14 DAY TRIAL // Drugs tend to cause addiction, and whether or not people like to hear it, smoking is an addictive habit because of the nicotine, meaning that cigarettes qualify as a drug, albeit a legal one. Fortunately, it's a lot easier to quit smoking than, say, give up heroin or cocaine.
It's still not painless though, and you might not even reach the withdrawal stage because you might just keep smoking out of habit for a while before you finally stop forgetting you're supposed to be kicking the habit.
To help people out when it comes to giving up smoking, US-based Chrono Therapeutics has released the SmartStop wristband. In a nutshell, it's a new way of carrying out nicotine replacement therapy (NRT).
You see, nicotine is the substance that causes addiction, so if you get regular doses of it, you can curb the need to have a smoke altogether. No longer will you blacken your lungs by making them shrivel and die from within.
The NRT therapy can slowly diminish the doses of nicotine until you can give up the treatment as well. It is, overall, a far less unpleasant method than just stopping smoking and hoping for the best.
Withdrawal from smoking may not be as bad as from illegal drugs, but it can still cause physical and mental discomfort. Lots of it. Bad enough that it often defeats people whose dedication to abandoning the habit isn't quite as high as it needs to be.
The name of the wrist device invented by Chrono Therapeutics is SmartStop. It almost looks like a watch, but the lack of a face is quite telling.
The base is reusable. Worn on the wrist, arm or torso, it holds a nicotine cartridge that can be replaced once the contents are fully depleted. You can program it to satiate peak cravings via programmable transdermal NRT.
Bluetooth technology lets you hook the thing up to a custom smartphone app that helps you maximize the benefits of the therapy. For example, if you have a normal sleep cycle, then the strongest cravings for a smoke come right as you wake up in the morning (those nicotine-free hours of the night want retribution). Meal time and dinner time are the other two, unsurprisingly.
And since 90% of NRT methods fail because they don't match craving cycles, then the new wearable device might turn out to be a lot more important than anyone would have thought. Success rate should go up to 50% if you use it.
