Israeli scientists help you sleep your way to less cigarettes
New research by scientists at Weizmann Institute shows that smelling nasty smells while sleeping can help smokers reduce their cigarette consumption.
Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science have discovered that being exposed to "profoundly unpleasant odors" while sleeping can result in a drop in the amount of cigarettes consumed on the following days.
In a paper published in the Journal of Neuroscience, Anat Arzi, Yael Holtzman, Perry Samnon, Neetai Eshel, Edo Harel and Noam Sobel wrote that they "tested the hypothesis that olfactory aversive conditioning during sleep will alter cigarette-smoking behavior during ensuing wakefulness."
In their experiment, the scientists asked 66 adult smokers to keep a "daily smoking diary" for the seven days before and after they were exposed to one day or night "protocol of conditioning between cigarette odor and profoundly unpleasant odors."
According to the Guardian newspaper, the experiment included the use of electrodes attached to the scalps of the participants, which monitored the brainwaves during the various stages of the sleep cycle. The sleepers were "repeatedly exposed to the smell of cigarette smoke closely followed by the smell of either rotten eggs or rotten fish."
The report said that one group was given this treatment during "sleep stage 2" (a light sleep), while another group was exposed to the same formula of smells during the rapid eye movement (REM) stage, and a third while awake.
The researchers discovered that a combination of cigarette odors and "aversive" odors was far more effective in reducing the number of cigarettes consumed after the sleep experiments than either smell utilized in isolation.
