Hi, ChickenStix and browneyesblue.
Depression and sleepiness are very common after you quit smoking. When you smoked the nicotine constantly stimulated the reward centers in your brain. The brain, as it does with any overstimulation (i.e. wearing a ring), shut down some of these reward centers trying to achieve a normal balance.
After you quit the brain lost the stimulation of the nicotine and went into a "reward deficit" condition. How this condition shows up in people varies, but some of the symptoms are depression, excessive sleepiness, and anger. Often there are mixtures of these in varying degrees.
It took a while for your brain to adapt to the nicotine by shutting down the reward centers, then you smoked for years. So it's going to take a while for it to recover. The general consensus between addiction research and anecdotal evidence is about a year for recovery.
This doesn't mean you'll experience your symptoms for another year, though. The recovery is a slow and ongoing process. Each day you'll be a bit more recovered even though you won't notice any change. But one day you'll suddenly realize "I haven't felt ??? for a while!. Wonder when it stopped?" That's a great feeling, folks, a feeling of true freedom.
Keep up the good quits. :)
Shevie
[B]My Milage:[/B]
[B]My Quit Date: [/B] 5/23/2005
[B]Smoke-Free Days:[/B] 270
[B]Cigarettes Not Smoked:[/B] 5,411
[B]Amount Saved:[/B] $1026
[B]Life Gained:[/B]
[B]Days:[/B] 50 [B]Hrs:[/B] 10 [B]Mins:[/B] 32 [B]Seconds:[/B] 25
