Researchers from the University of Plymouth examined whether combining physical activity with motivational support yields lasting benefits for people trying to quit smoking. The work appeared in Dependence, a scientific journal focused on addiction and behavior.
The trial included 915 adults who smoked. One group joined a motivational support program that involved regular contact with a supervisor and, in some cases, in-person meetings. They were also encouraged to increase their daily physical activity. The other group received standard smoking cessation guidance, emphasizing typical coping strategies without additional coaching or activity targets.
In the short term, there were modest gains for the program participants. About 19 percent of those who received extra encouragement reduced their cigarette consumption by at least half within three months. By comparison, roughly 10 percent of the standard-advice group reported similar reductions. These early improvements suggested that motivational support and activity prompts could help some smokers curb their intake in the near term, but the effect was not uniform across participants.
When the researchers tracked outcomes over a longer horizon, the early advantages largely disappeared. After nine months, only about 2 percent of the participants in the augmented program had quit smoking, as opposed to less than 1 percent in the group that received standard recommendations. This finding indicates that the added program components did not translate into substantially higher quit rates over time.
Additional analysis showed that simply increasing physical activity did not translate into higher cessation success. Participants who accumulated about 81 minutes more exercise per week did not quit smoking more often than those who did not pursue the extra activity. The study, while robust in scale, suggests that motivation and activity alone may be insufficient to drive lasting abstinence for many smokers, underscoring the need to explore other supportive strategies and longer-term interventions for nicotine dependence.