Kyle Weiss
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I need to type a bit of an article-post. It's kinda tobacco-related, but I wanted to throw this out there anyway.
I usually only smoke a pipeful or two a day. It's all I need. If I smoke more than that, I'm either bored, being more anti-social than normal, or both. Aside from the sign of possible overindulgence clues such as "leather tongue," deadened olfactory, and more pipes to clean than usual, one factor seems to creep up, and most notably, during weather warming up: headaches.
My initial thought was hydration, for at least in my case, living in the desert, you naturally take in more water than one might in a more humid environment. Psychological, or sweat output? I'm not sure. I've spent some time in the South, where in the summertime going from point A to point B, one swims through the humidity in July more than walks. Sweating in vain is an uncomfortable, terrible experience for a desert rat like myself.
There's something to be said about heat, more than the obvious. Winters in Northern Nevada are disturbingly dry. If any poor souls are prone to eczema or psoriasis, I think about the only way to survive is bathing in lanolin. Fortunately, that isn't me. One thing that does affect most that have true season changes is blood thickness: and not for the reasons one would suspect. It's a myth blood "thickens in winter" (and thins in summer). However, our water intake does change in colder weather, because there's a psychological factor that because we're cold, we don't need moisture. Of course we need moisture, hot or cold--it's one of the things talked about in many types of field training: hydrate.
Capillaries, on the other hand, are affected. To preserve heat when body temperatures drop (even by tenths of a degree), they constrict. When warm, they expand and dilate. Enter in our collective fondness for our pipe tobacco, which happens to also contain nicotine, and we have a conflict--because nicotine constricts capillaries. Warmer weather is something we have to "get used to" as much as the cold, and capillaries seem to be as lazy as we can be. The first 75F day in the sun after a cool/cold winter can seem like 95F. The first 40F day after a summer of 90F+ days seems like skinny dipping in the Arctic Sea.
My recent interest in "high-octane" tobaccos, things like ropes, pressed and aged plugs, even Greg Pease's deliciously dangerous new Navigator mix, all of them have been a pain. Literally speaking. Not so much a nicotine hangover, but true pressure-thumping, whole-skull pain. This usually happens after a full day of pipe overindulging, resting, and then waking up with something pretty solid in the nicotine department.
The solution? There's a few, at least using myself as a guinea pig.
* Smoke less. I know, heresy.
* Smoke milder. Ugh. Is that really an option?
* Drink more fluids at all times. As obvious as it sounds, water is good for you. It's the lubricant of the circulatory system, and if your blood is thick, it will thin out with good old fashioned glass of municipal City Gin. Lazy, season-stricken capillaries will get a kick in their arse.
* Hot showers, especially if a nicotine-plus-season-change headache has already settled in. I might have already been overheated, but mixed with even the slightest dehydration, local application of heat to affected areas does the trick.
* Stay away from stuff that dries you out. Salt and alcohol are usually the main contributors...all they do is require more water to metabolize, and if you're not taking in H20, you're asking for trouble. It's easier to have a string water chasers during a meal or alcoholic binge with your buddies on the weekend than nursing a thumping head later.
* Allergies (and the prescriptions products used to fight them). I'm a sufferer, through and through. Sinuses hate pollen, as well as other exposed, tender body parts. If you've ever seen pollen under a microscope, they look like they could be enlarged, attached to a chain and handle, and used in a medieval battle. Horrible little bastards, all in the name of mating flora, they don't care who it affects. Mucous membranes hold on to the larger pollen particles (pine trees having some of the largest), as they grind and irritate, smaller ones actually get into the blood stream--and get trapped places they shouldn't. Read the side-effects on your solution of choice, too--if headaches are one of them, all of the above could compound the problem.
After only smoking a pipe for the last couple of years, I'm intrigued by the seasonal changes that happen with flavor cravings with tobacco, but even more curious to how my body adapted to the extremes of weather I experience as a Nevadan. It's fleeting, perhaps only a month or so in my realm, but it's worth mentioning and sharing my thoughts and notes of this (perhaps shared) painful phenomenon. I know I'm not the only one.
Smoke on, brothers.
(...and stay hydrated...)
8)
I usually only smoke a pipeful or two a day. It's all I need. If I smoke more than that, I'm either bored, being more anti-social than normal, or both. Aside from the sign of possible overindulgence clues such as "leather tongue," deadened olfactory, and more pipes to clean than usual, one factor seems to creep up, and most notably, during weather warming up: headaches.
My initial thought was hydration, for at least in my case, living in the desert, you naturally take in more water than one might in a more humid environment. Psychological, or sweat output? I'm not sure. I've spent some time in the South, where in the summertime going from point A to point B, one swims through the humidity in July more than walks. Sweating in vain is an uncomfortable, terrible experience for a desert rat like myself.
There's something to be said about heat, more than the obvious. Winters in Northern Nevada are disturbingly dry. If any poor souls are prone to eczema or psoriasis, I think about the only way to survive is bathing in lanolin. Fortunately, that isn't me. One thing that does affect most that have true season changes is blood thickness: and not for the reasons one would suspect. It's a myth blood "thickens in winter" (and thins in summer). However, our water intake does change in colder weather, because there's a psychological factor that because we're cold, we don't need moisture. Of course we need moisture, hot or cold--it's one of the things talked about in many types of field training: hydrate.
Capillaries, on the other hand, are affected. To preserve heat when body temperatures drop (even by tenths of a degree), they constrict. When warm, they expand and dilate. Enter in our collective fondness for our pipe tobacco, which happens to also contain nicotine, and we have a conflict--because nicotine constricts capillaries. Warmer weather is something we have to "get used to" as much as the cold, and capillaries seem to be as lazy as we can be. The first 75F day in the sun after a cool/cold winter can seem like 95F. The first 40F day after a summer of 90F+ days seems like skinny dipping in the Arctic Sea.
My recent interest in "high-octane" tobaccos, things like ropes, pressed and aged plugs, even Greg Pease's deliciously dangerous new Navigator mix, all of them have been a pain. Literally speaking. Not so much a nicotine hangover, but true pressure-thumping, whole-skull pain. This usually happens after a full day of pipe overindulging, resting, and then waking up with something pretty solid in the nicotine department.
The solution? There's a few, at least using myself as a guinea pig.
* Smoke less. I know, heresy.
* Smoke milder. Ugh. Is that really an option?
* Drink more fluids at all times. As obvious as it sounds, water is good for you. It's the lubricant of the circulatory system, and if your blood is thick, it will thin out with good old fashioned glass of municipal City Gin. Lazy, season-stricken capillaries will get a kick in their arse.
* Hot showers, especially if a nicotine-plus-season-change headache has already settled in. I might have already been overheated, but mixed with even the slightest dehydration, local application of heat to affected areas does the trick.
* Stay away from stuff that dries you out. Salt and alcohol are usually the main contributors...all they do is require more water to metabolize, and if you're not taking in H20, you're asking for trouble. It's easier to have a string water chasers during a meal or alcoholic binge with your buddies on the weekend than nursing a thumping head later.
* Allergies (and the prescriptions products used to fight them). I'm a sufferer, through and through. Sinuses hate pollen, as well as other exposed, tender body parts. If you've ever seen pollen under a microscope, they look like they could be enlarged, attached to a chain and handle, and used in a medieval battle. Horrible little bastards, all in the name of mating flora, they don't care who it affects. Mucous membranes hold on to the larger pollen particles (pine trees having some of the largest), as they grind and irritate, smaller ones actually get into the blood stream--and get trapped places they shouldn't. Read the side-effects on your solution of choice, too--if headaches are one of them, all of the above could compound the problem.
After only smoking a pipe for the last couple of years, I'm intrigued by the seasonal changes that happen with flavor cravings with tobacco, but even more curious to how my body adapted to the extremes of weather I experience as a Nevadan. It's fleeting, perhaps only a month or so in my realm, but it's worth mentioning and sharing my thoughts and notes of this (perhaps shared) painful phenomenon. I know I'm not the only one.
Smoke on, brothers.
(...and stay hydrated...)
8)
