What to Do With Your Hands When You Quit Vaping
You've stopped vaping, and your hands don't know what to do. They reach for your pocket, tap the table, hover near your mouth. It sounds minor, but for many people the physical habit is one of the hardest parts of quitting. You held that vape hundreds of times a day.
Why the hand habit matters
Vaping is a ritual: pick it up, raise it, inhale, lower it, fiddle with it. Your brain links that ritual with the nicotine reward. When the reward is gone, the ritual still wants to run. Giving your hands something else to do satisfies part of the urge.
15 things to do with your hands (and mouth)
Hands
- A fidget toy, spinner or cube
- A stress ball
- A pen to click or twirl
- A smooth stone or worry stone in your pocket
- A rubber band or hair tie on your wrist
- Doodling or sketching
- Knitting, crochet or any small craft
- A quick phone game
- Cooking or chopping vegetables
Mouth
- Sugar-free gum
- Mints
- A straw (drink through it, or just hold it)
- A toothpick or cinnamon stick
- Crunchy snacks: carrots, celery, apple, ice
- A water bottle with a sports cap
Match the swap to the moment
- At your desk: a pen or fidget toy, water with a straw.
- Driving: gum, a cold drink.
- Gaming or watching TV: something to fiddle with in your non-gaming hand, a bowl of crunchy snacks.
- Out with friends: keep a drink in your hand.
Keep your swap where your vape used to live: same pocket, same spot on the desk.
It fades
The reaching and fiddling is strongest in the first couple of weeks and fades as new habits take over. Most people find they stop noticing it after a month or so.
A game made for this
We built Vape Destroyer into Unvapd, the app we built to help people quit vaping, for exactly this: 45 seconds of smashing vapes with a hammer, sledgehammer, boot or laser. It keeps your hands busy and your head off the craving.
Photos: rawpixel, public domain (CC0).