Quit smoking: 10 ways to resist tobacco cravings

Tips to control Tobacco cravings

Here are 10 ways to help you resist the urge to smoke or use tobacco when a craving strikes.

1. Try nicotine replacement therapy

Short-acting nicotine replacement therapies — such as nicotine gum, lozenges, nasal sprays or inhalers — can help you overcome intense cravings. These short-acting therapies are usually safe to use along with long-acting nicotine patches or one of the non-nicotine stop-smoking drugs. Ask your health care provider about nicotine replacement therapy.

2. Avoid triggers

Tobacco urges are likely to be strongest in places where you smoked most often, such as at parties, or at times when you were feeling stressed or sipping coffee. Finding out your triggers can help you avoid them or help you get through them without using tobacco.

3. Chew on it

Chewing on to something like a sugarless gum or hard candy or something crunchy and tasty like raw carrots, nuts or sunflower seeds can help to resist tobacco cravings.

4. Do Physical Activities

Short bursts of activity — such as running up and down the stairs a few times — can make a tobacco craving go away. Getting out for a walk or jog can help distract you from tobacco cravings. If you don’t want to do this, then you can engage in other activities like sewing, writing in a journal, or cleaning and filing papers for distraction.

5. Try relaxation techniques

For many people, smoking may have been their way to deal with stress, so fighting back against a tobacco craving can itself be stressful. To take the edge of stress, try practicing ways to relax, such as deep breathing, muscle relaxation, yoga, visualization, massage or listening to calming music.

6. Don’t have ‘Just One’ thought

To satisfy a tobacco craving, you might be tempted to have just one cigarette. But don’t fool yourself into believing that as having one leads to one more. And this way you may end up using tobacco again.

7. Get support from family and friends

To quit smoking naturally, connecting with a family member, friend or support group member can help in your effort to resist a tobacco craving. Counselling session may help to.

8. Find online support

Joining an online stop-smoking program or reading a quitter's blog and post can encourage thoughts for someone else who might be dealing with tobacco cravings. Learning from how others have handled their tobacco cravings, you too can learn to resist.

9. Delay your urge

If you feel like you're going to give in to your tobacco craving, simple tricks such as telling yourself that you must first wait 10 more minutes and then do something to distract yourself during that time, or going to a public smoke-free zone can be helpful to move you past your tobacco craving.

10. Remind yourself of the benefits

Reminding yourself about benefits of quitting smoking can help resist tobacco cravings. Write down or say out loud why you want to stop smoking and resist tobacco cravings.