Zusammenfassung

Exercise is presumed to be a potentially helpful smoking cessation adjunct reputed to attenuate the negative effects of deprivation. The present study examined the effectiveness of moderate within-session exercise to reduce four key symptoms of smoking deprivation during three 72-hour nicotine abstinence blocks in both male and female smokers. Forty-nine (25 male, 24 female) sedentary smokers abstained from smoking for three consecutive days on three separate occasions. At each session, smokers’ abstinence-induced craving, cue-induced craving, negative mood, and withdrawal symptom severity were assessed prior to and after either exercise (AM exercise, PM Exercise) or a sedentary control activity (Magazine reading). Abstinence-induced craving and negative mood differed as a function of condition, F(2,385)=21, p< 0.0001, and F(2,385) = 3.38, p= 0.03. Planned contrasts revealed no difference between AM and PM exercise, but exercise overall led to greater pre-post reduction in abstinence-induced craving, t(385)=6.23, p< 0.0001, effect size Cohen’s d = 0.64, and negative mood, t(385)= 2.25, p= 0.03, d = 0.23. Overall exercise also led to a larger pre-post reduction in cue-induced craving in response to smoking cues, F(2,387) = 8.94, p = 0.0002, and withdrawal severity, F(2,385) = 3.8, p= 0.02. Unlike the other three measures, PM exercise reduced withdrawal severity over control, t(385) = 2.64, p = .009, d = 0.27, whereas AM exercise did not. The results support the clinical potential of exercise to assist smokers in managing common and robust negative symptoms experienced during the first 3 days of abstinence.