SelfhelpMagazine

by Saul Shiffman, Ph.D., Jean A. Paty, Ph.D., Walter G. Perez, Ph.D., Maryann Gnys, Ph.D., Jon D. Kessel, Ph.D., Mary Hickcox, Ph.D. & John B. Engberg, Ph.D.

Many people make New Year's Resolutions to quit smoking. Two weeks into the new year many have relapsed and smoked a cigarette. Psychological research offers some reasons for this. If you can resist the urge to smoke, you will experience fewer cravings. People with high self-esteem are especially likely to reject information suggesting that their health behavior (in this case smoking) has been unwise or risky.

In the first study, psychological researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University assessed smoking urges several times daily in 214 smokers who quit for at least 24 hours while participating in the study. Each participant was equipped with a palm-top computer to record their urges to smoke.

The research revealed that how much craving a person experiences on a given day predicts the likelihood of relapse the next day. But the best predictor of relapse was morning craving, the stronger the craving was just after waking, the more likely the person was to relapse.

The study also showed that craving was quite high before smokers quit and dropped over time. Indeed, says psychologist Saul Shiffman, Ph.D., from the Smoking Research Group at the University of Pittsburgh, and lead author of the study, "cravings for cigarettes after abstinence seem to drop over time, so the longer you abstain the easier it will get."

Dr. Shiffman's advice to smokers trying to quit: "Don't get discouraged, the longer you resist the urge to relapse, the fewer urges you will experience."

Reference:

Saul Shiffman, Ph.D., Jean A. Paty, Ph.D., Walter G. Perez, Ph.D., Maryann Gnys, Ph.D., Jon D. Kessel, Ph.D., Mary Hickcox, Ph.D. & John B. Engberg, Ph.D. A Day at a Time: Predicting Smoking Lapse From Daily Urge. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 401-402.

This information received from the American Psychological Association (APA), in Washington, DC.