The power of Monday can help you quit smoking

If you’re a smoker, quitting the habit might be the hardest thing you’ll ever do. Making Monday your quit day might help.

“Nicotine is one of the most highly addictive substances out there,” said Christopher J. Perry, MSW, LICSW, an outpatient behavioral health clinician based at Cape Cod Healthcare’s Centers for Behavioral Health in Hyannis. “Patients I’ve worked with who have tried to stop their alcohol or substance use and been successful, have said that it is much more difficult, in their experience, to quit smoking than alcohol or other substances.”

Along with its addictive nature, smoking is difficult to quit because many people use it to relieve stress or to help regulate their emotions, he said.

“Smoking becomes what we in therapy call ‘a protective activity.’ People engage in smoking, drinking, substance use or gambling because it makes them feel better in the short term, but at the end of the day, these aren’t healthy activities.”

People who manage to quit smoking usually do so only after multiple attempts, said Perry.

Try a Monday

Want to quit? Maybe you should try kicking the habit on a Monday.

A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Internal Medicine found that more people conduct Google searches about quitting smoking on Monday than any other day of the week. Monday is like the January of the week and can be used as a helpful cue to quit smoking.

“From a societal standpoint, we think of things starting on Monday – and that can include changing habits,” said Perry. “Monday is the first day of the work week. When you start a new job, you usually go to orientation on a Monday. Also, it’s the first day after the weekend and the weekend, for a lot of us, is a time to indulge. People think of Mondays as starting anew.”

Perry said Monday quitting fits well with a psychological concept known as the ‘cycle of change,’ which can apply to many types of life change. He described the cycle and offered these suggestions for putting the Monday quitting day into practice:

Pre-contemplation – You're engaging in the activity and haven’t yet contemplated changing.

Contemplation – You start to think about changing the activity. You want to quit smoking, but you haven’t made any kind of commitment to quitting.

Preparation – Set a date, perhaps next Monday. How are you going to go about quitting? How are you going to manage stress differently? Some people find it effective to chew gum, join a gym, or start walking.

Action – This is when you implement your preparation.

Maintenance – Try to put smoking in the rear-view mirror and put the gym or another new habit in the present.

Relapse – The cycle of change isn’t always sustained. If there is a relapse, it’s important to not perceive that as a failure, but as an opportunity to learn, Perry said. What are you going to do differently? More often, people are not successful the first time. It’s important that you not get down on yourself, because you have learned something from the experience.

The Quit and Stay Quit Monday campaign has a helpful collection of resources.

Use The R’s

Perry recommended the ‘R’s’ to help you change or break a habit:

• Be realistic. “When do you think you can quit, and how is the best way to do it? For example, it is not realistic to think you're going to quit smoking two weeks before you're about to make the biggest presentation of your career.”
• Be resilient. “If you don't sustain the first attempt that you make, it's an opportunity to learn, not a failure.”
• Reach out to people. “Reach out to your friends, reach out to your family, talk to your primary care physician, or talk to your therapist if you have one.”

Need some motivation? Think about your health.

“The benefits of quitting are profound and some of them happen quickly,” said Perry. “Two to three weeks after you quit smoking, your risk of a heart attack begins to drop, and your lung function begins to improve. Over the course of the first year of stopping smoking, you substantially reduce your risk of any type of coronary heart disease. Over the next five to 15 years, you reduce your risk of stroke and your risk of various types of cancer, including lung cancer.”

The Great American Smokeout will take place this year on November 20, 2025, encouraging smokers to quit for the day and seek support for a smoke-free life. Why not use Monday, Nov. 24 as your day to observe this annual event, and go forward from there?