| Psychology study helps smokers put out cigarettes BY SALLY ACHARYA Having trouble with that New Year’s resolution to quit smoking? AU’s psychology department is helping people kick the habit. The department’s Smoking Cessation Study, funded by a three-year grant from the National Cancer Institute, includes a seven-week treatment program and group counseling to boost the odds of quitting for good. Led by psychology professor David Haag, an expert on cigarette smoking, addiction relapse, and cognitive behavior therapy, it uses a technique of scheduled cigarette reduction that has proven more useful than either “cold turkey” or simply cutting back on one’s own on the number of cigarettes. In the study, a smoker who puffs on 21 cigarettes daily would begin by cutting down to 14 a day, smoked only at scheduled times. “The reason to schedule the cigarettes rather than just smoking whenever you choose is to try to disassociate the act of smoking from the environmental or internal [cues],” Haag says. Smokers often pick up a cigarette when they’re sad, stressed, or bored. They’re also likely to associate smoking with acts such as chatting on the phone, socializing, or taking a break at work. When cigarettes are reduced and smoked only at strictly scheduled times, the links to such cues can be broken, making it ultimately easier to quit. “If you just tell people to cut down gradually, they tend to retain the most-preferred cigarettes—‘I could give up the ones after dinner, but I absolutely have to smoke as soon as I wake up’—which makes it difficult to stop altogether at the appointed time,” Haag says. Counseling is another important factor in success. “Group members provide one another with social support for quitting, and collectively come up with good ideas for handling some of the obstacles,” Haag says. Groups will be led by doctoral students, who will emphasize strategies that have proven successful in the past, such as exercise, giving oneself rewards for not smoking, and enlisting the support of family and friends. There’s no magic about the seven-week number. It’s a practical consideration. The time commitment needs to be a short enough to be realistic for busy people. But it also needs to be long enough to accommodate both the scheduled reduction in smoking and the once-a-week counseling sessions, which provide people with tools to handle the temptations and urges they’ll confront after quitting. It’s hardly news that smoking is bad for health, yet it continues to be a serious health challenge. AU has made a number of efforts over the years to curtail smoking on campus, including the introduction of smoke-free residence halls in fall 2003. The Wellness Center participated in the Great American Smoke out on Nov. 18, encouraging smokers to quit for the day and sharing information on how and why to make the effort. “Smoking is so detrimental to your health, in so many ways,” says health educator Kathy Haldeman of the Student Health Center, whose uncle recently died of lung cancer after years of smoking and whose aunt’s smoking led to bladder cancer, requiring the removal of her bladder. It’s easy for smokers, especially young ones, to think of these diseases as something that would happen in the distant future, Haldeman says. “But what happens early on is you develop more colds, get bronchitis more frequently, you have a cough, your hair and clothes and car and apartment or house smell. And it produces wrinkles.” After all, a smoker’s blood, instead of circulating oxygen, is circulating carbon monoxide through the body. And smokers breathe in more than carbon monoxide. An informational display from the Wellness Center reveals some of the unpalatable extras that come with cigarettes, including pesticides and the main ingredients found in nail polish and lighter fluid. If that sounds like something to quit ingesting, the psychology department can help. The study will run through 2007, and participants can start any time through the final months of the study. “But why wait for ’07?” Haag asks. “Life is short. Do it now.”
| Interested in participating in the Smoking Cessation Study at AU’s Department of Psychology? Call the department at 885-1784 to learn more. Participants don’t have to be members of the AU community. |
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