Chan EY. Mindfulness and smoking frequency: An investigation with Australian students.
Addict Behav Rep 2021;
13:100342. [PMID:
33786361 PMCID:
PMC7988491 DOI:
10.1016/j.abrep.2021.100342]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/26/2021] [Revised: 03/03/2021] [Accepted: 03/09/2021] [Indexed: 11/24/2022] Open
Abstract
Mindfulness training helps smokers reduce smoking frequency.
However, mindfulness training techniques free of mentions about smoking are absent.
Also, it is unclear how mindfulness training might have such an effect.
We manipulated mindfulness or mind-wandering in 91 Australian students using no mentions of smoking.
Outcome arises via both acceptance of urges and ability to resist smoking impulses.
Mindfulness training has been shown to be effective in reducing smoking frequency. However, mindfulness training instructions that are free of mentions about smoking are rare, which makes it difficult to ascertain if it is the temporary state of being mindful or demand effects that reduce smoking frequency. It has also been posited that mindfulness training lowers smoking frequency by helping smokers surf the urge, but this remains untested. Thus, we conducted an experiment to test the likely process. We used a 6-minute audio clip to induce a brief mindfulness state or a mind-wandering state in 91 Australian students; the brief mindfulness exercise was free of any mentions about smoking. We found that exposure to the mindfulness-inducing audio clip helped smokers surf their urge when they were later exposed to cigarette cues and they smoked less over the subsequent 7 days. The current work offers empirical evidence for why mindfulness training can be effective in smoking cessation.
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