Another effective approach for weaning yourself off of nicotine is called “nicotine fading.” It involves progressively switching to cigarette brands with lower and lower nicotine levels before quitting altogether — a typical schedule is to switch once a week for 3 weeks to brands with 30%, 60%, and then 90% less nicotine than you started with.

One potential problem with this approach is that some smokers “compensate” for lower nicotine levels by smoking more cigarettes, taking more puffs off of each cigarette, and/or puffing more deeply and this can lessen the effectiveness of nicotine fading.

But there are things you can do to decrease the compensation problem — you can be aware of it and minimize these behaviors, and you can delay a brand switch for a few days if you notice that you’re compensating (some people’s bodies take a little longer to adjust and they will naturally stop compensating after a few extra days). Besides being inexpensive, this approach to “weaning” can also help you develop confidence in your ability to exercise some control over your smoking habit before you stop smoking altogether.

You can also achieve the same thing by simply reducing the amount of cigarettes you smoke each day, perhaps reduce by 1 cigarette every two days.

But experts don’t like this method because you still get the psychological reinforcement of nicotine when you smoke and it’s hard to control the number of cigarettes you consume.

Read More:

Nicotine fading and self-monitoring for cigarette abstinence or controlled smoking.