Thinking About Quitting Smoking? Good, Keep Thinking!

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Thinking About Quitting Smoking? Good, Keep Thinking!

(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in the U.S., taking 440,000 lives each year. It's possible to save your life and stop your cravings without spending an arm and a leg, researchers say. All it takes is a little mind control.

Nicotine cravings can be reduced significantly by teaching the brain to control cravings, new research shows. Smokers who are taught cognitive strategies, like thinking about the negative impact smoking has, displayed increased activity in their prefrontal cortex, a brain area linked to cognitive control and rational thought. They also showed impairment of activity in the striatum, linked with reward seeking behavior, planning, and drug cravings.

"This shows that smokers can indeed control their cravings," Hedy Kober, lead author of the study and an assistant professor of psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Conn., was quoted as saying. "They just need to be told how to do it."

Cravings are intense desires for something, and in the case of smoking, it's nicotine. Such cravings can inhibit a person both socially and economically. With new cognitive exercises, smokers report less cravings and therefore less smoking.

Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, August 2, 2010

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