Key takeaways
- Meditation's role in quitting smoking: A guide.
- Stress reduction through guided meditation techniques.
- Enhanced self-control: A benefit of regular meditation.
- Mindfulness in quitting: Predicting and controlling actions.
- Improved concentration during nicotine withdrawal with meditation.
Meditation is an ancient practice that has helped people stay calm and improve mindfulness even in stressful times. But can a practice that’s over 7,000 years old really help you regain focus and manage emotions caused by modern-day issues, like overcoming a smoking addiction?
Many GPs and smoking cessation groups include meditation in their approach to quitting smoking. Studies show that meditating along with counseling programs and nicotine replacement therapies (NRTs) can help former smokers stay motivated and committed to their goal of quitting.
Since meditation is tied to mindfulness, it can help former smokers leave their old habits behind. Being mindful keeps you fully aware of your actions and helps you handle urges to pick up a cigarette.
Ex-smokers who regularly practice mindfulness often catch themselves thinking about buying a cigarette and can stop themselves before giving in to temptation.
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Continue reading to learn more about how meditation can help smokers kick the habit.
Reduced Stress
Experienced practitioners say that meditation can help manage extreme stress. Since quitting smoking can be stressful, meditation can help you handle that stress better and eventually quit smoking for good.
When you dive into guided meditation therapy, people say you can relax and sleep better, handle stressful situations in a healthier way, and stay on track with your goal of quitting smoking even when you’re feeling tense.
Meditation can be helpful during your withdrawal days. When those cravings hit and you’re struggling, having meditation and a strong support system can make it a lot easier for you to get through.
Self-Control
Self-control is easier said than done, especially when you’re trying to quit smoking. It’s one thing to say you’ll stay strong, but actually doing it can be tough.
That’s where meditation comes in. It won’t magically fix anything, but it can definitely help.
Meditation can help you stay aware of what’s going on in your head. It helps you spot those triggers that make you want a cigarette and gives you a chance to deal with them before they get the best of you.
The more you practice, the more you might find yourself handling cravings better and making healthier choices. You might even stumble upon new, healthy hobbies that help fill the gap left by smoking. So, while it might not be easy, trying meditation could be worth it.
Mindfulness
Imagine you had the power to see the future. If you knew that your continued smoking will result in lung cancer in 10 to 15 years, you would certainly want to give them the flick now.
Mindfulness isn’t exactly the power to predict the future, but the ability to be conscious of your actions. Habits are unconscious processes, like breathing, ensuring the heart beats, the stomach digests food and other bodily activities.
Some external activities, like buying a cigarette when stressed, become habits we’re not conscious of doing. You light up a cigarette on impulse as an automatic response. Mindfulness aims to eliminate that by helping you recognise the actions you’re about to take and note them.
When you meditate, you become mindful of your thoughts and also your actions, letting you take control over them.
Improved Concentration
Any ex-smoker will tell you it will be hard to work or study during your first two weeks off cigarettes. Your body is screaming for its regular dose of nicotine and the withdrawals from this will wreak havoc on your focus.
By practising meditation, you acknowledge that you currently feel anxious, depressed, and even physically sick. Then, you can tell yourself that a cigarette won’t make those feelings go away and you can only do so by enduring them.
It won’t be easy to believe what you tell yourself and might even sound silly to you during the first few days, but with frequent meditation, it becomes much easier to concentrate and have confidence in yourself.
Consider using nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) or nicotine vaping products (NVPs) to help handle your withdrawals better, improve your meditations, and busy yourself by deeply concentrating on exercising or new hobbies and activities.
Productivity
Speaking of new hobbies and activities, meditation helps improve your productivity.
During your meditation, you can refocus your attention towards the great strides you’ve made by weaning off cigarettes and improving your skills in drawing, writing, or any other hobby or activity you’ve been working on.
When you feel like having a cigarette, meditation can help remind you that the skills you recently mastered won’t be possible if you lit a cigarette.
Start on Your Quit Journey Today
Meditation to help quit smoking is a helpful activity to maintain focus and develop discipline. Practising it can be challenging at first, but over time, you can manage your stress, have excellent self-control, and become much more productive in doing away with smoking and better with life.
If you wanted to know about how meditation helps on your quit journey, we hope you found this information useful. In fact, if you want to know the best way to quit smoking for good, you’re in the right place.
Smokefree Clinic gives you access to many medically reviewed and trustworthy resources that can inform and aid you in your path to wellness, so have a look around!
If you’re ready to get started, Smokefree can connect you to Australian healthcare professionals who excel in helping patients quit smoking for good.
Link Reference
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27044630/
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272735813000731?via%3Dihub
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6186836/