Five ways to quit smoking
Getting on with it is the most important thing. But there are tricks to make sure you don’t give in to the inevitable cravings
Smokers who try to gradually taper down the amount they smoke are less likely to quit than those who do so abruptly. “The problem with quitting smoking is it’s something you can always do tomorrow,” says Paul Aveyard, a professor of behavioural medicine at the University of Oxford. “Committing to a day, and making that the day, is the key to success.” This is because of the way the brain learns and unlearns patterns of addiction. “The urges to smoke can be unlearned, providing you never have a cigarette at those moments of temptation,” he says. “So having a sneaky one now and again is just going to prolong the agony.”