Quitting smoking helps reduce symptoms of depression, according to a study by Christopher Kahler, professor of community health. The six-month study examined a group of people seeking treatment to help them quit smoking and was designed to assess how quitting affected their mood.
In follow-up appointments after quitting, participants showed fewer signs of depression than they did at the beginning of the study when they were smoking, Kahler said. "The most successful people who quit and stayed quit throughout came in with very low depression symptoms," he said. "If they went back to smoking, their depression symptoms went back up to where they were when they came in."
The markers for depression in the study included mood and the presence of somatic symptoms, Kahler wrote in an e-mail to The Herald.
Geraud Bablon '14 said he started smoking when he moved to Paris in high school. He said the study sounded logical and very reasonable, but said smokers feel pleasure when smoking and a sense of community with others who smoke.
"I think that the general assumption from smokers is that they might be using their smoking to help them deal with stress and negative moods, but research that other people have done — and that this study shows — suggests that it's not an effective way to deal with stress and depression," Kahler said. He also said people tend to be more psychologically healthy when they quit smoking and are more successful. He said he hopes this finding will help people to quit by giving them hope that their mental health will improve.
"It gets better, and down the road, people tend to feel better mentally and emotionally than they did when they started," Kahler said.
Kahler said the results from the study match his findings from similar studies meant to measure depression even though the participants had different backgrounds. In the current study, all participants were heavy drinkers but were not dependent on alcohol, Kahler said.
"We've done another study where we followed people for a year, and we saw very similar results for people who were successful at quitting smoking, showing lower depression symptoms over time compared to the people that were not successful," Kahler said.
"I'm sure there are many things that are happy about quitting, like not having to pay $7 a pack and not sitting out in the cold," said Theresa Williams GS, who said she has been smoking for about 14 years. "I've been a smoker too long to pay attention to people's studies."