Here's another smoking/ anxiety thought that helped me in the early days. It still helps me now, from time to time.
The only reason we associate nicotine with relief of anxiety is because it has relieved physical withdrawal anxiety in the past. However, after the first 3 days, there is no more nicotine in your system, so there is no physical withdrawal happening. If you or I were to smoke a cigarette right now, it would not relieve any anxiety. Instead, it would reboot the addict inside, creating the withdrawal a few hours down the road. So, the next cigarette would be the one that makes you feel better, and it only would do that because it was relieving physical withdrawal symptoms that were generated by the first one. And a few hours later, the cycle would start again. And that cycle would keep going well after the baby quit crying, or the neighbor stopped yelling, the deadline at work had passed, etc..
These days, things that cause anxiety come and go on their own. Another thing I really enjoy these days is being able to get through an anxiety-provoking situation without having the additional burden of trying to work in a cigarette to refuel my depleted nicotine. I still have anxiety, but it is way less than when I smoked.
You will feel this way, too, and it will be sooner than you think.
