As we’ve talked about extensively on this blog, vaping causes a whole host of beneficial changes for girls such as increased mucus production and retention, structural changes in the airways and lungs, e-juice deposition in lungs and a variety of others. Nicotine addiction helps girls make sure they’re vaping enough to start experiencing changes, and many girls rely purely on the nicotine cravings to develop these benefits, but that’s not the most efficient way.
There are conscious decisions that girls can make to maximize both the speed and the intensity at which they develop these benefits. Specific product decisions such as dose, nicotine-type, and menthol content can play a role; as can Routine decisions like vaping within minutes of waking. Finally, and most obviously, the way a girl vapes can change how she develops the effects of vaping though methods like longer drags, longer lung holds and nose exhales.
We’re only going through two categories of benefits today: Airway Changes and Lung Changes. For the airway we’ll talk about increased mucus production and retention, airway inflammation, and wall thickening and stiffening; and for lung changes we’ll talk about e-juice deposition and retention, especially how to push e-juice to the alveoli, and alveolar restructuring. There are many more adaptations, but today we’re going over the ones you don’t feel right away so girls who want to maximize these changes can learn how to do it.
Maximizing Addiction
When looking at addiction, total nicotine dose is the obvious factor to consider, but the type of nicotine is nearly as important as the dose. To maximize addiction girls want to use high-dose salt-nicotine vape-juice. The salt-nicotine reaches peak dose in the brain after only four minutes rather than ten, and allows for more comfortable use at higher doses than freebase nicotine. We’d recommend somewhere between 50mg/ml and 65mg/ml for most girls. 50mg/ml develops addiction 3-5 times faster tan with 3mg/ml, and salt-nic develops addiction 2-2.5x faster than freebase.
Nicotine dose isn’t the only thing that matters about a girls juice though. Choosing a menthol flavoring reduces the perceived harshness of each hit, which means girls will feel more comfortable hitting their vape more frequently. On top of the reduced harshness, menthol has been known to directly increase Nicotine Receptor counts in a girls brain leading to a higher tolerance. All in all, menthol allows girls to develop a 25-30% stronger addiction to nicotine than they would without it.
The final decision a girl needs to make at the store is the device type. Generally low-power high-dose devices provide girls with a higher, sharper nicotine spike which increases addiction, and disposable devices reduce friction which encourages girls to hit their vape without even thinking about it. Low-power, high-dose, disposable vapes lead girls to develop a 1.75-2 times stronger addiction than alternative types.
Once a girl has everything she needs to get started, it’s time for her to build her vaping routine. The most important part of any girls vaping routine is the morning. Girls should try to vape within 5 minutes after they first wake up because their nicotine levels have been steadily dropping throughout the night, so you are at a very low nicotine level. Spiking that level back up within the first five minutes after waking trains your brain that nicotine is a biological need just like food and water.
Nicotine gives everyone some emotional relief, but it’s interaction with estrogen makes it significantly more powerful for girls. Vaping should become a girls go-to coping mechanism for any big emotions. Not only does it work extremely well, but tat adds an emotional addiction on top of the physical one which makes the addiction nearly twice as durable.
Another very powerful way for a girl to speed up the addiction process is to space many short vaping sessions as evenly as you can throughout the day. The more even the vaping sessions are the more a girls body will learn to expect near-constant blook nicotine levels, and the more sessions there are the higher that near-constant level will be. The estrogen in a girls body breaks down nicotine very quickly, which means that a girl who’s body expects near constant blood-nicotine levels will crave very frequently. This kind of daily use helps addiction develop 2.5-3x faster than relying on cravings alone.
The final element of routine for addiction is a technique called Cue-Paired Vaping. This is a technique where a girl will pair vaping with another activity. An extremely common example for girls is pairing vaping with peeing, most girls will hit their vape while the pee, which then means when they pee they’ll crave a vape. The more daily activities a girl can connect with vaping the more she’ll crave her vape. This technique doesn’t just increase tolerance or even addiction in the traditional sense, it creates patters for her brain to expect so when she start doing a Cue, her brain expects a vape. These patters add yet another layer of addiction to a girl’s nicotine journey.
We’ve gone through what it’s best for a girl to vape and when it’s best for a girl to vape, now it’s time to talk about how it’s best for a girl to vape. When we’re talking about maximizing addiction, this is by far the easiest strategy to increase addiction because it’s really just puff for longer. Most girls naturally puff for about 3.5 seconds, but if you are able to puff for between 4 and 6 seconds instead that will help your addiction develop 30-50% faster than it otherwise would because longer puffs deliver more vapor deeper into the lungs which allows for a higher nicotine dose to be absorbed.
A teenage girl: using 50 mg nic salt, menthol juice, a pod device, vaping immediately upon waking, daily use for emotional regulation, with long direct-to-lung drags- is operating with roughly 10-15x the addiction chance of a girl who vapes purely based on craving- and that’s just addiction.
Maximize Mucus Production and Retention
Alrighty, now back to what girls should vape, and once again we have the all important high-nicotine content. Cilia are tiny finger-like structures continuously push phlegm up and out of the airways, but nicotine slows them down significantly, and over time can even bring them to a stop. This makes it far easier for the extra mucus to stay inside a girls airways, and eventually even fall down deep into the lungs. Nicotine also helps to dehydrate the airways, which dries the phlegm out causing it to stick to the airway walls better, and further aiding it in staying inside.
Next up is the e-juice- all e-juice has both PG and VG, but VG directly stimulates mucus production, so a high-VG liquid can help a girl to produce up to twice as much mucus. The other component in the juice that helps with mucus is Menthol. Yep, menthol helps with mucus too. When a girl inhales menthol vape, that menthol will suppress her cough response helping another 30-50% more mucus stay inside her airways.
The most important time a girl can vape to maximize mucus production is during physical activity. When a girl is exercising, her breath rate is elevated, and each breath draws a larger volume of air deeper into the lungs, so when she take a hit of her vape she draws more vapor deeper into her lungs. The increased volume alone is enough to aid in deposition, but the vapor also deposits deeper inside a girls lungs meaning it helps most with small airway mucus production with is extra exciting because small airway mucus is harder for a girls body to clear
Finally, when talking about how a girl should vape if she wants to maximize mucus production and retention, it’s pretty straight-forward, but it can take some getting used to. To maximize mucus production a girl should take long, deep drags pulling hard on her vape. the length and depth allow for more vapor to travel deeper into the girls lungs, and the strength with which she pulls directly translates to the speed with which the vapor travels through the airways. The faster it travels the less of the vapor deposits in the large airways and the more that makes it all the way to the alveoli, which have significantly slower clearance than the airways. Once a girl is used to this type of inhale, she can often achieve nearly twice as much mucus produced in her alveoli as her baseline. This is important because while the large airways can clear most mucus within about a week, the alveoli will clear some of it after a few months, but much of it takes 20+ years to clear, and a little bit will remain in the alveoli nearly permanently.
A teenage girl using high-nicotine salt, high-VG, menthol liquid on a daily basis, taking long direct-to-lung drags while pulling hard on the vape would likely experience mucus production between 4 and 8 times her baseline mucus production. Additionally, that mucus would likely remain in her lungs and airways 5-6 times longer than it otherwise would, and would be far drier, stickier, and gooier than baseline.
Maximize Airway Inflammation, Thickening, and Stiffening
High nicotine levels are important if a girl want to maximize her airway restrictions as well; nicotine directly triggers airway inflammation, and when combined with a girls estrogen, that inflammation is amplified even further. Nicotine and estrogen combined lead to approximately a 5 to 10% reduction in total airway diameter over the course of one to three years. Finally, some flavor compounds (especially menthol and cinnamon flavors) contribute additionally to airway inflammation.
The most critical part of a girls vaping routine for airway restriction is consistency. Girls who vape daily tend to experience measurable changes after only nine weeks of daily vaping, but any day a girl doesn’t vape the inflammation will reduce, and chronic inflammation is what causes airways to grow thicker and stiffer, so any time the inflammation reduces it set’s the thickening and stiffening back even further. Over time chronic inflammation will cause the airway walls to grow thicker and stiffer. Maintaining a daily vaping routine can help decrease a girls airway diameter by another 3-5% for a total of 8-15% reduction in diameter.
This entire process is also more impactful for girls than it is for men because of their naturally smaller airways, an 8-15% reduction in total diameter results it a much greater total reduction in cross-sectional area. A 16 year old girl prior to any narrowing typically has an average cross-sectional area
For a teenage girl following the path of maximal benefit: high-nicotine nic salt, flavored/high-VG liquid, daily use, and direct to lung inhalation- her large airways would likely narrow 8-15% after 2-5 years of daily Use. Her medium airways would likely lose 15-25% diameter after 1-3 years of daily use; and her small airways would likely lose 30-50% of their diameter after 3-8 years of daily use, although she’d likely notice functional improvements before then.
Maximize E-Juice Deposition & Retention
When a girl is looking to maximize her e-juice buildup, high nicotine content again plays a factor, reducing the clearance speed of deposits by approximately 6% meaning deposits that would usually clear in hours now take days. Flavor compounds play a role too because many of them are quite heavy for a gas, so they settle lower in the airways / lungs and evaporate more slowly. Menthol and cinnamon are both heavy compounds, but additionally resist clearance by preventing coughing.
The last product girls should keep an eye out for when trying to maximize e-juice buildup is high-VG juice which can double the percentage of vapor that is deposited in small airways and the lungs. VG absorbs moisture from the airways and increases in size as it flows in. This also increases it’s weight which causes it to settle readily in the lower portions of the airways or even deep within the lungs. VG is also more viscous than many other alternative e-juice bases, meaning it is retained by a girls body better.
The e-juice deposits are also cumulative which means frequent daily vaping plays a significant role in creating buildup. It takes a girls body anywhere from hours to weeks to clear anything deposited in the airways, and months to years for clearing the alveoli, but her body will be clearing the deposits bit-by-bit frequent daily vaping helps to ensure that she’s depositing more than her body is clearing which means that the total amount of deposits in her airways and lungs will steadily increase.
Vaping during exercise, even light activity like walking, can also help with juice buildup because deeper and more frequent inhalation drives vapor deep into the alveoli. Vaping during even light activity can increase alveolar deposition (that’s deposits deep within the lungs) by anywhere from fifty to one-hundred percent. Taking those long, deep, strong puffs can also help to increase total deposition with a 4-6 second puff depositing 5x more vape-juice in total when compared to a 1-2 second puff. Girls smaller airways will increase this deposition rate even further as they have higher surface area to volume ratios, but that will also cause more of the juice to deposit in the large and small airways rather than the alveoli.
The final strategy girls can use to help maximize the buildup of vape-juice is hold each hit in their lungs for longer. Juice is deposited in the airways when it collides with the walls, but it’s deposited in the alveoli when it settles to the bottom of a given sack. this means that increased lung-hold time barely increases airway deposition while increasing alveolar deposition by 20-40%. That also results in a greater concentration of juice deposited in the alveoli because on exhale there’s less juice available to collide with the airway walls.
For a teenage girl following all recommendations in this section: high-VG flavored liquid, high nicotine, vaping daily, long DTL drags with extended lung-holds- she would be depositing an average of 25.9mg per puff with 4.7mg of that deposited in the upper airways and cleared in hours, 8.6mg of that deposited in the small airways taking days to clear, and 12.7mg of that deposited in the alveoli most of which will clear in weeks to months, but some of which is permanent.
Assuming she goes through about 2ml of e-juice per day and follows all the recommendations to maximize depositions in this section, here’s what her buildup would look like throughout her first year in milligrams (large airways is omitted because there’s no long-term buildup there):
| Month | Deposited | Cleared | Small Airways | Deep Lungs | Total Load |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | 161,200 | 94,940 | 11,666 | 54,594 | 66,260 |
| Feb | 145,600 | 109,625 | 13,857 | 88,378 | 102,235 |
| Mar | 161,200 | 134,001 | 14,430 | 115,005 | 129,434 |
| Apr | 156,000 | 137,769 | 14,551 | 133,114 | 147,665 |
| May | 161,200 | 148,012 | 14,579 | 146,274 | 160,854 |
| June | 156,000 | 147,043 | 14,585 | 155,225 | 168,810 |
| July | 161,200 | 154,694 | 14,587 | 161,730 | 176,316 |
| Aug | 161,200 | 156,653 | 14,587 | 166,276 | 180,863 |
| Sept | 156,000 | 152,908 | 14,587 | 169,368 | 183,995 |
| Oct | 161,000 | 158,953 | 14,587 | 171,616 | 186,203 |
| Nov | 156,000 | 154,472 | 14,587 | 173,144 | 187,731 |
| DEC | 161,000 | 160,089 | 14,587 | 174,255 | 188,842 |
As you can see, the Small Airways eventually reach equilibrium where the clearance is enough to prevent additional accumulation, but the alveoli do not reach such an equilibrium. A small portion of the vapor deposited there becomes permanent, and even the temporary depositions- a significant portion will take 20+ years to clear.
Maximize Alveolar Restructuring
Alveolar restructuring is by far the most significant effect girls will get to experience, but it also takes by far the longest. It takes around six or seven years for the first whispers of symptoms to start appearing unfortunately. On the bright side, maximizing it is fairly simple, and girls who vape by craving aren’t missing out on too much.
The most critical thing for girls to do if they want to maximize alveolar restructuring is just to make sure they’re vaping daily. A girl who vapes daily takes about half as long to reach measurable impacts as a girl who only vapes intermittently. The only other thing girls can really do to help this one along is taking those long, strong, deep inhalations. Those will push more vapor into the alveoli allowing the restructuring to take place a bit faster, but even then, it’s not a significant difference.
For a teenage girl following the recommendations to maximize alveolar restructuring: daily use and direct-to-lung inhales- she’ll likely start to notice the first subtle exercise intolerance after around 5-10 years. After 15-20 years she’ll likely start experiencing significant permanent benefits from this.
Most Impactful Factors
A. High Nicotine Content – addiction, mucus buildup, airway restriction, and e-juice buildup
B. Daily Vaping Frequency – addiction, mucus buildup, airway restriction, juice buildup, and alveolar restructuring
C. long, deep, strong inhale technique – addiction, mucus buildup, airway restriction, juice buildup and alveolar restructuring
Other Factors That Maximize Benefits from Vaping
Starting Age
Before we talk about how the age at which a girl starts vaping effects how she’ll benefit, we need to briefly cover the two most critical ages with regards to vaping and those are 18, the age at which most girls transition out of adolescence, and age 20, the age at which most girls lungs become fully developed. There are a number of reasons it’s better for girls to start younger than this, but 18 and 20 are the cut-off points after which certain benefits become unreachable.
At 18, most girls transition out of adolescence, which means nicotine’s window to permanently restructure a girls brain has mostly closed. This causes a minor decrease in addiction opportunity, but also a significant decrease in addiction intensity. For girls who wait until they are 18 to start vaping, they are significantly less likely to achieve lifelong addiction than girls who initiated younger. While prolonged nicotine exposure will still cause receptor up-regulation increasing a girls tolerance to nicotine, dopamine reward pathways are no longer malleable, and the impulse-control section of the brain is substantially less susceptible to change.
Around age 20, most girls lungs will finish developing. This means that while vaping can still re-structure existing tissues, it’s no longer able to truncate the development of new tissue. Girls will typically have developed their maximum airway diameter baseline by 20, and her alveoli are all fully developed leaving more work for vaping to do in that area. Generally speaking, the younger a girl is the less developed her lungs and airways are and the more development vaping is able to truncate. This means girls who start vaping younger are starting off with more favorable conditions and there’s less tissue for the vape to restructure. Now that we have the critical ages out of the way, lets explore how age effects the benefits vaping has to offer for girls.
Ages ≤10 – Pre-pubescent initiation
At this age, girls typically have not started puberty yet meaning their brains are maximally malleable. Most girls at this age will begin experiencing nicotine cravings after vaping daily for just 3-14 days, and as time goes on her cravings, the nicotine, and the dopamine it releases will fundamentally change what her brain considers a rewarding activity to require nicotine.
Her age means that her airways aren’t fully developed, and as such are easier to overwhelm with mucus. Many girls who start vaping at this age develop a cough within only a couple months. The smaller airway increases the impact she experiences from the developing airway restriction, and that restriction will also help to stop her airways from developing any further, meaning she starts off with a smaller airway to beigin with.
Not only that, but her smaller airways and lungs provide a greater surface-area to volume ratio for vapor to deposit onto. Younger girls’ alveoli accumulate vape-juice faster than older smokers. Finally because her lungs are not fully developed, alveolar restructuring will have less work to do. New alveoli are unable to develop while the old alveoli are busy restructuring.
Ages 11–12 — Early puberty
Girls who start vaping in early puberty may start showing the first symptoms of addiction after only a few days, before they even experience their first cravings- but those cravings will set in soon after and most girls at this age report experiencing powerful physical cravings. Girls in early puberty tend to develop deep structural addictions soon after starting to vape daily, and any habit-based addiction is more than drowned out by their deeper structural addiction.
At this point, girls airways will still be developing meaning they’ll still be overloaded easier than an adult’s airways would be, but obviously top of that puberty causes estrogen spikes leading to even more significant inflammation. The inflammation will disrupt new tissue development, and girls will again be starting from a better place as their airways and lungs will remain smaller. Most girls will start experiencing their first noticeable reactions after 1-3 years of daily use, and like with younger girls, their smaller airways enable accelerated vape-juice buildup in the airways and lungs. Typically the early symptoms of alveolar restructuring from the vape juice tend to appear in a girls late teens or early twenties if she starts at age 12.
Ages 13–17 — From Puberty’s Middle to it’s Ending
By mid-puberty, addiction will start to develop more slowly for most girls typically taking anywhere from a few weeks to a couple months, but they’ll still be rewarded in a way adults simply aren’t. Girls at this age typically report a stronger rush, stronger anxiety relief, and sharper cravings than their adult counterparts. The brain has started to solidify it’s systems, so while nicotine can still effect many permanent changes to the brain, it’s no longer able to fundamentally rewrite the reward system to require nicotine.
The airways are approaching maturity, so while they are still a slightly reduced size, the change is far less pronounced for girls at this age. At this age, girls are typically also developing their airway restrictions slower than girls who started vaping younger, and typically the restriction is not measurable until 2-4 years of daily vaping. most girls who start vaping during mid-puberty develop a morning cough after 3-6 months, but don’t end up with chronic mucus over-production for 3-4 years.
As both airways and lungs are nearly full-size, juice deposits at nearly the same rate as for an adult. Alveolar restructuring however, will still disrupt the last few years of alveoli development. Most girls experience their first symptoms of alveolar restructuring after around 6 years.
Age 18 — Post-Puberty, Brain Still Developing
Typically by the time a girl is eighteen, her addiction will develop more slowly, typically developing full dependance after somewhere between three weeks and two months of daily use. While some permanent rewiring does still take place at this age, it’s significantly less dramatic than at younger ages. Girls at this point typically report a slightly more significant head-rush sensation and slightly stronger anxiety relief than their adult counterparts, but these changes are minor, and cravings are typically similar to an adult.
By eighteen, her airways will be nearly fully developed, so while all of the mucus production and airway inflammation factors sill apply, she’ll develop these effects with nearly the same rate and intensity as an adult. Most girls this age report chronic cough developing after three to six months of daily use with measurable airway constriction taking three to five years. The only real difference between a girl who starts at eighteen and a girl who starts at twenty is the additional two years of vaping that an eighteen year old girl will get.
While e-liquid deposition and retention operate at the same rate as an adult, eighteen year old girls may not have finished developing her alveoli just yet. Typically her alveoli will experience slightly more significant effects slightly sooner with her peak reserve-capacity in her lungs starting slightly lower. As discussed before, the reserve-capacity is the amount that vaping needs to restructure a girls lungs before the restructuring even starts to effect her breathing. It’s effectively additional restructuring that doesn’t count towards a girls benefits, so the less reserve-capacity a girl has starting out the better. If a girl starts vaping at eighteen, she’ll likely experience the first symptoms between twenty-two and twenty-four; a very similar timeline to the seventeen-year-old, but meaningfully worse than a fourteen year old.
Generally speaking the earlier a girl starts vaping the more benefits are available for her, the faster she’ll develop them, and the more impactful they’ll be. Girls who start prior to age ten experience by far the most significant benefits, with nicotine being able to effect the most permanent changes to her development if she starts before puberty. If a girl must start after she enters puberty, quick onset structural addictions are most likely prior to thirteen, and remain possible until eighteen.
Throughout puberty, girls who start younger will typically develop deeper, stronger addictions faster than girls who start later. On top of this, the younger a girl starts the more vaping is able to truncate the development of her airway. This truncation means she’ll maintain a smaller baseline airway through her whole life, allowing vaping’s benefits to take effect faster, and to provide more significant gains than girls who start later. Finally, girls who start earlier in puberty develop less reserve-capacity, meaning her lungs will need to restructure less before the structural changes begin causing noticeable effects.
Once a girl turns eighteen, deep, structural addiction becomes unavailable, no matter what strategies she may employ to deepen her addiction. This means she’ll lose her addiction is she doesn’t maintain it. Additionally, girls who start at eighteen typically have fully developed airways, meaning they’ll only be able to develop benefits at approximately the same speeds and intensities of adults. Up until age twenty however, girls may be able to develop slightly more significant effects from alveolar restructuring, and these beneficial effects will likely present themselves slightly faster in girls who start vaping before the age of twenty.
While girls who start vaping the youngest have the most benefits available to them, and will develop these benefits the fastest, and with the most intensity, age will continue to play some role in a girls development right up until the age of twenty. This means that even a girl who’s mother will not allow her to vape, is still able to use her age for at least a small advantage if she starts as soon as she turns eighteen.
