Yoga as Smoking Cessation Therapy
Yoga is a spiritual practice that has become popular for its health benefits — mainly our physical and mental health. Insights from the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health highlight how yoga typically emphasizes physical postures, breathing techniques, and meditation. Aside from helping improve general wellness, relieving stress, and improving one's mental and emotional health, yoga can also help people quit smoking.
This may be because many aspects of yoga, including improved eating and physical activity habits and greater mindfulness, can help smokers develop healthier lifestyle habits to help them quit and sustain their abstinence. Below, we'll delve deeper into smoking cessation and how practicing yoga can help:
What is smoking cessation?
A person's smoking cessation journey will differ from someone else's. One of the most essential aspects of smoking cessation is repeated treatments and healthier habits. This helps ensure their quit attempt is successful. According to the CDC, fewer than one in ten adult smokers succeed in quitting. However, many NRT products and smoking cessation therapies are available today that aim to help smokers quit the habit.
Nicotine pouches have recently become a popular alternative for smokers looking to eliminate tobacco and nicotine intake, especially as they can mimic the taste of menthol cigarettes which studies from the CDC show are more addictive and harder to quit. Prilla features the ZYN wintergreen nicotine pouches that offer a blend of menthol and sweet flavors while providing users with microdoses of nicotine. Over time, this can help reduce the user's dependency on nicotine while helping them fight withdrawal symptoms as well. Another benefit of nicotine pouches is that they are easy to apply — simply placed under your top lip — and can be used while doing other activities.
Similarly, non-oral nicotine replacement products like nicotine patches can be used while you're doing other activities. If you're looking into doing yoga as smoking cessation therapy, products like Habitrol nicotine pouches can be used for up to 24 hours, and won't be intrusive to your yoga sessions. Like the pouches, nicotine patches help reduce smoking withdrawal symptoms.
Yoga for quitting smoking
As previously mentioned, yoga can be a viable practice to be used with other forms of smoking cessation therapy. In a previous post discussing the "22 Reasons to Practice Yoga According to Science", we highlighted many science-backed health benefits of practicing yoga. These include promoting cardiovascular health, as studies have found that practicing yoga can help reduce cardiovascular disease risk factors.
Yoga can also help increase lung capacity as ten weeks of yoga are shown to improve pulmonary function and fitness levels. This is essential as cigarette smoking is known to damage your respiratory functions. By practicing yoga regularly, you can help your body heal.
Recommended yoga poses
While yoga, in general, can help smokers develop healthier habits, some yoga poses may be more effective than others. The Bhujangasana — or cobra pose — is usually recommended for people with respiratory ailments. The posture helps expand the chest, reduce fatigue, and improve blood circulation. Meanwhile, relieving stress through poses like the Bhujangasana can help lower any urge to smoke. Other yoga poses that help stretch the chest and abdomen area for better breathing include the bow pose and cat-cow pose.
On the other hand, poses like the Kapalbhati pranayama can help detoxify your body. Apart from improving your blood circulation, this yoga pose will help rejuvenate the nervous system and brain cells, helping smokers resist the urge to smoke. Cigarette smoking exposes your body to different toxic chemicals, so focusing on yoga poses that can help the body heal will help recovery and maintain cessation.
Ultimately, it's important to note that yoga as a lone practice may not be enough for smoking cessation. Experts recommend the use of NRT products alongside other smoking cessation techniques, such as yoga, therapy, or counseling.