Demystifying the Impact of Second-Hand Smoke and Third-Hand Smoke Residue

I have a friend who smokes heavily but not around me, but when I hang out at his place, I start to feel weird, as if the cigarette smoke is affecting my body. Am I absorbing harmful substances from the smoke residue left behind?

You Are Somatizing: A Natural Response to Manipulative Marketing

It is not because you have been exposed to the smoke, but rather to the propaganda. Countless messages are designed to terrify you. Do you agree that the messages you get about smoking have a purpose? Well, they accomplished that goal for what they were planned. There is no minimum evidence that residues of tobacco smoke can be harmful, yet there is plenty of evidence that the anti-smoking campaign was highly exaggerated.

Smoking is harmful, but second-hand smoke is a nonsense. But what about third-hand smoke? Let's explore this further to understand the impact and the mechanisms behind it.

The Psychology Behind Afraidness: A Consequence of Manipulative Propaganda

When you are exposed to such overwhelming, manipulative propaganda, you start to believe in hypochondria, a form of health anxiety. This can really destroy your life. I will explain how this works and how it can be managed.

An Example of a Phobia: Airplane Crash Scenario

Imagine a guy who is in front of the TV and the news talk about an airplane crash. He sees the images, the burning parts of the airplane, and the rescue services carrying death bodies. This guy gets a very realistic idea of the accident. Then, during the next week, he is on Facebook and someone posts a video recorded inside the airplane that was sent as a farewell message from someone traveling in that airplane. So this guy gets a more realistic impression of what it is to be in an airplane before crashing.

While he sees real videos from the inside, from the outside, before the accident, and after the accident, his mind works in creating a movie in his head. The whole movie. The problem here is that the news and social media dedicate too much time to this single flight but do not dedicate the same attention to the thousands and thousands of flights that land safely every day. At some point, this guy loses the proportion of airplane accidents vs. normal flights. That's when a phobia starts.

Well, it's the same with hypochondria. You see an image of a black lung in a pack of cigarettes, then you see a video, then you see an interview, and then you listen to all your friends talking about it. You don't even stop to question if the image of the black lung was real – which was not. Black lung images are, in fact, pork lungs soaked into chemicals and they are for sale. You can google it, and you'll find some suppliers. You didn't stop to think if the video was real, which was not – it might be some actors paid to make it. And you didn't stop to think if your friends have real scientific culture or if they ever read some of the studies about second-hand smoke they were talking about. At that point, your critical mind is on the floor, and your natural mind processes that would protect you from obsessive behaviors have been nullified.

Creating a Movie in Your Mind: The Impact of Propaganda

You created a whole movie in your mind about what would happen if you were exposed to tobacco smoke. And this movie works. It works because it will trigger real emotions and real sensations. Any healthy person has some normal sensations in different parts of his body every day. These sensations are not pain but normal things that happen in our bodies because we are full of organs and arteries and veins and fluids. These sensations pass unnoticed if you don't pay attention but if you focus in one part of your body and you are predisposed, you will feel them, especially in the chest, the lungs, the liver, the parts of your body that you know are vital. If you observe yourself compulsively and you have this movie that you created in your head, many weird symptoms can appear and they can really impact the quality of your life.

The Doctor-Phobia Paradox: A Case of Stigmatized Smokers

And the worst is that doctors can't tell you this even when many of them know it's true. In some countries, they are explicitly asked to strongly oppose smoking. If by very bad luck, one day you get cancer and your doctor told you that the fear of second-hand smoke was exaggerated and highly unreasonable, the doctor can think you can sue him because you would have been more cautious. It's very difficult to talk about it because the whole campaign has strongly stigmatized smokers, tobacco, and any attempt to question the veracity of propaganda. Any call for rationality is being interpreted as an aggression or is immediately underestimated. Any attempt to defend minimum rights of smokers is immediately banalized.

A Call to Enjoy Life Without Unnecessary Fears

If you don't smoke, you don't need to fill your head with such irrational fears. You can enjoy your life away from the stupidity and unreasonable fears that unscrupulous groups and governments try to normalize.