Urge surfing to cope with cravings

When a craving hits you, this can be the hardest part of quitting smoking or vaping. Urge surfing can help you cope with these cravings.

Cravings to smoke or vape cannot be avoided. But urge surfing means that you practice ways to accept them and ride them out, without giving in.

What is urge surfing?

Urge surfing helps you avoid giving in to a craving. It’s a type of visualisation tool, meaning that you use mental images to guide your thoughts. During urge surfing, you imagine a wave to help cope with cravings.

The urge (craving) to smoke or vape can start with a trigger. This might be a person, a situation, or even a feeling that makes you want to smoke or vape. The urge will then rise to peak, where it feels the strongest, before fading away.

Urge surfing involves recognising that this urge is like a wave. It is temporary and will fade by itself. By managing your thoughts and feelings during the urge, you can avoid giving in to it until it goes away by itself.

The good news is that you won’t always have strong cravings to smoke or vape. After the first two or three weeks, these ‘urge waves’ occur less often and are smaller in size. These waves will become easier to surf!

1. When you notice a trigger to smoke or vape, imagine it as a wave.

A wave rises to a peak and then crashes onto the shore. Waves can be large or small, but they always fall away, just like urges.

2. Notice that the urge to smoke or vape will start to get stronger.

But keep in mind that this wave will pass. Notice your body – what are you feeling? Notice your thoughts – what are you thinking?

3. Remind yourself that this feeling will pass after a short while and use self-talk to ride the wave.

Try using positive thoughts to get you through the urge, such as:

• “It’s OK to have urges. It’s a natural reaction to quitting.”

• “I’m in control of my next action.”

• “Feeling uncomfortable is OK. I don’t have to do anything to change it.”

• “An urge is just a feeling, not a command. I can choose what to do next.”

4. The urge falls away by itself.

More urges will follow. But every time you surf an urge, you build your confidence to resist more urges and surf more ‘urge waves’. You will notice after the first three days that urges are happening less often and do not feel as big or strong.

Evidence that mindfulness and urge surfing helps people to quit

Urge surfing is a type of mindfulness. Mindfulness can help you cope with strong feelings without trying to change, reduce or avoid them. It can help you observe these thoughts and feelings and not feel so controlled by them.

There is evidence from many studies that mindfulness training helps people reduce their smoking.[1]

• People who use a mindfulness app for quitting go on to smoke less cigarettes on average, and have more cigarette-free days.²

• A study from Australia showed that mindfulness training, including urge surfing, helped people reduce the amount they smoke. Urge surfing did not affect the strength of urges, but it helped people to accept and not give in to them.³

• People who smoke reported that urge surfing was a useful part of a mindfulness program designed to help them quit, in a study from the US.⁴