20 minutes after your last vapeThe pulse lets go

By Yevhenii, who smoked for 26 years · Updated 30 Oct 2026 · 2 min read

In shortNicotine from a vape raises heart rate and blood pressure just as it does from smoke, and for someone vaping every twenty minutes it rarely settles. Now it can. You will not feel it. The first pull for the next puff may start within hours.

What's happening in your body

Nicotine tells the adrenal glands to release adrenaline, and it does this the same way whether it arrives in smoke or in vapour. In pooled laboratory studies, a session on a nicotine vape raised the heart rate and blood pressure and made the arteries measurably stiffer. The size of the rise differed between analyses, from a couple of beats a minute to around ten, and vapour without nicotine did not do the same.

The rise was measured in the minutes after a session, so for someone who vapes every twenty minutes it rarely got a chance to settle. Now it can.

What to expect

Nothing you can feel. This change is silent and it is already under way. Do not expect your resting pulse to drop dramatically. In one pooled analysis, vapers who had never smoked had much the same resting heart rate as people who used nothing, which suggests the change is mostly in the small spikes repeated through the day. In the six-day vaping studies, heart rate did come down during abstinence.

What you may feel within the first hours is the start of wanting the next puff. It can be a restless pull, or a hand that goes looking for the device.

Try this

Find your pulse at the wrist, count for thirty seconds, double it, and put the number in tonight's diary line.

What else you could do

Take it again in a week, sitting down, at the same time of day. You will own one measurement that did not come from an app. If counting a pulse feels like too much right now, give your hands something else to do. Make tea, wash up, sort a drawer. And tell one person today that you have stopped. Something said out loud is harder to take back quietly.

Sources. Measured in vapers. Skotsimara G, et al. Cardiovascular effects of electronic cigarettes: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Eur J Prev Cardiol, 2019. Cheraghi M, Amiri M, Omidi F, et al. Acute cardiovascular effects of electronic cigarettes: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Eur Heart J Open, 2024. Kundu A, Feore A, Sanchez S, et al. Cardiovascular health effects of vaping e-cigarettes: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Heart, 2025. Hughes JR, et al. Nicotine Tob Res, 2020.