benefit at all.
Re:Smoking Is a Dying Habit. Not in Germany by fidotron on Friday September 01, 2023 @11:52AM (#37352370)
This is a good question, along with what happens if that long term smoker then quits altogether.

If you had ways to moderate the withdrawal of things like caffeine and nicotine you could possibly try alternating regimes. Would probably do dreadful things to your heart though.

Re:Smoking Is a Dying Habit. Not in Germany by nradov on Friday September 01, 2023 @10:44AM (#37351446)
Studies have shown that nicotine has some mild cognitive benefits on attention and short-term memory.

https://peterattiamd.com/ama23/

I'm not necessarily recommending nicotine to anyone, but there are ways to get it without smoking.

Re:Smoking Is a Dying Habit. Not in Germany by im3w1l on Friday September 01, 2023 @11:20AM (#37351964)
When I was in high school we had a few smokers. They seemed to make a lot of friends while smoking and have better social skills than others.