Can Long-term thinking help you kick your cigarette habit?
August 22nd 2010 22:30
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From: sleep.com
Yale researchers say thinking the right thoughts could change your brain activity to reduce your cravings.
Just thinking about the long-term effects of smoking can amp up the activity in the brain responsible for rational thought.
The study was published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It was led by Hedy Kober, assistant professor of psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine.
And although it focused on smokers, researchers say the results could likely apply to other types of cravings, like those for food.
For the study, the researchers recruited 21 smokers (at least 10 cigarettes a day). While MRI imaging monitored brain activity, the participants were shown photographs of cigarettes and food. When shown the photos, the participants were instructed to think either about the short-term effects of the cigarette or the food, or about the long-term effects.
Kober says participants typically thought for six to eight seconds.
"Craving is like a wave; it comes up and it gets really intense and goes away even if you don't do anything," she says. "But if smokers are taught what they can do in the moment, they can have control. You grab this tool out of your arsenal."
Although the study focused on smoking addiction, the photos of food were included to get a better sense of how general cravings work in the brain.
In other words, training yourself to think about long-term consequences, instead of the short-term consequences, can help you control cravings.
The researchers found that for both cigarettes and food, thinking about the long-term consequences decreased activity in the striatum -- the area of the brain responsible for drug cravings and reward-seeking behavior. At the same time, it increased activity in the area associated with rational thought, the prefrontal cortex.
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