Assessment of Shisha Smoking on My Health and Healthy Choices Made
In life, there are some daily activities that we have to perform and this activities may be the sustenance of our life, for example the daily physiological processes of our body such as breathing, heartbeat, excretion, thinking and many others entirely depend on the energy produced by our body, and our body is only able to produce energy when it is in a healthy state. When our health is compromised either from smoking which is my current health problem, then our body won’t be able to function normally. Therefore our health should be the first priority before everything because when we are unhealthy it means we won’t be able to carry out our daily activities.
Initially, I didn’t blame myself for Shisha smoking since I did it to please some of my peer friends who could wonder why I wasn’t smoking Shisha, so by smoking I could prove them wrong. Currently I am a Shisha addict who is struggling to quit the smoking of Shisha but it has not been an easy process, there have been several stumbling blocks. To begin with, I had to research on the effect of Shisha smoking on my health since this could help me make healthy decisions about my health. Shisha can also be referred to as hookah, narghile, waterpipe or the Hubble bubble smoking. Shisha tobacco contains cigarette tobacco, so like cigarette Shisha contains nicotine, tar, carbon monoxide and heavy metals which include arsenics and lead. (Mohammad, 2013)Therefore Shisha smokers are at a risk same to the cigarette smokers since the substances found in cigarette are the same substances found in Shisha. Secondly, shisha can cause cancer from the mode of its smoking, which includes number of times of puffing, depth of inhalation and length of smoking session. Shisha tobacco contains a number of toxic substances than can predispose the addicts to lung, bladder and oral cancer. Shisha smoking is also associated with heart problems from the toxic substances it contains; prolonged use of Shisha has been associated with clogged arteries and heart diseases. Shisha Smoking can also lead to periodontal gum tissue disease, increase in the level of nicotine and it’s by product knowns as cotine in the blood plasma and saliva which can infect the gum tissue known as periodontal. In the case of pregnant women who smoke Shisha, they can have preterm birth and most of their babies will have low birth weight. (Hammal, 2014) Shisha smoking has nicotine which can cause addiction which is in my current case and finally shisha smoking has been associated with some level of wrinkled skin and infertility among the users.
After knowing the effects of Shisha on my health, I had to struggle for change no matter what and make healthy choices that will see my future life free of any kind of addiction. Therefore launched an assessment of my health status to determine the level of nicotine on my body and whether it has produced some negative effects on my. On my assessment, I had to fill a questionnaire with the following questions; do I smoke cigarettes now? If yes how regularly, on average how many puffs of shisha I smoke in one smoking session? How many days in a week do I smoke shisha? , did I ever smoke shisha regularly in the past? And finally how old was I when I started smoking shisha?
I took the questionnaire to the rehabilitation center where I was assigned a counsellor who would observe and advise me accordingly in case I would have the urge of smoking some more Shisha again. Luckily I was not that much addicted to suffer from withdrawal syndromes, every day I felt the urge of smoking shisha but I tried and not to get any since my decision was to quit. In conclusion, we should always be proud of our healthy status and strive at all cost to maintain it at the healthy state or improve it to the best.
References;
- Mohammed, H. T., & University of Waterloo. (2013). The efficacy of viewinsg health warnings on shisha smoking among shisha smokers. Waterloo.
- Hammal, F., & University of Alberta. (2014). Waterpipe use in Canada: Evidence, perceptions and policy implications.