Classical Conditioning Can Keep You Smoking

Palov was a scientist that discovered that dogs can be conditioned to salivate when they hear a bell rung because the sound had been paired with the presentation of food. The dogs learned that when they hear the bell, they would be fed. This is called classical conditioning. Habit cigarettes are the very same thing. Everything a smoker smokes a cigarette while doing something else, they can become classically conditioned to think of a cigarette every time they do this other activity because it has become paired with smoking--the next time you hear the phone ring, do you want a cigarette? Even if you just had one? Getting into your car, do you need a cigarette first? Habits can be associated with people, places, situations, times, events, objects, and emotions.
This conditioning happens because nictoine goes to a part of the brain that give extra attention to external events. So when you smoke, you are more aware of what is happening at the same time. if you do the same thing many times while smoking the brain now expects to receive nicotine when you do this activity again, every time.
Smokers often think that these habit cigarettes are the harder to give up but the opposite is true. If you smoke every time you answer the phone and this happens 5 times a day, when you quit, 5 times each day you will "crave" the cigarette, so it seems like you are thinking about cigarettes all the time, but what this means is that you get to practice not having a cigarette 5 times each day also. In a very short period of time, you brain extinguishes the connection between the phone and the cigarette. Pavlov also proved this theory too, it is called extinction.
The urge for habit cigarettes falls away within 2 to 3 weeks. When the conditioning is extinguished, most smokers will feel like a non-smoker and believe that they have beat Kid Nicotine but not all conditioning is extinguished and the smoker needs to be aware of the "out-of-the-blue" craving. Often this is a habit cigarette that is paired to an activity that you don't do very often, maybe only once or twice a year, yet your brain still remembers this connection. You need an emergency plan for when those "out-of-the-blue" craving pop up.