When it comes to quitting smoking, craving can be a real trap, leading many smokers to relapse every year. But what is this phenomenon? What’s behind it? What can you do to stop suffering? LaserOstop gives you all the tricks that work to fight insurmountable cravings and put an end to cigarettes for good!
What is tobacco craving?
The definition of craving
The word craving comes from the verb “to crave”, used to describe a strong need to do or obtain something. In the context of tobacco consumption, craving refers to a strong, but above all irresistible, desire to smoke. It’s that special moment when you’d turn your whole home upside down to find even half a cigarette. It’s also what drives some smokers to travel dozens of kilometers on a Sunday to find an open tobacconist’s when they’ve run out of packets. As you can see, it’s very difficult to fight these cravings.
A real factor in relapse
Craving is present in all addictions and is not only a hindrance, but also a frequent relapse factor for people wishing to wean themselves off the habit. Unfortunately, craving doesn’t stop when you stop taking drugs. It can even last a relatively long time. All smokers and ex-smokers suffer from it, even when they don’t know its name! For regular tobacco users, the solution is simple: just light up a cigarette and it dissipates. But once you’ve embarked on the process of quitting smoking, it becomes more complicated.
Craving mechanisms
Nicotine is a psychoactive substance. This means that it acts on the brain and alters the functioning of neural circuits, driving the smoker to constantly crave his nicotine fix. This partly explains the symptom. But there’s another aspect underlying this one. By always smoking in similar circumstances, a form of conditioning sets in. When you stop smoking, you stop, but the situations in which you were using tobacco remain. It’s in these particular contexts that irrepressible cravings can appear.
What contributes to the irresistible urge to smoke?
This urge to smoke is due to the physical and psychological dependence on tobacco, but it is above all environmental and psychological factors that are at its root.
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Physical dependence
When you haven’t smoked for several hours, or during the early stages of withdrawal, nicotine withdrawal can be responsible for an unbearable urge to smoke. Simply adding it to the body will solve the problem. But during the course of smoking cessation, you’ll soon realize that the use of nicotine substitutes is not enough to put an end to this phenomenon, which often lasts well beyond the physical withdrawal phase.
Psychological and environmental factors
The act of smoking is intimately linked to your lifestyle, your emotions and the environment around you. Any situation likely to remind you of good times, but also of bad times spent with cigarettes, can therefore provoke a craving. Factors that contribute to an uncontrollable urge to smoke include :
- find yourself in a context in which you used to systematically light up a cigarette (while drinking a coffee, during a break at work, while out with friends, when waking up, etc.),
- rub shoulders with smokers or inhale their cigarette smoke,
- experience stress, anxiety or depression,
- frequent a place where you used to smoke (bar, discotheque, friends’ homes or even your own).
Can you overcome smoking cravings without throwing yourself on a cigarette?
By definition, craving is intense, but it is extremely short-lived. On average, the urge to smoke lasts only 3 to 5 minutes. After this period, it diminishes and then disappears. So it’s entirely possible to overcome this craving without giving in to the irresistible urge to smoke, but you’ll have to make some effort to do so. Such strong sensations obviously can’t dissipate if you focus on them.
Overcoming cravings at the start of smoking cessation
In the early stages of smoking cessation, the urge to smoke may be linked to the physical lack of nicotine. You can do something about this aspect of addiction by taking a nicotine replacement. Ideally, it’s best to use a sustained-release device, such as a patch, or gum regularly to prevent nicotine cravings.
What to do in all cases
Whether you quit smoking recently, several months ago or even several years ago, the main strategy for overcoming the urge to smoke is to leave the situation that gave rise to it. After that, you’ll need to keep your mind occupied so you don’t have to think about it anymore.
You can, for example, concentrate harder on your current activity or do something you’ve been meaning to do later. You can also plan a ready-to-use strategy specially designed for these moments. This is what practitioners specializing in cognitive and behavioral therapies (CBT) recommend. In this case, you can, for example, choose to brush your teeth or do a little meditation every time you find yourself in this tricky situation.
In any case, if you take the necessary steps, the need to smoke will be a thing of the past in less than fifteen minutes.
How to put an end to long-term craving?
Remember what prompted you to quit!
To put an end to this very uncomfortable phenomenon for good, it’s important to remember why you wanted to stop smoking in the first place. Of course, you’ve probably done it as a priority to avoid health worries or contribute to their resolution. But when it comes to cravings, what works best is to think about the immediate benefits of withdrawal. For example, you no longer have bad breath, your children no longer reproach you for smelling like cigarettes, and you no longer expose them to toxic fumes.
Eliminate everything that makes you want to smoke
Ideally, you should change the habits that most often trigger your desire to smoke. Some will probably be difficult to modify, but you’re sure to find adaptations for many of them. You can, for example, choose to drink your coffee in another room or bar, or switch to tea instead of coffee. Also consider taking your breaks during working hours in a different place, and eliminating stress- and anxiety-inducing situations as much as possible. Little by little, you’ll break with your old habits and be less tempted to smoke.
Make sure you get rid of anything that reminds you of cigarettes or makes smoking easier. Throw away or donate new or used cigarette packs. Hide any ashtrays left in plain view. Put away any lighters lying around, etc.
Medicines that can help... or not!
There are medications that can help fight the urge to smoke. Unfortunately, this means you’re replacing an addiction with drug treatments, which isn’t ideal. The best thing is to find the resources within yourself to control your cravings. But that doesn’t mean you can’t get help! Your laser-free withdrawal specialist laserOstop offers you an effective, simple, fast and above all side-effect-free solution to stop smoking and overcome those cravings more easily.
laserOstop, to put an end to cravings
Thanks to a low-density laser operating by photobiomodulation, laserOstop acts directly on the reflex points that trigger the desire to smoke. It makes it possible to stop smoking without suffering and without the use of chemical substances. This method has already won over tens of thousands of smokers, or rather ex-smokers!
Non-invasive, painless, safe and without triggering compensation mechanisms, laser stop tabac laserOstop is effective in a single session. This technique works for anyone wishing to end their tobacco addiction, including long-term smokers. In Saudi Arabia, you can take advantage of these services at specialized laserOstop smoking cessation centers.
