14 DAY TRIAL // Do you want to quit smoking? Then stop thinking about it so much and make that step. This is the conclusion of a study published in the British Medicine Journal, which says that unplanned attempts to quit smoking are more successful than planned ones.
Up until now, it has been believed that quitting cigarettes involves a compulsory set of steps, such as: thinking about it, planning and, finally, making the attempt.
Over 1,900 smokers and ex-smokers in England were interviewed about their attempts to quit, whether their most recent quit attempt was planned in advance, and whether quit attempts made at least six month's before had been successful.
Almost half of the attempts to stop smoking involved no previous planning and, surprisingly, unplanned quit attempts were more likely to succeed, even after adjusting for age, sex, and socioeconomic group.
This doesn't mean that planned attempts never succeed, just that the efficiency of the anti-smoking campaigns could be increased if these were adapted.
They propose a theory in which smokers have varying levels of motivational "tension" to stop and then "triggers" in the environment lead to a sudden renunciation of smoking. Thus, a public health campaign should perhaps focus on creating motivational tension, triggering action in smokers who are on the cusp of a change in their orientation to smoking, and immediate availability of treatment such as nicotine patches and counseling to support those attempts.