How to Quit Smoking with Complimentary Approaches

Evidence is scarce, but alternatives to medicines are growing in popularity. Here’s how to quit smoking with natural ways like acupuncture and hypnosis.

Many successful smoking quitters have sworn by alternative aids such as hypnosis, meditation, and acupuncture.

The success of alternative approaches can be difficult to quantify in a clinical setting. So far, the results have been mixed or inconclusive.

"People shouldn’t think that alternative modalities will help alone; they should be combined with other treatment," says Amit Sood, MD, creator of the Mayo Clinic’s Resilient Mind program. "Smoking is a serious problem and should be treated like a real chronic disease."

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE: What Triggers You to Smoke?

How to quit smoking with complementary approaches

Alternative and complimentary therapies may help mostly with the mental prompts that smoking cessation medications don’t address.

Hypnosis for quitting smoking is a popular choice for its ability to change behavior quickly. "Hypnosis is nothing more than the alpha state — a state of mind that we pass through as we fall asleep at night, go deep into a memory, or as we watch television," says Alan B. Densky, a certified hypnotherapist based in Florida who specializes in smoking cessation.

Hypnosis relaxes your mind enough to recognize unconscious triggers. Reviews of clinical trials have found evidence of its effectiveness to be insufficient, but the results of a small study found that smokers hospitalized with cardiopulmonary diseases who chose to participate in a hypnotherapy session were more likely to be nonsmokers six months later than those who chose nicotine replacement therapy.

Using acupuncture to quit smoking, likewise, has mixed research results. The technique is borrowed from traditional Chinese medicine, using tiny needles in certain points of your body. For smokers, the needles are often inserted into their ears or top of their heads.

A small study that used acupuncture and education found that the combination reduced smoking by four times compared to acupuncture alone. A federal meta-analysis of studies, however, concluded that acupuncture was no more effective than placebo.

Another review of 24 studies didn’t find consistent evidence that acupuncture increased the number of people who could successfully quit smoking. Researchers said that, although acupuncture may be superior to no intervention at all, more rigorous research is necessary.

Mindfulness meditation to quit smoking

Mindfulness meditation may be effective for some smokers.

A pilot study of longtime smokers at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health found more than half — 56 percent — stopped smoking after eight group sessions teaching meditation and daily practice at home. The longer participants meditated per day, the better they did.

A study published in the Cochrane Review concluded there was no clear benefit that meditation can reduce long-term smoking quit rates. The researchers did say that mediation techniques may help some smokers pay attention to their cravings, triggers, and other symptoms of withdrawal.

Other natural ways to quit smoking

Eating foods like fruits and vegetables before you light up might discourage smoking because the smoking is less satisfying than when paired with red meat, alcohol, and coffee.

Many smokers may be craving something else, says one expert. "Perhaps as much as 30 percent of a smoker's cravings are actually for carbohydrates rather than nicotine," says Jonathan Foulds, PhD, professor of public health sciences and psychiatry at Penn State College of Medicine.

Other evidence suggests that a support group may help you lower your cravings. The American Lung Association suggests joining a group to quit and can help you find one in your area.

As simple as it sounds even just talking to your doctor about smoking increases the chances that you’ll quit. A review of 31,000 smokers in the UK found that even brief doctor patient conversations increases the odds of quitting by 3 percent.

How you talk to yourself even matters.

"Stop, quit, give up — so much of the language of quitting is negative," says Janet Konefal, PhD, an acupuncturist at the Miami Transplant Institute. "We tell people to talk positively to themselves when they're ruminating about a cigarette. Something simple like 'I can do this' can be remarkably powerful."

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE: You CAN Quit Smoking: Here Are Tips to Succeed