Best apps for quitting smoking

Date: May-25-2017Want to stop smoking? Medical News Today have found the best apps to help you on your journey to kicking the habit. These top quit smoking apps have been selected based on the usability of their interface, their design, user ratings, how frequently they are updated, and their ability to help you quit smoking.

Quit smoking apps are designed to help you on your way to becoming smoke-free.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), smoking cigarettes comes out on top as "the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the United States."

Around 36.5 million U.S. adults currently smoke cigarettes, and more than 16 million are living with a smoking-related illness. Smoking damages almost every organ in the body and increases the risk for coronary heart disease, stroke, lung cancer, and several other types of cancer.

Cigarettes contain nicotine, which is highly addictive. Quitting smoking can be challenging due to effects caused by nicotine withdrawal. At first, a person may feel irritable, anxious, and have difficulty concentrating. Quitting smoking does not only lower the risk for smoking-related disease; it also adds years to a person's life.

Help is at hand in the form of quit smoking apps. We have identified 10 of the best apps to help you take charge and quit smoking for good.

QuitNow!

Android: Free

iPhone: Free

QuitNow! is our favorite quit smoking app for design with a clear, colorful, and easy-to-use interface. QuitNow! boasts more than 2 million quitters to date and say that their unique chat function is the key to both their success in a competitive field and the success of their users.

The QuitNow! community provides you with support and is an arena where you can share your success, milestones, struggles, and goals on your route to becoming nicotine-free.

Another attraction of the app is the QuitNow! milestone system, which is a fun way to keep you focused and committed to your goals. Each achievement is marked with a quirky and vibrant illustration. Their in-app health indicators are based on World Health Organization (WHO) data.

Kwit

Android: Coming soon!

iPhone: Free

Kwit is inspired by gaming and incorporates game thinking, game mechanics, and game design. Gamification helps to keep quitting smoking fun and is used as a tool to help people stick to their decision, stop smoking, and change their behavior. As time goes on and you make headway to becoming the "Ultimate Kwitter," you reach higher levels and rankings.

The interface is clean and modern in design and is packed with useful statistics, such as the time passed since you have quit smoking, how much money you have saved, and the number of cigarettes that you have not smoked.

Shaking your phone displays motivational messages to keep you on track. Kwit logs cigarettes that you may occasionally smoke and when you successfully manage to resist cravings. However, in true game style, if your willpower hits zero, you have to start all over again.

Smoke Free

Android: Free

iPhone: Free

Smoke Free tracks how much money you have saved, how long you have been smoke-free, and how many cigarettes you have avoided. As you experience cravings, you can record them, get tips on how to avoid them, and use the Smoke Free tools to work out the patterns behind your cravings.

The progress dashboard shows how your health is improving by offering insights on blood pressure and oxygen and carbon monoxide levels, as well as changes that may be occurring to breathing, circulation, and lung cancer risk. Badges are gained as the time you are smoke-free increases. You are even shown how much money you have saved in total, so you can reward yourself a treat with your accumulated savings.

Each day a new stop smoking task, known as a mission, is set to help you on the road to recovery. Smoke Free says that people who commit to completing missions are more likely to cease smoking altogether.

Quit Smoking Slowly

Android: Free

As the title suggests, this app is designed to help you quit smoking gradually, so it is ideal for those who feel that the "cold turkey" approach will not work for them. The selling point of the app is that it helps you to slowly reduce your cigarette intake to allow your body to adjust to the reduced nicotine levels.

After completing the setup questions, you are shown an intuitive smoking reduction plan that shows a graph of your planned cigarette intake with average time intervals between cigarettes. The app also displays the amount of money you would have spent over various time intervals, from a week up to 5 years.

The home screen alternates between bright green and red to indicate when you are allowed and not allowed to smoke. The time interval gets longer every day until you reach your target and become smoke-free. This app could help those who feel that they could benefit from a managed approach to quitting.

Quitter's Circle

Android: Free

iPhone: Free

Quitter's Circle is the combined effort of Pfizer and the American Lung Association to help smokers navigate their journey to ditch smoking successfully.

You can create a personalized Quit Plan by setting goals for when and how you aim to stop smoking. The app tracks milestones throughout the quitting process, such as forming a Quit Team of supporting friends and family and starting a Quit Fund that can help to pay for healthcare provider visits and treatments.

Quitter's Circle motivates through Quit Cards, emoticons, and stickers (which can be shared with your Quit Team), and milestones are celebrated along the way, such as when you reach 1 month of being smoke-free. The app also allows friends and family to send motivational messages and view your latest achievements in real time.

Quit Smoking NOW with Max Kirsten

iPhone: $4.99

Max Kirsten is an award-winning clinical hypnotherapist to the stars and has helped Hollywood actor Ewan McGregor to stop smoking. Kirsten has more than 15 years of experience in smoking cessation and says that thousands of people have successfully ceased smoking with his advanced hypnosis app - including megastar singer Adele.

Kirsten's unique "60-second Cravings Buster" technique is reported to dissolve cravings, while hypnotherapy and advice on the app aims to prevent the weight gain associated with quitting smoking.

A bold and bright dashboard details the number of smoke-free days, cigarettes you have not smoked, and the total money you have saved. The app includes many extras, such as up-to-date smoking news, 40-fact cards, and smoking galleries.

Quit Tracker

Android: Free

Quit Tracker aims to motivate you in your goal to stop smoking by offering you health-based statistics that reveal the benefits that quitting smoking is having on your body. The app also aims to gamify your decision to quit by presenting you with virtual rewards as time progresses, such as movie tickets or sneakers that you can buy with the money you have saved.

Setup is quick and easy, with only one screen of questions to complete. The app experience is positive and motivational, and each tab offers a different positive aspect of your decision to quit, including money saved, life regained, and health benefits. It also includes a simple card matching game to help distract you if your cravings return.

Upgrading to the premium version turns off the ads, adds a home screen widget, and increases the virtual rewards you can achieve. Quit Tracker could be useful for an ex-smoker who would like to see positive motivational facts to keep them from restarting smoking.

Quit It Lite

iPhone: Free

Quit It Lite is a motivational app designed to support and encourage smokers to stop smoking and help ex-smokers to stay smoke-free. Through the use of a basic and straightforward interface, you can input your smoking habits and costs per pack to view metrics of cigarettes not smoked and dollars saved.

The app's health section lists the benefits of quitting smoking along with a percentage bar that shows in real time when you will achieve them. For example, there are progress bars that signal when your blood pressure and pulse rate, as well as carbon monoxide and oxygen levels, will return to normal, and the time until your risk of heart attack will decrease and your lung function will increase.

You can define your goals as an incentive to keep going, with anything from a cappuccino to a movie or musical ticket, and the app counts down until you have achieved your reward.

Quit Smoking Hypnosis

Android: Free

iPhone: Free

Quit Smoking Hypnosis trains you to give up smoking by changing your mindset and resetting behavior patterns, which can lead to a healthier lifestyle and fewer cigarette cravings.

By listening to daily hypnosis audio, Quit Smoking Hypnosis claims to be effective within just 1 to 3 weeks. A certified hypnotherapist features in the audio and has a soothing voice. The background music and sounds from nature included in the app are equally soothing to emphasize peace and relaxation.

If you are using the app before bedtime, you can disable the "Awaken at End" feature to drift into a restful sleep. You can also opt to carry on listening to the calming background sounds after your hypnosis session is complete.

Butt Out

iPhone: Free

Butt Out is a bold and "in-your-face" app filled with cartoon-like graphics and bright colors.

Butt Out tracks cravings and cigarettes smoked, and it presents real-time progress through the use of a graph and health improvement indicators. The app provides encouragement not to give up if you struggle, slip up, or miss your target, and it displays motivational pictures and quotes.

You can choose whether to go all-out cold turkey from your quit date, or to taper off cigarettes over a set period. If you stopped smoking before downloading the app, you can also choose a quit date in the past.

Written by Hannah Nichols

Courtesy: Medical News Today Note: Any medical information available in this news section is not intended as a substitute for informed medical advice and you should not take any action before consulting with a health care professional.