Quitting cigarette smoking might be one of the hardest ordeals one could ever face, but surely, it isn’t impossible.
Normally, when people want to quit smoking, they tend to stop gradually, but a research has found that it’s the wrong way to go.
A study by researchers from Oxford University looked at a sample of 697 smokers who wanted to quit smoking.
The group was split into two. The “abrupt cessation group were given a date on which to stop smoking; the second group, the gradual cessation group, had to quit gradually over two weeks.
After the supposed day of quitting, smokers from both groups were monitored weekly for the next four weeks, and after six months.
After four weeks, 39% of the gradual cessation group were still not smoking, compared with 49% of the abrupt cessation group.
So, it’s obvious that the best way to quit smoking is by stopping abruptly rather than gradually.
The study was published in the latest journal of Annals of Internal Medicine.
S.O.Z