Many people believe that smoking helps to cope with stress and to strengthen social connections. A recent study aimed to back-up these beliefs. It summarized evidence from 102 observational studies involving over 169.500 people to find a relation between stopping smoking and mental health. The conclusions were the opposite.

The study found out that people who stopped smoking for at least 6 weeks, had a slightly better mood and experienced less depression, anxiety and stress than people who continued to smoke. People who quit also seem to feel better and have more positive feelings. Last, but not least, giving up smoking did not have any impact on the quality of people’s social life.

The researchers admit that the reliability of their findings is not very high due to the way the studies were designed and hope that future studies can confirm their findings.

Curious? HERE is the source