While leafing through the May 16, 2013, issue of Businessweek, I was delighted to stumble upon an article about an app that uses mindfulness to help smokers quit in as few as 21 days. Craving to Quit was developed by the medical director of the Yale Therapeutic Neuroscience Clinic, Judson Brewer, whose lab has conducted research on the effectiveness of mindfulness for addressing addiction. His team has identified the part of the brain that is activated by feelings of anxiety, and they have found that engaging in mindfulness practices can reduce anxiety in that part of the brain, thus reducing or eliminating cravings.

In one randomized clinical trial Brewer performed in 2011, 41 percent of the participants who were trained in mindfulness quit smoking, which was twice the success rate of the participants using the American Lung Association’s smoking-cessation protocol. (Four months out, the relapse rate was also lower for those who practiced mindfulness.) With only six percent of U.S. smokers who want to quit managing to quit each year, this outcome is both remarkable and promising.

App users are prompted to note how they are feeling when they want a cigarette; and learn how recognize, compassionately allow and track the sensations of craving in the body, increasing their capacity to experience the anxiety or other feelings underlying the urge to smoke without having to act on them. The interactivity built into the app is designed to help the user “surf the urge,” and develop the capacity to better attend to themselves and what they really need. App users also have online access to the Craving to Quit community, which provides peer support.

You can read an interview with Judson Brewer here.