Smokers tend to quit smoking on Monday

Mondays just got better.  According to a study published Oct 28 in JAMA Internal Medicine, smokers are more likely to consider giving up their habit on Monday than any other day of the week.  This conclusion is based on Google search data: the researchers monitored searches on quitting smoking conducted in English, French, Chinese, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish between 2008 and 2012.  Search frequencies were the higher early in the week, Monday being the clear winner. The number of searches on Mondays was 25 percent higher than the combined average of searches on Tuesday through Sunday. The pattern was consistent across all languages.

        In English, a clear pattern emerged.  Monday searches on quitting were 11% higher than those on Wednesdays, 22% higher than Thursdays, 67% higher than Fridays, 145% higher than Saturdays, and—thanks for breaking the pattern Sunday—59% higher than Sundays.  This demonstrates that smoker willingness to give up falls progressively through the week.

The study’s lead author, John Ayers, a research professor at the San Diego State University Graduate School of Public Health, hopes these finding will help health officials and providers design more effective anti-smoking programs.  Before the study, the decision to quit smoking was thought to be unpredictable. Other than special occasions, such as New Years Days, thoughts about quitting seemed sporadically dotted through the calendar.  Thus, anti-smoking campaigns didn’t have much to work with.  Ayers’ study sought to increase the material on smoker behavior by zooming out, looking at quitting decisions from a wider vantage point.  This perspective, as demonstrated by the study findings, transformed the chaos of human behavior into a harmonious pattern.

        Joanna Cohen, a co-author of the study and director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Global Tobacco Control, thinks anti-smoking campaigns should shift to weekly cues based on the findings of the JAMA study.  She points out that smokers often attempt quitting multiple times before succeeding.  In fact, it takes an average of 8 to11 tries to totally stop.  Therefore, by taking advantage of smokers’ collective unconscious, these new attempts can be prompted more regularly.  Depending on an individual smoker’s situation, Monday can be the day to quit, recommit to a quit, or quit again after a relapse.

        While the prospective benefits of the JAMA study seem substantial, the results themselves may not be as profound as the researchers make them seem.  Ayers himself notes that headaches, flu symptoms, and strokes are all more likely to appear on Mondays.  Furthermore, other health campaigns, such as the Meatless Monday campaign, have already co-opted this seemingly innocent day.  What gives?

Monday is, by social construction, the first day of the working week: It’s the fresh start that materializes once every seven days.  This regularity likely influences how humans normalize their behaviors.  If you expect a clean slate every seven days, you are likely to psychologically check in on your health every seven days as well.  Thus, based on our social conventions, Monday seems like the logical choice to quit smoking.

        However, regardless of the JAMA study’s surprise factor, the conclusion remains.  Ayers is already converting his study’s results into an anti-smoking campaign: “Quit this Monday.  Everyone else is doing it.”  I have a college-tailored campaign: “Go counterculture.  Quit on Tuesday.”