Once you’ve quit smoking, you may feel more sleepy or lightheaded, or overly excited and irritable. You may have cravings for sweet or salty foods at times when you used to smoke. These are signs indicating that the nicotine is leaving your body. Remember that many of these physical symptoms will go away within the first couple of weeks. After the first week, much of the nicotine will have left your system and with it your body's reaction to the immediate loss of a chemical that it had become used to. After that, you will still have cravings and other reactions, but these cravings will be based on the psychological associations you have developed, such as not being able to enjoy your morning coffee without a cigarette. But these associations will lessen over time. The best thing you can do at this stage is to know what to look for and to ...