(PRINTWORDS NEWS) Is it really possible? Research says that motivational text messages can really help you to quit smoking. The Lancet medical journal published a report on Thursday, which states that people who wants to quit smoking has double to get rid of this habit if they receive inspirational texts in a day.
The researches gave the name of this experiment as “txt2stop”. They enlisted 5,800 smokers and assigned them different groups. One group was named as control group and the other group used to receive tailored text messages.
After months of study, the researchers came to a conclusion that the members of the second group could manage to get rid of their smoking habits, owing to the encouraging texts that they received.
The researchers said that the experts created the text messages, with the help of the smokers to encourage people to quit smoking. One of the sample shows that the smokers were asked to quit smoking by throwing off their cigarettes.
With every text, the smokers were given moral support and told that they can quit this habit if they want to. Some smokers, who were selected randomly, received five text messages a day for first five weeks. After that they received three messages per week for next six months. On the other hand, the control group received thank you texts, just for their participation in this program.
Later, the doctors performed saliva tests on the smokers to see if they have really quit smoking. The report later showed that 10.7% people of the group who received motivational texts could quit smoking compared to 4.9% of the control group.
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine‘s Dr Caroline Free said that text messages can be used to as a ” very convenient way for smokers to receive support to quit. People described txt2stop as being like having a ‘friend’ encouraging them or an ‘angel on their shoulder” as it lessens the temptation to smoke.
