Nicotine produces paradoxical effects, acting as both a stimulant and a depressant. As a stimulant, it has been shown toincrease attention, memory, information processing, andlearning.30,37 It has also been shown to alleviate anxiety,depression, and pain. For these reasons, smokers oftenreport that smoking is a stress reliever and that they aremore apt to smoke in response to stressful situations