an actual improvement in your mood and a reduction in depression and anxiety

There is masses of information out there about how quitting smoking improve your physical health. All the boring stuff about how you are less likely to suffer from lung cancer and in fact all types of cancer, heart disease, strokes and practically everything else is pretty well known but did you know that quitting smoking could actually improve your mental health too? 

By improving mental health we do not mean reducing the likelihood of dementia and Alzheimer's disease [quitting smoking does do this too], but an actual improvement in your mood and a reduction in depression and anxiety.

Many smokers argue that smoking actually calms them down and they use cigarette breaks as a time to focus and relax but the evidence presented by a study done by Brown University, the University of Southern California and The Miriam Hospital actually shows the opposite.

For the study Christopher Kahler and his colleagues monitored a group of almost 240 men and women who wanted to quit smoking and who also were heavy social drinkers. The participants were given smoking counseling and nicotine replacement therapy in the form of patches. They were then monitored for symptoms of depression one week before their quit date and then at intervals two weeks, eight weeks, sixteen weeks and 28 weeks after the quit date.

Out of the 240 participants only 33 managed to stay off cigarettes for the whole 28 weeks and 99 didn't even last two weeks before smoking again. By observing the volunteers the researchers concluded the happiest ones were those who managed to stay off cigarettes and that those ones exhibiting the most amount of depression were those who fail to quit.

Interestingly the participants who were smoke-free at the interval checkups only exhibited signs of depression when they failed in their quit smoking attempts. In fact the researchers said that those who failed to quit sometimes became even more depressed than they were before they attempted to quit.

Professor Kahler, who works at the Brown University Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies said that there was a definite correlation between abstinence and happiness. People quitting smoking should not see it as grueling and tough challenge but as a means of setting themselves from a depressing and controlling addiction which will improve their mood set them free.

The research is published in full in the medical journal Nicotine & Tobacco Research.