Quit smoking… How long can you go between cigarettes?

I’m sure that every time you tried to quit smoking you quickly discovered how long you can go between cigarettes.

An interesting study involving Israeli flight attendants offered some curious insights.

Flight attendants were selected for two main routes. One from Tel Aviv to Europe, taking 3 hours and the other flying to New York taking 11 hours.

I ask my clients to guess how long different flight attendants might go before they want to smoke. The answers are variable, but generally focus on the short term.

The results of the study show a different, but consistent result.

Those on the average 3 hour European flight started wanting a cigarette 20 minutes before the flight landed.

Those on the average 11-hour New York flight started wanting a cigarette 20 minutes before the flight landed.

But how is this possible, I hear you think. The result showed that it was not the time that the attendees were without nicotine, but the time before they expected to be able to smoke.

Apart from landing delays, they could calculate from experience how long it takes to land, disembark and be able to leave the airport.

So the difference is the story they told themselves. that is, I can smoke in about three and a half hours or I can smoke in about eleven and a half hours.

The point is that it is the story and not the nicotine or its brain receptors and time that controlled the timing of the craving.

If you were to calculate the time between your cigarettes, you would find that it was your schedule dictating your smoking habit and not your cravings.

Many clients have told me that they would expect to smoke less on vacation due to lack of work stress, but instead they smoke more, simply because they can.

Many tell me that they must smoke every two hours but that they can survive a long flight perfectly. Some may have a brief craving, but it goes away quickly simply because they have no other choice.

And what about you? How long can you go without a cigarette if you have to, or how long will you allow between cigarettes if you have no restrictions? And what does this tell you about your habit and your addictions?

If you really think about it for a while, you must surely be confused by this drug that has a specific life in your bloodstream but behaves so differently in all sorts of circumstances.