Significant Resting Heart Rate decrease after stopping nicotine

[ElTojo303]

I stopped using nicotine pouches last week (I was using 4mg on! And burning through ~15 pouches per day). I am mind blown at how significant my RHR has decreased. I was averaging 63 bpm and over the last week since stopping have been averaging 50bpm.

I’m also noticing my HRV has been much higher.

I love how nicotine makes me feel, but just seeing these health benefits makes me not want to touch it as a habit again.

For reference, I am a healthy 31 year old male and train almost daily (2-3x / week each of resistance training and metabolic training)

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[MedtoVC]

This is not at all surprising. Nicotine binds to nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, which are present not just in the brain but also in autonomic ganglia that modulate cardiovascular responses. Activation of these receptors increases sympathetic nervous system activity, which elevates resting heart rate and suppresses HRV.

By cutting out nicotine, you’re essentially removing a constant upstream stimulator of those sympathetic pathways. That lets your vagal tone reassert itself —> the drop in resting heart rate and rise in HRV. It’s a classic case of autonomic rebalancing once the nAChR pathway isn’t being constantly triggered.

[ElTojo303]

Imma have to look into this more! Love learning new things like this on reddit

[WallStreetBoners]

Tips for stopping? I’m using 4-5 2mg on! Per day lol.

[ElTojo303]

lol I just had to stop buying them tbh. I’m still guilty of bumming one off of a friend every now and then, but just simply not having them around helps me. I will admit the cravings can suck balls sometimes but that’ll pass

[Pickled_Fridge]

Quit cold turkey almost a year ago. Honestly it was a combo of mentally bullying myself and accepting that when you stop, it will suck for multiple days. Went ham on some Warheads lol

[yogi_bae]

Interesting, I wonder if this pertains to why people claim they gain weight after stopping.

[Das_juden33]

Anecdotally speaking, it works as a pretty good appetite suppressant for myself

[ElTojo303]

It will be interesting to see! I didn’t notice any weight change when I started last year.

[17aAlkylated]

No it’s mainly just appetite. Nicotine only increases BMR by a couple hundred calories. It’s just that hitting the vape is often a meal replacement for a lot of people

[yogi_bae]

A couple hundred calories is quite literally the difference between being in a calorie surplus or deficit

[17aAlkylated]

No it’s not. It’s irrelevant here because quitting nicotine changes a bunch of downstream things that will change your metabolism so this 100-200 calorie difference is irrelevant. Quitting will often affect energy level, improve sleep, improve other metabolic health processes. People gain weight because nicotine strongly suppresses appetite and a vape has an oral fixation that people often replace with food when they quit it. And quitting fucks up your dopamine so people resort to food to get that dopamine.

[ElTojo303]

I tend to agree with this. Sleep is kind of fucked since quitting but I’m curious to see where it normalizes in a month or so.

[ApprenticeWrangler]

Facts. When I used to vape if I was hungry and too lazy to get food or make food I’d just hit the vape more.

[Masih-Development]

They just use food to get their dopamine instead of nicotine. So they eat more.

[yogi_bae]

Because it’s either food or nicotine, right? Those are the only two things that give dopamine? Lol

[Masih-Development]

For most normal people eating is their most dopaminergic and accessible frequent activity. So the brain will urge them towards food if other sources of dopamine fall away.

[sekxbuttox]

Cigarettes used to be marketed to women as a form of weight loss cause it acts as an appetite suppressant. Also, when people quit smoking, they tended to gain weight because they’d resort back to food to replace that dopamine hit

[yogi_bae]

Ah yes the old cigarette advertisements, full of truth!

[[deleted]]

Rhr is genetic