A new Pew Research Center study suggests that smoking actually triggers stress in people instead of helping smokers to relax, the Canwest News Service reported Aug. 11.

More than 2,000 Americans were surveyed last March, and 50 percent of those who identified themselves as smokers said they frequently experienced stress, while only 35 percent of former smokers and 31 percent of non-smokers said they were stressed.

Even after controlling for demographics such as age, sex, and income level, researchers found that smokers were more likely than non-smokers and those who had quit smoking to report feeling stressed.

A quarter of smokers reported that they were lighting up more because they were worried about the economic downturn, while 13 percent of smokers said worries about the recession were preventing them from quitting. 

“There’s insufficient publicized information about the stress smoking causes, as opposed to the mythic relaxation response it induces,” said Debbie Mandel, author of the book, “Addicted to Stress.”

It’s unclear from the study if stress comes as a result from smoking cigarettes or if people who smoke are more prone to experiencing anxiety.

“(Smokers) tend to be lower on the socio-economic scales, and some of that correlates with stress,” said Paul Taylor, who directs the Pew Social & Demographic Trends project. “But we did a regression analysis that tried to hold those factors constant, and we still found an independent relationship between smoking and reports of being stressed.”