What Is the Most Effective Way to Quit Smoking?

While there are a number of ways to quit smoking, not all of them are equally successful. Here we will break down What Is the Most Effective Way to Quit Smoking that has been used with the most success by those who quit. Keep in mind that success rates will not be the same for everyone. In the end, quitting comes down to a personal decision, the amount of willpower you have and a variety of factors affecting your daily life. But if you want the best chance of success, then these are the methods you should be trying.

Nicotine Replacement

More people successfully quit smoking when they use some sort of nicotine therapy than by almost any other measure. This could involve applying a nicotine patch, using nicotine lozenges, or any other form of nicotine therapy.

What this does is, hopefully, reduce the amount of nicotine going into your body. Gradually, you decrease the amounts you are taking each day and finally get rid of the nicotine and nicotine replacement entirely. This weans your body off of smoking slowly without having to just cut back on cigarettes over time. You will still feel the effects of nicotine on your body, but you won’t be suffering from all the negative effects of smoking a cigarette. It’s not the safest way to quit smoking, but it works the best for the largest number of people.

Trigger Avoidance

For everyone who smokes, there are certain triggers that cause you to crave cigarettes more than you would in most situations. For some people, that trigger is a stressful situation. For others, they simply have a set time and place where they smoke, perhaps when they are on break from work or when they are talking on the phone.

As you quit smoking, these triggers will become even more powerful at creating cravings. If you want to stop yourself form giving in to the cravings, you need to ensure that the triggers never activate. So that means actively avoiding situations that make you feel like you need a cigarette. And if you are used to having a cigarette during something you do every day, then occupy yourself otherwise during those times.

If you would normally smoke while on the phone, then keep a pen and paper handy to just doodle and scribble while you talk. If you would smoke on your lunch break, then do something to keep yourself engaged and distracted from smoking during that time.

Cold Turkey

It may be hard to believe, but the majority of people who have successfully quit smoking have done so by quitting cold turkey. They decided that they would never take another cigarette and they followed through on that promise to themselves.

Now it may seem odd that more people could quit this way than any other, especially since most experts advise that you never try to quit cold turkey. But these statistics come straight from the American Cancer Society. More than 80% of those who have successfully quit smoking did so by the cold turkey method. Now you can’t just decide to stop smoking and have no plan beyond that and expect to be successful. Many of those who have quit cold turkey did so with a lot of support from other people.

The surrounded themselves with people who cared about them and their success and they made a detailed plan about how they were going to go about quitting. This involves lot of willpower, constant reminders why they were quitting and people who were looking out for their wellbeing.

Slowly but Surely

You could also try to quit by just cutting back on your cigarette use until you no longer need a cigarette anymore. This is ideal for heavy smokers who are really deep into their habit. You can just slowly cut back how much you smoke from day to day and week to week.

You take yourself form a pack a day to a pack a week and then a cigarette every other day. This gradually depletes the amount of nicotine in your body and makes the cravings easier to resist, but it may not work for everyone.

And that is the story with each of these methods. They are going to work well for some people, but not for everyone. You may know someone who quit cold turkey, but that doesn’t mean you will be able to do it. Quitting is something personal, and each individual has to find their own best way to do so.

Resource: quitsmokingcommunity.org