Most individuals who smoke know that it is harmful and wish to give it up. In this piece for News18.com, Dr Lancelot Pinto, Visiting Senior Fellow, Artha Global, discuss behavioural strategies to move away from addiction to nicotine.
Excerpts below:
“What are the behavioral strategies that might help? Breaking associations can help. If one smokes when having coffee, switch to tea. If one smokes in the balcony, make it difficult to enter the balcony (consider locking it, for example). Consider quitting with a smoking buddy so you can support each other. Have a written action plan which changes smoking to something else (“If I have a strong desire to smoke , I will listen to the playlist of my favorite songs instead”).”
“Medicines to help individuals give up smoking are more effective than behavioral strategies alone. […] Medicines work by tricking the brain into receiving the same feeling of being stimulated by nicotine, without exposing the body to the hundreds of cancer-causing, mouth and lung irritating substances that chewing and smoking tobacco exposes the body to, respectively. The strategy that I use in my smoking cessation therapy is a combination of a nicotine patch (a steady level of nicotine prevents severe cravings) along with nicotine lozenges to be used as and when needed.”
Read the full article here.
