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Sleep: Sleep Through the Cravings and Withdrawal Symptoms

by Brian Morris

Overland Park, Kansas
United States

I began smoking 8 years ago when I got married and my wife smoked. I never liked the idea doing half measures. To quit only cold turkey would do for me. Patches and gum simply for me made the process last longer. I started off not very well. My problem was I figured slow down first. I could have one or two a day and still quit. Nope, it doesn't work that way. Have one or two just makes it worse and the next thing you know your having 3, 4 and then your toast. I had tried to quit several times before and had failed. I remember though why I failed each time. What was the mistake I made and how could I avoid it this time. The biggest thing was I had to always say to myself "One cigerette isn't ok." I knew even just one could start me on the slippery slope back to smoking. Finally I had a secret weapon to quit. One thing I noticed before when I tried to quit was I got sleepy a lot. When this happened and I laid down for a quick nap the cravings would go away. I decided to sleep myself into quitting! You may laugh but here I am 2 weeks later and I did it! When my cravings got really bad I also got sleepy so I would just go into the bedroom and lie down for a nap. Most times I would nap for around 20-30 minutes and when I woke up, the cravings were gone for a while. The cravings would return of course but I would simply go lay down and nap again. I figured I slept about another 3-4 hours the first two days quitting but it got me through it. I actually slept through the worst cravings. My wife said I was nuts but I'd read that feeling sleepy is a symptom of withdrawl and when she saw it was working for me, she started taking naps and it helped her a great deal also. We have both now quit. Why not use the feeling drowsy side effect of quitting to your advantage. It really does help and after half a dozen failures it helped us both quit.