Why this holiday season might be the best time ever to quit vaping

Ho ho hmmm… Ever feel like the vaping that used to chill you out is ultimately giving your mental health a deep freeze? Between finding the perfect gift for your high school friend swap, dealing with your extended family on Christmas, and anxiety about yet another COVID New Year’s Eve, you’ve got enough stress in your stocking. Vaping might feel like a quick fix, but in the long run, you’re better off crossing that one off the list.

Maybe quitting vaping is your New Year’s resolution, maybe you’ve tried quitting and want to try again, or maybe you’ve never thought about quitting at all. Wherever you are in the process, it’s all good: We’re here to share some inside info about how quitting nicotine might actually help improve your mental health. That’s right, your mental health.

You aren’t the only one who has ever felt like vaping was a good way to relax. A survey by the nonprofit public health organization Truth Initiative shows that most e-cigarette users started vaping in order to deal with stress, anxiety, and depression. The irony here is that while you might be vaping for some relief from those symptoms, vaping nicotine might actually be making your symptoms of anxiety and depression worse.

Quitting nicotine reverses that increasing trend and can make you less stressed overall. While nicotine may at first feel like a coping mechanism for stress, over time, using nicotine can increase stress and irritability. An analysis published in the British Medical Journal shows that quitting cigarette smoking — a.k.a. quitting nicotine — can lower levels of stress, anxiety, and depression. In addition, a Truth Initiative survey shows that 90 percent of vapers who had quit said that they also felt less stressed, anxious, and depressed. On the flip side, 93 percent reported that vaping negatively affected their mental health.

How one young person’s quitting journey improved their mental health

Here is one example of a young person who quit e-cigarettes sharing how vaping nicotine impacted their mental health. "Quitting vaping has been one of the hardest things I have done,” says recent quitter Mady, “but it was so worth it in the end...I noticed my mental health slowly improving after the second week and by the end of the first month my anxiety symptoms almost completely went away."

Like Mady, over half of all young people who vape nicotine are interested in quitting — and maybe you are too, since you’re reading this. Add in the fact that quitting vaping is likely at the top of many people’s New Year’s resolution list, and it’s pretty safe to say that a lot of people are thinking about quitting right about now – so you’re not alone!

If you’re in that boat, check out This Is Quitting, a free and anonymous text-messaging quit vaping program from truth. In addition to sharing proven tips and strategies to help you quit for good, you’ll also get texts incorporating messages from others like you who have gone through the quitting process and know what it’s like. You can also text in keywords like STRESS or COPE for instant, on-demand support for stress or when a craving hits.

To get started, just text DITCHVAPE to 88709. If you’re ready to quit, you’ll start receiving texts to help you with that. If you’re not ready to quit just yet, that’s okay, too. Text to join now and you’ll start getting messages to help you gear up for whenever you’re ready.

If you thought the holidays were a bad time to quit vaping nicotine, they might actually be one the best times ever to quit. Regardless, remember that This is Quitting from truth is there for you now, for New Year’s — and beyond.