Can Yoga Help Smokers Quit? Some Say Yes

This New Year, millions of Americans will resolve to quit smoking, a noble goal that typically lasts a couple of hours. But there is hope for those stuck making the same resolution each January: yoga is emerging as an unexpected source of strength for those trying to shake the habit for good.

“Every New Year I’d say, I’m gonna quit,” says Veronica Gutierrez, a former smoker and current Dahn yoga member. “Then New Year’s comes, and the next day, I’m smoking!”

“I tried different ways to quit and nothing worked,” she says. The American Heart Association reports that of about 46 million Americans who smoke, most are trying or want to quit. Annually, a small fraction - about 1.3 million smokers – actually achieves their goal.

But when Gutierrez noticed her health start to falter, she knew she finally had to stop. Doctors had warned about her high blood pressure, a condition she believes was exacerbated by her smoking habit.

Like Gutierrez, many smokers resolve to quit because of health concerns. According to the Surgeon General, smoking is the primary cause of preventable illness and death in the United States.

“It’s almost too late when you want to do something about it,” says Tanyce Wong, a smoker since the age of thirteen. “I would inhale, and my lungs would be sore. And of course, my gums were starting to turn gray,” she says.

Arthur Babakhanov had a similar experience. “I think some part of me wanted to leave my body because it was very uncomfortable,” he says. The habit he picked up as a teen led to collapsed lungs by the time he was eighteen.

And Shoreh Safarzadeh, who came from a smoking family, saw the toll cigarettes took on her mother. “She couldn’t quit smoking until she couldn’t even breathe,” she says.

All four of these former smokers had the desire to quit, but knew from previous attempts that it wouldn’t be easy. They finally turned to Dahn yoga, discovering some unexpected benefits that eventually helped them become smoke-free.

Yoga Benefit #1: Yoga promotes greater body awareness

Yoga may help smokers become more attuned to their body’s needs. Through breathing and other exercises, it can help cultivate an awareness of the body that makes it easier to make healthy lifestyle choices.

Babakhanov experienced this effect when he first began attending sessions at his local Dahn yoga center. “You get a feeling of what your inside could be; you really go inside your core, your true nature,” he recalls.

He quit within three months of starting yoga, after a particularly powerful workshop that focused on opening up the heart’s energy. “From there, I had more energy and courage to get rid of the habit; I quit cold-turkey two days after that yoga workshop. I completely stopped,” he says.

By becoming more attuned to his body, Babakhanov realized that he was less willing to harm it. “Once you see how you connect with your body, you don’t want to do it any harm,” he says.

Gutierrez had a similar realization. A smoker since the ninth grade, she stopped cold turkey after her first month with Dahn yoga, in 2003. “I was actually at work, smoking, and I suddenly thought, this is so gross!” she says. “My body just didn’t want it anymore.”

She credits her success to the greater awareness of her body and health that yoga fostered. “Before, I wasn’t aware of my body and my health, and I’d smoke close to a pack each day,” she says. “My brain was not working with my body at all.”

Meanwhile, Safarzadeh had used smoking as a way to ignore pent-up emotions. “I was doing anything not to connect with myself again,” she says.

“I think that when you smoke, you’re hiding; you’re hiding from some kind of emotion,” she explains. “And because you don’t want to think about that emotion, you create something else to make you busy, some kind of a habit.”

Yoga helped her tune in to her body’s needs in a healthy, positive way, making it possible to slowly shed the habit. “So many different emotions came out at that time, and I thought, oh, God, instead of going through this, I could just have a cigarette. It would be so easy.”

But after the emotional struggle, Safarzadeh finally beat her habit. “I now feel more of a connection with myself, and with nature,” she says.

Wong felt similar changes. When she started practicing yoga, it took just a month to shake her insomnia. But it took longer – about one year – to finally quit smoking.

“Connecting to ki energy for the first time made me awaken,” she says. “I quit cold turkey ever since I connected to that energy. I’ve been smoke free ever since.”

“Something changed,” Wong explains. “My whole body wanted to detox. It’s like I re-set my body. I went vegan for a few months. My body wanted nothing but healthy, organic food.”

Along with that, of course, it wanted nothing to do with toxic cigarette smoke.

Yoga Benefit #2: Yoga’s calming effect is a healthy alternative to smoking

While both cigarettes and yoga may have a calming effect, only one is healthy. By slowly introducing relaxation methods like yoga into their lives, smokers may help reduce dependence on cigarettes as their only means of de-stressing.

“I heard yoga was a good thing because there’s a lot of breath work involved,” says Babakhanov. After one workshop, he began to feel hopeful about finally kicking the habit. “We did stretching and breathing exercises, and I felt a lot of energy, like something inside me opened,” he says.

He found that yoga promoted a state of calm and relaxation in the body, something that smokers typically seek by lighting up.

Gutierrez explains, “Smoking was kind of relaxing, but actually, I realized relaxation was all just about breathing. You just need to breathe to help you relax.”

It was the same for Safarzadeh. “I convinced myself that smoking relaxes me. You train your brain so much that ‘this is giving me peace,’ you convince yourself,” she says.

“As soon as you get stressed, you just do it, because it’s memory. You pick up the cigarette and just do it, over and over again, like the result’s going to be different,” says Safarzadeh.

But by seeking out yoga classes, each of these smokers learned that cigarettes weren’t the only way to create a sense of calm. By funneling some of their stressful energy through yoga, rather than through a lit cigarette, they discovered a healthier – and more effective – alternative to smoking.

Yoga Benefit #3: Yoga community can be a vital, positive support network

Many smokers find it difficult to quit because those around them are also smokers. “Like a drinker wants someone to drink with, a smoker wants someone to smoke with,” explains Safarzadeh. “People would say ‘oh come on, one cigarette; you can do one with me.”

Just as a community of smokers makes it easier to keep smoking, a community of non-smokers makes it easier to stop. It’s vital that those who want to quit surround themselves with a healthy, positive network of people who will support them rather than lure them back in to the habit.

Safardazeh came from a family of smokers. “It was easy to take on a bad habit and it became very hard to quit,” she says. She had smoked for most of her life, even as she started to practice yoga and went on to become an instructor herself.

But on June 11, 2009, Safardazeh finally broke the habit – thanks to the support of the Dahn yoga community, and especially her yoga instructor who challenged her to stop.

“I decided I was going to do twenty-one days without smoking,” says Safardazeh. “The first day was horrible. I drove to get some cigarettes, sat in my car, and then drove back home.” she relates. “The second day was harder, but I was so happy that I passed the first day, and all I had to do was get past the second day.”

Day by day, Safardazeh inched closer to her goal, but it wasn’t easy. “I was like, I want to eat this, I want to eat that! I had no idea how much my mouth was busy with smoking before,” she says. “I couldn’t believe how much I was addicted to this habit.”

This is a direct quote, but obviously we can’t have ‘master han’ in here. Any suggestions? “pure love helped me be strong. I also realized my responsibility towards my own students,” she says. “If I wasn’t healthy myself, I didn’t want to teach and deliver that bad energy to them.”

After twenty-one days without a single cigarette – and with plenty of support from her teacher and fellow members - Safardazeh succeeded.

“It’s hard to stop by yourself, that’s why everybody needs help,” she says