With the rise in vaping use, many people who vape are starting to get concerned about their health and want to know what the most effective ways to quit vaping is. Here are some tips I use to help people who are trying to quit vaping.
1. See a Trained Professional on Getting Help
A trained professional will ask the right question to identify some of your reasons to smoke, your reasons to quit, your goals, and work with you to develop a personalized plan that works for you. Ask for their qualifications and understand how they plan to help you over the next few sessions to help you quit. Vaping is both a behavioral and physical addiction and may need someone who can navigate both those aspects to help you quit successfully. I let my patients know upfront that they have to do the homework outside of our sessions to find the strategies that work for them. Everyone is unique and only a trained professional can help them explore and navigate some of those challenges.
2. Get Nicotine Replacement Therapy
Nicotine is highly addictive and some people experience physical withdrawals. To counter this, there are FDA approved medications available for people who are trying to wean themselves off from nicotine. These include the nicotine patch, nicotine gum, and nicotine lozenge, which are available over the counter. There are also nicotine inhaler and nicotine nasal spray with a provider’s prescription. Consult your doctor or provider for more information on the best options for you. Be sure to check your health insurance’s formulary has these products available for free to their members.
For anyone under the age of 18, this option may not be available to you. However, some people choose to use straws, gum, toothpicks, and other tools to distract themselves while going through withdrawal. Use products that can help keep your mouth and hands busy.
3. Identify Your Routines
In order to tackle your behavioral addiction, one area of your vaping life you need to focus on is some of your vaping habits.
- When do you vape throughout the day?
- What are you usually doing before you vape?
- How are you feeling before you vape?
These questions can be helpful in identifying some patterns. Write them down and associate it with other things you notice while vaping during that time.
4. Come Up With Your Craving List
Everyone needs to find their own activities to distract themselves from the thoughts of vaping. I provided a list here of suggestions that you may be interested in trying out. Print it out, mark out the ones you are interested in trying out and keep it with you at all times.
5. Experiment
After identifying your routines and items in your craving kit, the first thing to do is tackle the easiest routine that you want to get rid of. After that, pick a few items on your craving list that you want to try out to disrupt, delay, and get rid of that routine.
As an example, let us pick a random ten-minute break in your day. In the craving list, you want to try out chewing gum, playing a game on your phone, and deep breathing exercises. Everyone should try to delay the time they normally vape by a length of time they feel comfortable with. Some may want to delay five minutes while others may want to delay one minute. It is completely up to you. As you keep doing it, try to increase the smoke-free time until you are successful in not vaping at all.
It is not easy and some ideas will work while others will not. The goal is to keep trying until you find the right strategies that work for you. Good luck!
Wen is a Certified Health and Wellness Coach who helped people change their behaviors. He brings experience from educating people about their physical health, nutrition, sexual health, and substance use. As a coach, he has worked with over one hundred clients in changing their tobacco use and had over five hundred conversations as a crisis counselor.
