The Best Time to Quit Smoking

Every time around New Year, a popular debate, whether resolutions made on New Year last or not, starts doing the rounds. Well, according to findings of a new study, we have some good news for smokers who want to quit smoking. January seems to be the best time to quit smoking.

You are more likely to succeed if you decide to quit smoking now. It is perhaps for the best if you decide to stub out the cigarettes and seek anti-smoking treatments this time around. An analysis done by Cancer Research UK on studying smoking trends since 2006 revealed that January was the most popular month to quit smoking with one in eight smokers trying to quit.

Professor Robert West, director of tobacco studies at the Cancer Research UK Health Behaviour Unit, calculated that 13% of smokers tried to quit in January 2007 – the equivalent of every adult in Newcastle, Manchester, Coventry and Bristol. When he monitored the trend in quit rates, he saw that people who made smoking cessation their New Year's resolution did better than their counterparts who chose other months of the year to quit.

He said, "We have found that almost half of all smokers actually try to quit at least once over the course of the year and one in eight try to quit in January. But I was particularly interested to find that, contrary to popular scepticism of New Year's Resolutions, smokers who quit in January also tended to be more successful at staying off cigarettes."

Furthermore, he said, "With willpower alone, the chances of success are very small. The first thing is to get the right medication; whether that's nicotine replacement, Zyban or Champix, and the really important thing is having it explained exactly how to use it and to make sure you use enough of it."

This does not mean that there is any hard and fast rule that you will succeed only if you quit smoking in January. If you by any chance miss this golden opportunity, it is still never too late to stop smoking. As Professor Robert West said, right medication and enough will power could increase your chance of success.