Cigarettes are known to be one of the most highly addictive drugs, and one part of the addiction is related to the substance, while the other part is just related to habits and rituals. When we smoke a cigarette, the combustion of tobacco reacts with the internal functioning of our brain and releases dopamine that makes us chase that rush whenever we are not smoking. Whereas the hand-to-mouth gesture or movement characteristic of smoking cigarettes gets entrenched into our bodily movements and patterns, and we become habitual in performing them. These two aspects of smoking cigarettes combine together and turn it into an extremely addictive activity that ends up becoming lethal and is extremely hard to quit.

Is Vaping Actually a Good Smoking Cessation Tool?

E-cigarettes came around in 2003 and gained popularity among the smoking community in 2005 as a smoking cessation tool. People who had been looking for an effective and healthier way to quit cigarettes finally experienced their moment of respite in the form of e-cigarettes and vape devices. Vaping takes the edge off things because it gives you the ability to monitor and curb your nicotine intake while reducing the harm of exposure to the harmful toxins and chemicals of tobacco combustion. From its inception, it has helped millions of people all over the globe to get a hold on their cigarette consumption and paved the way for a smoke-free life. But the question arises when we consider the final step of a smoker’s journey to quit their addiction, and that is whether or not it’s easy to quit vaping than smoking.

Difference Between How Our Brains Perceive Smoking and Vaping:

Vaping undoubtedly reduces a lot of harm and damage that traditional cigarettes do to your body. And it actually makes the transition easier for you as it mimics the hand-to-mouth gesture that we associate with cigarette smoking. But as creatures of habit, we can easily adapt to life changes and become habitual to them once we have settled down. Vaping, much like smoking, is a ritual that can be a bit hard to let go of because it becomes part of our daily routine. And because it carries nicotine, we tend to put it to use in stressful situations to calm ourselves down. But we tend to associate cigarette smoking with oddly specific triggers because we smoke at extremely specific places and times, such as after breakfast, during work breaks, and in the restroom.

In contrast, with vaping, the triggers are not that specific, and we can do it almost everywhere with no specific time or place. Hence the act of vaping doesn’t necessarily get associated with any place for our brains to trigger any associations. And with a lack of association, it’s easier for us to quit vaping than to quit smoking. Moreover, the strong smell of tobacco and stains of smoking are heavily associated with the nicotine hit. And it makes a lot more impact on our brain circuits with all of its associations to leave behind and forget about than vaping.

Vaping Gives You More Flexibility:

Cigarettes certainly take away the authority from you and take charge of you in the sense that you are not able to restrict your consumption in any way. Your brain gives you signals that eventually trigger your anxiety, and you light up a cigarette. When doing so, you have no other choice but to finish the entire cigarette before resuming your tasks. But with vaping, you get a degree of authority, and you can decide when you want to take a drag and with what intensity and frequency. Vaping helps you in keeping count of your nicotine intake by the number of puffs you take, and you don’t have to wait to finish off your vape like you do when you smoke. You simply pick up your vape, take a drag and two or a quick nicotine fix and go on about your day.

Another way in which vaping is far easier to quit than smoking is related to limiting your nicotine intake. Vaping gives you the flexibility to tweak your nicotine intake and tailor it to your needs. That’s what makes vaping effective because it helps you slowly wean off your nicotine intake at your own pace. You can start off with any online disposable and end your journey at 0mg e-liquid with a seamless and easy transition, which doesn’t feel like surmounting a huge barrier. E-liquids are available in all degrees of nicotine strengths, like 20mg, 16 mg, 10mg, 5mg, and all the way down to 0mg. But with cigarettes, you get a pre-packed amount of nicotine, with the added harm of tobacco that doesn’t help you make progress in any way.

There Has to Be Some Degree of Mind Over Matter:

Vaping certainly doesn’t have many limiting factors, and it doesn’t instantly put a period on your nicotine intake and oral habits. This is where your own resolution and firmness of mind comes in. one of the most difficult, albeit doable, parts of quitting vaping is the failure to find a good enough reason to quit. There are a lot of motivations for continuing vaping, but very few are against it. Vaping brings a lot of visible benefits to your lifestyle, like improvement in your stamina, regeneration of taste buds and sense of smell, and improvement in oral habits, which makes the reasons to quit it very nebulous. But, since it’s essentially a means to an end, it should also be quit when you are nearer to the finishing line.

Vaping might be as intense as cigarettes, but it is still a mental craving. And the challenge here is to develop some discipline one needs to have in order to rid oneself of these habits. You have to be focused on your main goal, which is to completely eradicate the presence of nicotine from your life. And for that, you have to let go of vaping too, sooner or later. If you simply put your mind to it and step down gradually, just as you did with cigarettes, you will be able to quit vaping too, with little to no effort. A little firmness of decision on your part can go a long way, and it starts with extremely minor and inconsequential things like simply keeping your room tidy or quitting a habit like vaping, but it can be applied to all facets of life.