|
NO SMOKING, PLEASE
Sarah Bowen, a research scientist in the Addictive Behaviors Research Center at the University of
Washington, had thought very carefully about how to best set up her torture chamber. She chose a
basic conference room with a long table that could seat twelve people. She covered the windows and
took everything off the walls so there would be nothing to distract her subjects.
One by one, they arrived. At her request, each carried an unopened pack of his or her favorite
brand of cigarettes. All of them wanted to quit smoking, but hadn’t quit yet. Bowen had asked the
smokers to abstain for at least twelve hours to make sure they showed up in a nicotine-deprived state.
She knew they were eager to light one and inhale, but they had to wait until everyone arrived.
When the smokers were all there, Bowen seated them around the table. Each chair faced the outer
walls so the smokers could not see one another. She told them to put away any books, phones, food,
or drinks, and gave them each a pencil and paper to answer questions. They were not to speak to one
another, no matter what happened. Then the torture began.
“Take out your pack and look at it,” Bowen instructed. They did. “Now pack it,” she said, referring
to the smoker’s ritual of pounding the pack to settle the tobacco in each cigarette. “Now remove the
cellophane,” she commanded. “Now open the pack.” She continued walking the smokers through each
step, from breathing in the first smell of the opened pack to pulling out a cigarette, holding it, looking
at it, and smelling it. Putting the cigarette in their mouths. Taking out a lighter. Bringing the lighter to
the cigarette without igniting it. At each step, she forced participants to stop and wait for several
minutes. “People were not having a good time,” Bowen told me. “I could literally see their craving.
They were doing anything to distract themselves: playing with the pencils, looking around, fidgeting.”
Bowen wasn’t enjoying the smokers’ agony, but she needed to be sure they were suffering the kind of
intense craving that can derail attempts to quit. Bowen’s real aim was to investigate whether
mindfulness can help smokers resist cravings.
Before the torture test, half of the smokers had received a brief training in a technique called
“surfing the urge.” They were instructed to pay close attention to the urge to smoke, without trying to
change it or get rid of it—an approach that we’ve seen can be quite helpful for dealing with worries
and food cravings. Instead of distracting themselves from the urge or hoping that it would just go
away, they should really get a good look at it. What thoughts were going through their mind? What did
the urge feel like in the body? Was there nausea, or a gnawing in their stomach? Did they feel tension
in their lungs or throat? Bowen explained to the smokers that urges always pass eventually, whether
or not you give in to them. When they felt a strong craving, they should imagine the urge as a wave in
the ocean. It would build in intensity, but ultimately crash and dissolve. The smokers were to picture
themselves riding the wave, not fighting it but also not giving in to it. Bowen then asked these smokers
to apply the surfing-the-urge technique during the craving induction.
An hour and a half later, after being fully put through the wringer, all of the smokers were released
from Bowen’s torture chamber. She didn’t ask them to cut back on cigarettes, and she didn’t even
encourage them to use the surfing-the-urge technique in everyday life. But Bowen did give them one
last task: Keep track of how many cigarettes they smoked each day for the following week, along with
their daily mood and the intensity of urges to smoke.
For the first twenty-four hours, there was no difference in the number of cigarettes smoked by the
two groups. But starting with the second day, and continuing throughout the week, the surfing-the-urge
group smoked fewer cigarettes. By day seven, the control group showed no change, but those surfing
the urge had cut back 37 percent. Giving their cravings their full attention helped them take positive
steps toward quitting smoking. Bowen also looked at the relationship between the smokers’ moods
and their urges to smoke. Surprisingly, smokers who had learned to surf the urge no longer showed the
typical correlation between feeling bad and giving in. Stress no longer automatically led to lighting
up. This is one of the best side effects of surfing the urge: You learn how to accept and handle all your
difficult inner experiences, and no longer need to turn to unhealthy rewards for comfort.
Although this smoking study was a scientific experiment, not a full-blown intervention, Bowen also
leads longer programs for people in residential substance-abuse programs. (“We do imagery instead
of actual exposure to the triggers,” she told me. “For many reasons, we can’t bring in crack pipes.”)
Bowen’s most recent study randomly assigned 168 men and women to either treatment as usual for
substance-abuse recovery or to a mindfulness program that taught them surfing the urge and other
strategies for handling stress and urges. Over a four-month follow-up, the mindfulness group had
fewer cravings and was less likely to relapse than the treatment-as-usual group. Once again, the
training disrupted the automatic link between feeling bad and wanting to use. For the people who
learned to surf the urge, stress no longer increased the risk of relapse.
WILLPOWER EXPERIMENT: SURF THE URGE
Whatever your drug of choice, surfing the urge can help you ride out cravings without giving in.
When the urge takes hold, pause for a moment to sense your body. What does the urge feel like?
Is it hot or cold? Do you feel tension anywhere in your body? What’s happening with your heart
rate, your breathing, or your gut? Stay with the sensations for at least one minute. Notice whether
the feelings fluctuate in intensity or quality. Not acting on an urge can sometimes increase its
intensity—like an attention-seeking child throwing a temper tantrum. See if you can stay with
these sensations without trying to push them away, and without acting on them. As you practice
surfing the urge, the breath can be a wonderful source of support. You can surf the sensations of
breathing—noticing how it feels to inhale and exhale—alongside the sensations of the urge.
When you first practice this strategy, you may surf the urge
and still give in
. In Bowen’s
smoking study, everybody smoked as soon as they left the torture chamber. Don’t use your first
few attempts as a final verdict on the value of this approach. Surfing the urge is a skill that
builds with time, like any new form of self-control. Want to practice the skill before a craving
hits? You can get a good sense of the technique just by sitting still and waiting for the urge to
scratch your nose, cross your legs, or shift your weight. Apply the same principles of surfing the
urge to this impulse—feel it, but don’t automatically give in.
Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
