Quit abruptly to stop smoking, says new study

“For many people, the obvious way to quit smoking is to cut down gradually until they stop,” said lead author Nicola Lindson-Hawley, a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Oxford in the UK. “The norm is to advise people to stop all at once and our study found evidence to support that,” Lindson-Hawley said. 

 “What we found was that more people managed to quit when they stopped smoking all in one go than when they gradually reduced before quitting.” The researchers assigned almost 700 adult smokers to either an abrupt quitting or gradual reduction group. Half of people preferred to cut down gradually, a third preferred abrupt quitting and the rest had no preference. 

Four weeks later, 40% of the gradual group were still not smoking, compared to 49% of the abrupt quit group. By six months, 15% of gradual quitters and 22% of abrupt quitters were not smoking. Those who choose to quit gradually are often more addicted and have failed to quit abruptly several times before, said Dr. John Hughes, University of Vermont in Burlington