Exercise Reduces the Urge to Smoke

We know that to quit smoking are multiple paths to follow, and specialized clinics are just one of them. Many of the solutions involve performing simple procedures that act on your subconscious to help your willpower to say no to cigarettes. The exercise is on the list.

Science has shown that exercise helps you stop smoking, but this time a study by the University of Exeter in the journal Addiction can yield new clues corroborating the influence that exercise has on your subconscious.

The research worked with a group of volunteer’s smokers, who were asked not to smoke for 15 hours before the experiment. Participants were shown neutral images before making fifteen minutes of exercise, and after that they returned to display images, this time, those related to situations associated with smoking.

Measuring eye movements of participants, researchers focused on observing whether the images associated with smoking caused more interest in other pictures volunteers.

The investigation concluded that having taken exercise, smokers paid less attention to the images of snuff consumption, proving that physical activity acts on our brains distancing of smoking, at least temporarily.

Of course, that does not mean that makes you practice your quit. It’s just one of many steps you can take if you are looking to get away from this bad habit. Try a week of aerobic exercise and then measure your desire to smoke to prove it.