A difficult moment, right now.

What are you noticing?

Pick anything that fits. You can pick several, change your mind, or skip this step entirely. None of these are a diagnosis.

• A strong urge to smoke

  It may have arrived suddenly, or built up over the last few minutes.

• Irritability or tension

  Feeling short-fused, restless or wound up.

• Restlessness or trouble concentrating

  Finding it hard to settle to anything.

• Low mood

  Flat, discouraged or sad without a clear reason.

• A routine moment

  A coffee, a break, a phone call, finishing a task, a drive.

• Being around people who smoke

  Including being offered a cigarette.

• Stress or conflict

  An argument, a deadline, bad news or a difficult conversation.

• Sleep or appetite changes

  Waking more, eating differently, or feeling physically unsettled.

Something you could try

General ideas to start with. Select what you are noticing to narrow them.

1. Change what you are doing for five minutes

   Smokefree.gov suggests changing your activity as one way to respond to a craving.

   1. Stand up and move to a different room, or step outside.
   2. Pick one small task and do it for five minutes.
   3. Notice whether the urge has changed. Either answer is useful information.

2. Take a short, slow breathing pause

   A brief, optional grounding exercise. It is not a treatment for cravings.

   1. Sit or stand comfortably and let your shoulders drop.
   2. Breathe in gently through your nose, then out for longer than you breathed in.
   3. Repeat four times. Stop at any point if you feel uncomfortable.

3. Tell someone what is happening

   Contact with a supportive person is described in guidance as a way to get through a difficult moment.

   1. Choose one person who knows you are quitting, or a quitline.
   2. Say what you are noticing, in one sentence, without explaining yourself.
   3. Ask for what would help: distraction, company, or just being listened to.

4. Name the urge and give it a few minutes

   Cravings are described as rising and falling rather than staying at one level.

   1. Say silently what is happening: "this is a craving".
   2. Set a timer for five minutes and do something else until it ends.
   3. Decide nothing until the timer finishes. You are not committing to anything either way.

These come from public guidance, not from an assessment of you. No technique is promised to remove an urge, and a strategy that does not help is not a personal failure.

An optional pause

Four slow rounds, about forty seconds. It is a general calming exercise, not a breathing prescription and not a treatment for cravings.

Skip it if you feel dizzy, and stop at any point. If you have a breathing or heart condition, follow your own clinician's advice rather than this page.

If you would rather talk to someone

Human support is often the difference between a difficult hour and a difficult week. Using it is not a failure of the techniques above.

• Finding professional and community support

  Quitlines, clinical support and what friends can usefully do.

• National Cancer Institute: managing cravings (opens in a new tab)

  Source for the coping strategies listed above.