14 DAY TRIAL // UK investigators from the University of Oxford and the University of Birmingham discovered in a new study that people who give up smoking tend to experience improved mental health shortly afterwards.
According to the team, the improvements are roughly comparable to those experienced by mood and anxiety disorder patients who finally go on antidepressant medication. This finding negates one of the main arguments of smokers, which is that cigarettes help them cope with anxiety and stress.
In many cases, people with diagnosed mental health problems fear that quitting the habit might make their conditions worse. The new research demonstrates that this is not the case, Science Blog reports.
“Patients often say to me, ‘Doctor, I’m too stressed to stop smoking now.’ I hope doctors will now reassure those patients that there’s a good chance that stopping smoking will make you less stressed,” says Oxford professor Paul Aveyard, from the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences.
The investigator goes on to say that quitting the habit might actually work as a type of treatment for patients with chronic mental health problems. However, more work is needed to confirm this idea.