Stress and arousal in sedative and stimulant cigarette smokers

Abstract

Self-reported feelings of stress and arousal were assessed in 18 sedative and 9 stimulant smokers, over a typical day of smoking. Prior to each cigarette, self-ratings of stress and arousal were recorded on a brief adjective check list. These self-ratings were then repeated following cigarette smoking. These diary data were split into four blocks to represent: first cigarette of the day, second quartile cigarette, third quartile cigarette, and last cigarette of the day. Analysis of variance revealed significant effects of smoking on both stress and arousal. Self-rated feelings of stress were significantly reduced following cigarette smoking (P less than 0.002); this was found with both subjects groups and across all cigarette blocks. Cigarette smoking also led to increased feelings of arousal (P less than 0.01), although these changes in arousal differed between subject groups (drug x type-of-smoker interaction: P less than 0.03). Stimulant smokers showed higher levels of arousal after smoking, across all four cigarette blocks. Sedative smokers showed a slight increase in arousal only after their first cigarette. These findings were not as predicted by the arousal modulation theory of cigarette smoking, which suggests that changes in stress and arousal are interdependent. Instead they show that smoking affects stress and arousal in quite different ways. Stress and arousal should therefore be recognised as independent dimensions within smoking/nicotine research.

Expectations and placebo responses to caffeine-associated stimuli

“…The scale included the adjective pairs from Bond and Lader (1974) and O'Neill and Parrott (1992). High scores indicated increased alertness, arousal, and stress, and decreased contentedness and calmness.…”

Stress and arousal rhythms in cigarette smokers, deprived smokers, and non‐smokers

“…If confirmed this would suggest that 'sedatives' were smoking to lower their arousal, while 'stimulants' were smoking to generate heightened alertness. However, it should be noted that these patterns were quite different from those found previously, when sedative and stimulant groups displayed very similar inverted-U functions (O'Neill and Parrott, 1992;Parrott, in press). …”

“…Drug x time interactions were significant for the non-smokerhedative group comparison, and the non-smoker/stimulant group comparison (bothpc0-001; Table 1). This suggests that the accumulation of nicotine over the day has an anxiolytic effect, also that this anxiolytic effect is independent of smoking typology, as noted earlier (O'Neill and Parrott, 1992;Parrott, in press). The higher initial stress of smokers may reflect overnight nicotine deprivation, with smoking abstinence leading to impaired mood.…”

Do ex-smokers report feeling happier following cessation? Evidence from a cross-sectional survey

“…While smoking after a short period of abstinence is usually associated with an improvement in self-reported mood (Dawkins, Acaster, & Powell, 2007) and a decrease in stress levels (O'Neill & Parrott, 1992), this is consistent with a deprivation-reversal model (Schachter, 1978), The model suggests that rather than genuinely improving stress and mood levels, smoking a cigarette simply restores normal mood by reversing the psychological and physiological effects of deprivation (McNeill, Jarvis, & West, 1987). In agreement with this interpretation, smokers usually report above-average stress pre-smoking and only average stress levels postsmoking in comparison with non-smokers (Parrott, 1994).…”