How running helped me quit smoking

Not long ago, I was an overweight, pack-a-day chain smoker. It has been almost three years since I was that person, and more than a year since I smoked even occasionally. Today, I am more likely to carry my son for a 10-mile hike, than to blow a single spec of cancerous smoke into his tender lungs. And what has been the key to my successful strategy to quit smoking? Running!

The first time I seriously tried to quit smoking, I sought the help of a counsellor and one of the first things she told me to do was to start running. She explained how addictive substances like nicotine short-circuit the reward mechanisms in the brain so that our levels of feel-good hormones are severely depressed when we stop taking whatever it is we are addicted to. 

A bout of moderate intensity exercise lasting at least 30 or 40 minutes causes the brain to release those very same feel-good chemicals, helping bring the withdrawal-addled brain back into equilibrium.

It had been years since I had ran regularly. A little nervous about how hard this was going to be, and overly conscious of how stupid I must look, but desperate to relieve the post-nicotine blues, I took her advice and laced up my running shoes. Since she said 'moderate intensity', I refrained from going too hard. As it turned out, that was the key. 

After five minutes of running, I was far less conscious of myself. After ten minutes I felt tired, but good. By twenty minutes, I was 'in the zone', breathing deep, swinging my arms with confidence, and most importantly, smiling very broadly. After 40 minutes, I was back at my front door, in need of a shower and a meal, but eager to face the day, and much less grumpy than I was before the run. In this way, running in the morning helped me ease into the first few days after I had quit smoking.

As anyone who has successfully put down the cancer sticks knows, things can get very difficult two or three weeks into a quit attempt. The initial excitement of quitting is gone, but the habitual urge to smoke is just as strong as ever. At this very dangerous time, when many quit attempts go awry, running helped keep me on track.

Once every two or three weeks, I would time myself on my favourite 3km route, and keep records of these times on a spreadsheet. As my body healed, more of my blood was transporting oxygen instead of carbon monoxide from smoke; my airways were becoming wider and less congested allowing air to fill my lungs faster; and less gunk was accumulating in my blood vessels, allowing more nutrients and energy to reach my muscles. 

All this caused my time for that same 3km route to drop, every fortnight I measured it. Every time I was tempted to smoke, this clear measure of how much better my body was without being flooded by tar and rat poison, helped me fight that temptation.

Relapse is a common part of recovery, and what matters in the long run is not how many times we slip up, but how quickly we can correct each mistake, minimizing the cost of these errors. 

I have found that signing up for a race can be an incredibly effective way to insure myself against prolonged relapses. I signed up for my first race, 9 months in advance. I trained consistently sacrificing watching my favourite TV show, socialising with my friends and spending time with my family, for what I hoped would be a good performance in the race.

When I did relapse into smoking, I knew that each cigarette was reducing the likelihood that I would reach my goal, a goal I had pursued for so long, worked so hard for and sacrificed so much for. This provided me with constant motivation to return to being smoke free, and as a result, none of my relapses lasted longer than a few weeks. 

Smoking is not the only bad habit that running helped me break. In the same way that smoking sabotaged my efforts to achieve my racing goals, so did junk food and overeating. Over time I reigned in these habits, not because they were bad for me, but because they were bad for my running. I read up about nutrition, started eating more vegetables and less garbage. Since I quit smoking, I have actually lost 25kgs, something that puts my body mass index squarely in the 'healthy' range, reducing my chances of heart attacks, strokes and numerous other causes of premature death. More immediately, though, it shaves about half an hour off my marathon time!

Running also helped me break poor sleep habits. A rapidly growing body of scientific evidence finds that adequate sleep is incredibly important for mental and physical health. Nicotine is a stimulant that compromises the quality of our sleep and thus interferes with the body's ability to recover and rebuild after physical training. Quitting smoking allowed me to sleep better, helping my body maximise the fitness improvements from each bit of training that I do. 

Running has changed everything about me, from how I look to what I do with my leisure time, and what I eat to how many hours of sleep I get a night. Ultimately, running has changed how I see myself: where I once was a smoker, I am now a runner. Because I am a runner, I work out regularly, eat healthy and sleep well.

Smoking does not fit in this picture. It is a habit that is no longer compatible with the person I now perceive myself to be. For us to break a habit as pervasive and ingrained as smoking, requires nothing less than reinventing our very selves. That is what running has enabled me to do.  

By C. Rashaad Shabab

The author is a PhD. Student at the University of Sussex, U.K. and an Emily Louise Wells Fellow of Vassar College, U.S.A. Recently, he became the first Bangladeshi to complete a 100-mile ultramarathon.