SO it turns out you don’t have to want to quit smoking in order to help kick the habit, you just have to relax.

Scientists in the US have found meditation can actually decrease a person’s desire to smoke without them even realising.

Texas Tech University and University of Oregon researchers conducted a study involving 60 students, around half who smoked, and enrolled them into relaxation classes.

Half the group did muscle relaxation exercises while the other half were taught mindful meditation.

After two weeks, the smokers who had practised mindful meditation had reduced their puffing and inhaling habits by two thirds.

Not only that but they were also unaware they had.

According to the lead author of the study, Yi-Yuan Tang, when the students were asked if they had smoked less they replied no.

Tests were carried out on the amount of carbon dioxide in their lungs which revealed a 60 per cent reduction in smoking two weeks after the study.

“The students changed their smoking behaviour but were not aware of it,” Mr Tang said. “When we showed the data to a participant who said they had smoked 20 cigarettes, this person checked their pocket immediately and was shocked to find 10 left.

“We then measured intention to see if it correlated with smoking changes and found there was no correlation.

“But if you improve the self-control network in the brain and moderate stress-reactivity, then it’s possible to reduce smoking.”

The revelation that improving self-control can help reduce smokers cravings was published in the July edition of Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

The paper says recent neuroimaging studies have shown that smokers have less activity in the brain regions associated with self-control, raising questions around whether targeting these neurobiological circuits could be a way to treat addiction.

Nora Volkow, director of the US National Institute on Drug Abuse, who reviewed the study, said work had begun on how drugs affect areas of the brain that enable people to self-regulate, create goals and be able to achieve them.

“And how those changes influence the behaviour of the person addicted,” she added.

The paper says other studies showed how integrative body-mind training decreased a participant’s levels of the stress hormone cortisol, as well as increased their immune reactivity.

Specific changes in the brain have also been identified, showing stronger connectivity between regions linked to self-control.

However the authors argue that while programs such as mindfulness meditation can change the brain so people are less motivated to smoke, there were still unanswered questions about how often this therapy would need to be conducted, how long the benefits last, and whether some individuals benefit more than others.

They also say their needs to be more research into whether these treatments can be applied to other forms of addiction, such as over-eating or drinking.

“Mindfulness meditation, as well as other strategies that are aimed at strengthening self-control, are likely to be useful for the management of addiction, but not necessarily for everybody,” Ms Volkow said.

“However, understanding how our brain works when we do interventions that strengthen self-control can also have multiple implications that relate to behaviours that are necessary for health and well-being.”

Head of the Smoking Research Program at the University of Sydney, associate professor Renee Bittoun, told news.com.au she thought the mindfulness study was very positive as it argues that being taught mediation will help you make rational decisions.

But she says it doesn’t say it helped anyone to quit.

“That’s the interesting thing for me,” she said. “Reducing the numbers of cigarettes that you actually smoke isn’t always a satisfactory end point because people vacuum clean the next lot. What this means if you don’t have as many cigarettes you tend to compensate by drawing really hard on cigarettes.

“It’s not always a good strategy but at least it looks like it makes people less urgent (for a cigarette) and the decisions about whether they will or they won’t might be in the forefront of their brain.

“Overall this is a good because what we need to do is a combination of all these things. Getting people aware of their dependency.

“So there are advantages of being mindful of your urges, that is what these studies are showing.”