Vaping Triggers: How to Spot Yours and What to Do Instead
Most of the time, you don't decide to vape. Something happens, and your hand is already reaching for it. That something is a trigger. Find your triggers and plan for them, and quitting gets a lot easier.
The most common vaping triggers
- Waking up: the first craving of the day, often the strongest.
- Coffee or energy drinks.
- After meals.
- Driving or commuting.
- Breaks at work or school.
- Stress: an email, an argument, a deadline.
- Boredom: waiting, scrolling, gaming.
- Alcohol and nights out.
- Other people vaping.
- Before bed.
Find your top three
For two or three days before you quit, or in your first week, note each craving and what was happening right before. Patterns show up fast. Most people find that three or four triggers cover most of their vaping.
Tag every craving with what set it off. After a week, your top three triggers are usually obvious.
A swap for each trigger
- Waking up: drink a glass of water straight away, shower, get outside for a minute of daylight. Change the first five minutes of your morning.
- Coffee: switch to tea for a couple of weeks, or have your coffee somewhere different.
- After meals: get up from the table and brush your teeth, or take a five-minute walk.
- Driving: gum, a podcast you love, a playlist for the car.
- Breaks: still take them, but walk, stretch or message a friend.
- Stress: ten slow breaths with a long exhale. See breathing exercises.
- Boredom: have a short list ready. See what to do instead of vaping.
- Alcohol: drink less for the first month, and decide your answer to "want a puff?" in advance. See vaping and alcohol.
- Other people vaping: step away, and tell friends you're quitting. See dealing with friends who vape.
- Before bed: keep your phone and anything vape-shaped out of the bedroom; read instead.
Avoid, change or face
For each trigger, you have three options. Avoid it for a while (skip the smoking area for a month). Change it (tea instead of coffee). Or face it with a plan (stress happens; breathe through it). Early on, avoiding is fine. Later, facing triggers and winning is what makes the quit last.
Learn your pattern
Unvapd, the app we built to help people quit vaping, lets you tag what set off each craving right after you get through it, and shows your most common triggers on the Progress screen, so you can plan for the ones that hit you most.
Sources and further help
Photos: rawpixel, public domain (CC0).