Quitting is Only a Sniff Away

In the Arzi article the experimenters wanted to determine whether conditioning between cigarette odor and unpleasant odors during sleep and whether or not it would reduce cigarette-smoking behavior compared with similar conditioning during wakefulness.  So they brought in 76 participants in who wanted to quit smoking, after all the qualifying procedures were done they ended up with a total of 66 participants.

The experiments were conducted in a designated olfactory sleep laboratory that was coated in stainless steel to prevent ambient odor and was subserved by high efficiency particulate air and carbon filtration to further assure an odor free environment. During the experiment the participants were exposed to three different odors, a cigarette smoke smell, ammonium sulfide dissolved in water, and a rotting fish smell; it was determined that these smells did not did not waken participants. These smells were taken in by the participants through a nasal mask that they wore, the participants were given a steady air flor of 6L per minute.

In conclusion, hey found that nasal airflow is sensitive to sleep stage a while implicit olfactory aversive conditioning between the cigarette smell and other unpleasant odors does overall reduce smoking behavior profoundly, the reduction in smoking behavior was greater and lasted longer while the participant was in stage 2 sleep as compared to REM sleep. They also found that the explicit olfactory aversive condition during wakefulness did not alter smoking behavior but the presentation of aversive odors alone reduced smoking behavior but only by half.

I thought this article was super interesting I have never heard about using olfactory learning as a way to curb unpleasant habits let alone using sleep to achieve this. I believe that the effects of the conditioning were greater in stage 2 sleep due to the participants being in slow wave sleep thus a deeper sleep than in REM sleep.

This is a great article for anyone who is trying to quit smoking for good, I wonder what other things you could try to condition in our sleep?