Smoking, Drinking and Cannabis And how it affects your performance in sport By Darcey

Smoking When you play sport, or do any other form of strenuous activity, it needs large amounts of energy. Your body is like an engine and like an engine it needs fuel to work. The lungs provide fuel in the form of oxygen. Then the blood transports this fuel to the muscles that burn it during physical activity Smoking interferes with the body's ability to function in a number of ways: Tobacco smoke affects the lungs so that they work less efficiently. They can't pick up the amount of oxygen that a body needs when it is working hard. Tobacco smoke contains a chemical (carbon monoxide) that gets into the blood stream and prevents it from picking up oxygen Tobacco smoke contains other chemicals that affect the circulation of blood. They make the blood vessels smaller so that they are less able to carry oxygen when your body is burning up large amounts of energy. If you smoke your body will have less fuel and the little fuel it has is not transported to those areas that need it when you are playing sport. Because of this smokers tend to have less energy and find it hard to keep high levels of fitness. At first you may not notice much difference, but the more you smoke and the longer you smoke the more you will notice it having an effect on you

Drinking Alcohol affects the body's ability to turn food into energy, it slows down reaction times, increases body heat loss and reduces endurance. If you have alcohol 24 hours before exercising you are more likely to develop muscle cramps. After exercising the body needs to be rehydrated. It's not helpful to drink alcohol as it will just continue to dehydrate the body further. The blood sugar your body needs for energy is produced by the liver releasing glucose into the blood stream. Alcohol reduces your body's ability to produce this sugar, so you have less energy and less endurance capacity First, alcohol in your system makes you feel feverish, then you lose body heat too fast leading possibly to hypothermia. The relaxant properties of alcohol can flow on into your sport even well after you've finished drinking. Alcohol affects the central nervous system and slows down the information processing ability of the brain. This in turn affects your reactions, co-ordination, accuracy and balance - all the things most important for staying on top in any sport.

Cannabis As with all drugs, the effects of using cannabis are unpredictable. Cannabis affects people in different ways. It depends on their size and weight, whether they are used to taking it, their mood at the time, and whether they use it alone or in company. The effects of smoking cannabis can begin within a few minutes and last for a few hours. These are some of the immediate effects cannabis can have: you may feel sick and want to throw up; your heart will beat faster and your blood pressure may increase; your blood pressure may also fall and you might faint; you can lose balance and coordination, which can lead to accidents, especially if attempting to drive or operate a machine; you can become giggly or very talkative – some people become thoughtful, subdued or sleepy; you might feel more relaxed and so more confident – or you might not; you might become more aware of sound, music and colour; your perceptions of time and space might change; you could feel very hungry (the ‘munchies’).