October 8, 2011

Mindfulness is the ability to be aware and attentive of the present moment without emotional reaction, and training in this approach has been shown to help the brain grow, reduce stress and improve cognitive ability. Now, a recent study at Yale University shows that mindfulness training can be an effective tool to help smokers quit smoking over a seventeen week period.

The small study was led by Judson Alyn Brewer, MD/PhD, Medical Director of the Yale Therapeutic Neuroscience Clinic. The results will be published in the upcoming issue of Drug and Alcohol Dependence.

The study took 88 nicotine-dependent adults who were seeking treatment. Participants were smoking an average of 20 cigarettes per day. Each participant was randomly assigned to receive either Mindfulness Training (MT) or the American Lung Association's Freedom from Smoking (FFS) treatment. For both approaches, two group treatments were delivered twice per week over a four week period, for a total of eight sessions.

88% of the participants who received MT and 84% who received FFS completed all treatments. Following the treatments, participants were interviewed again after seventeen weeks. In both groups cigarette smoking was reduced, but the Mindfulness Training was associated with greater reductions in smoking at both four weeks and seventeen weeks, with a 17-week success rate of 31% for MT vs. 6% for FFS.

In a February 23, 2009 article by the New Haven Register about his work on smoking cessation, Dr. Brewer said, “Mindfulness has a two-component definition for the scientific community. First, it’s maintaining your attention on the present moment, and the second is you’re bringing to that a nonjudgmental attitude of acceptance and curiosity.”

In a September 21, 2011 article in Forbes, Brewer addressed mindfulness and smoking and how cravings can power negative thoughts. His view is that methods (like meditation), which allow the individual to ride out the craving/unhappiness by attending to it, accepting it, and then letting it go, have been successful because they actually break the unhappiness cycle instead of simply masking it.

Sources: Forbes Magazine and The New Haven Register

Study: Brewer JA, et al. Mindfulness training for smoking cessation: Results from a randomized controlled trial. Drug and Alcohol Dependence. 2011 Jun 30. [Epub ahead of print]

Dave Gorczynski is president of SPARK, a non-profit organization that has provided free energy work sessions and workshops across New York City since 2002. He writes a regular column about energy work and meditation for the Compact News in New York City's Chinatown. E-mail him at dave@sparkenergy.org.