How to Quit Vaping: A Step-by-Step Guide

Ready to quit vaping? Our detailed step-by-step guide is designed to help you kick the habit and avoid going back to smoking cigarettes.

I know what you’re thinking: a vape company with a guide on how to quit vaping? This is some Miracle on 34th Street nonsense.

But it’s not a ploy: every vaper will quit eventually—hopefully once they’re completely ready. If you’ve put distance between yourself and your smoking addiction and you’re ready to give up nicotine, we’re here to help. 

When is it time to quit vaping?

You’ll know you’re ready to quit once you’ve been vaping for a while and you’re certain you won’t return to smoking cigarettes.

For some people, this might be a few months after they’ve successfully quit smoking. For others, it could be several years. 

The important thing to note here is that there’s no need to rush, according to the NHS. You should only quit vaping when you’re ready. 

Remember: if you’ve successfully quit smoking, you’ve already taken a massive step toward better health. Don’t worry if it takes you a while to stop vaping.

How to Quit Vaping

If you’re sure you’re ready, let’s break down some steps you can take to help you quit vaping.

Step 1: Lower Your Nicotine Strength

In week 1, try reducing your nicotine down to the next available strength. For example, if you usually vape 20mg (2% nicotine), you could try a 10mg nic salt or a 12mg 10ml freebase E-Liquid. Whatever you do, don’t drop down to the absolute lowest strength from the jump. We ran a customer survey and found that those who vape 0mg were more likely to be dual users (vapers who also smoke).

Nic salts only come in a few strengths: 20mg, 10mg, and 5mg. For some people, there’s too big a jump between strengths. If you normally use nic salts, consider switching to freebase nicotine, which offers more strength options for helping you wean. Freebase liquids are available in 18mg, 12mg, 6mg, and 3mg strengths. 

Freebase has its own set of advantages (and disadvantages) over nic salts, which you can learn more about in our guide: Nic Salts vs. 50/50 E-Liquids. Generally speaking, freebase nicotine takes longer to “kick in” than nic salts do, but they also last longer in your system, which will help keep you satisfied for longer.

If you usually vape disposables—which may only be available in 20mg—switching to a refillable vape kit can help. It may seem counterintuitive to buy a new device when you plan to quit, but thankfully, there are a number of cheap vape kits available for under £10 (less than a pack of nicotine patches!) to help you make the transition.

You can gradually lower your nicotine strength over a period of several weeks. Each time you lower your strength, you’ll need to give your body time to adjust.

One important thing to note when lowering your nicotine strength is that you will initially be inclined to take more puffs to compensate. This is completely normal. You should eventually start to take fewer puffs as your body adjusts to the lower nicotine content—at which point, you can move on to the next lower strength. 

However, if you find yourself puffing a lot, you should wait before lowering your strength again. It’s really important to ensure you’re satisfying your nicotine cravings, or else you may be tempted to go back to smoking cigarettes.

Step 2: Set Rules for Yourself

If you’re the kind of person who vapes at home, in the car, outside—or just about anywhere besides your place of work, you’re in the majority of vapers. One of the great things about vaping is that it can be done in places where smoking can’t without harm to bystanders or infrastructure, which is one of its biggest appeals.

However, this also makes it harder to quit vaping. 

A great step you can take is to set rules for yourself about where you can and cannot vape. For instance, you might set a rule that you can’t vape while at home watching TV, or you can only vape on your lunch break at work—or you might tell yourself not to vape indoors at all.

After all, if you have to get your parka on and trek all the way outside to vape, you may be less inclined to do it in the first place. This is a good deterrent to help you curb the habit.

Setting rules for yourself will help you vape less often and will therefore help your body learn to cope without nicotine.

Step 3: Reduce Your Frequency

Reduce your vaping frequency gradually. This step is tough. 

A good idea at first would be to set yourself timers on your phone. For example, every hour, you can give yourself a five minute window to vape to your heart’s content. This will vary from vaper to vaper, as you’ll need to base this on your current habits. If you vape a lot throughout the day, you may need to give yourself more frequent windows.

Slowly but surely, it will become easier to wait out those stretches of time.

If you’re finding this step hard, as most vapers would, consider going somewhere where you can’t vape. Take your laptop to an indoor café, or hang out at your local library for a few hours. Putting yourself in a position where you can’t vape may help stave off cravings for a while.

Once you get accustomed to this schedule, try adding more time between vaping sessions. This, paired with Step 2, should help you vape less often, which will train your body to depend less on nicotine.

Step 4: Go Nicotine-Free

The last step before you can really quit vaping is switching to a nicotine-free vape. You can find nicotine-free E-Liquids in bulk, like shortfills, and you can also find some nicotine-free disposable vapes on the market, too.

Once you’re able to cut out nicotine, all that’s left is the oral habit: the hand-to-mouth action you’ve become used to. This is usually the hardest and last habit to break, and it’s also one of the things that makes vaping such an effective smoking cessation aid, as it replicates the hand-to-mouth action of smoking. 

If you switched from smoking to vaping, you never had to do without this. You’re used to holding a cigarette or a device to your mouth, inhaling, and exhaling. What’s funny is that this facet is not so much an addiction as it is a habit you’ve gotten used to. It’s psychological rather than physiological.

Now, your brain is used to there being nicotine in the substance you inhale, whether that’s smoke or vapour. Once you manage to cut nicotine out of the vape equation, your brain will start to sever its association between this hand-to-mouth action and nicotine satisfaction. In time, you won’t need to vape anymore as your brain learns that it’s no longer providing nicotine.

Nicotine-free vapes are an excellent way to quit the vaping habit for good.

And once you’ve been nicotine-free for a while, you’ll likely find that you don’t need to vape anymore.

If You Need More Help

Quitting isn’t the same for everyone. What works for one vaper may not work for everyone.

If you’ve tried the above steps and you’re still struggling to quit, your GP or local Stop Smoking Service is equipped to help you quit vaping. They can recommend strategies and supplementary nicotine products like patches, lozenges, or gum that may help make quitting easier.

You don’t have to do it alone. The NHS Better Health has loads of resources you can access to help you on your journey.

Conclusion

You’ll know you’re ready to quit vaping when you’ve been doing it for a while and you no longer feel the urge to smoke. Once you’re sure you’re not in danger of going back to cigarettes, you can take steps toward cutting down your nicotine intake and eventually switching to a nicotine-free vape. 

Remember: don’t rush it. Vaping isn’t smoking, and you likely won’t do well if you try to cut it out in one fell swoop. It’s a gradual process, and there are tools you can use to help you along your journey.

Vaping isn’t a permanent solution to your smoking habit, and you should have hopes to quit eventually. But above all else, remember that it’s immensely safer than smoking, and by making the switch, you’ve already taken a giant leap toward a healthier future.