New research led by UC Irvine has identified a technique that can reduce the subjective experience of craving cigarettes and the brain activity linked to it. The method, termed “cue labeling,” adapts an established emotion regulation strategy to address addictive urges.
Quitting smoking remains a significant challenge for many adults. A 2022 study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 67.7% of adults who smoked expressed a desire to quit, with 53.5% reporting an attempt to quit in the past year. Despite these efforts, fewer than one in 10 adults who smoke cigarettes successfully quit each year.
The UC Irvine study, published in the journal *Neuropsychopharmacology*, focuses on a technique where individuals put what they crave into words. Golnaz Tabibnia, a UC Irvine assistant research psychologist and lead author of the study, described the principle as: "Name it to tame it! Putting feelings into words has long been known to calm emotions. Our latest paper shows that putting what we crave into words can help calm cravings.”
Tabibnia, a neuroscientist in the Department of Psychology in the School of Social Ecology, noted that her research initially focused on emotions and their regulation from a neuroscience perspective. She became interested in cravings when she observed that emotions and cravings share common regulatory mechanisms in the brain. This led her to explore whether a cognitive technique effective for emotion regulation could also apply to cravings.
The foundation for cue labeling comes from an emotion regulation technique known academically as “affect labeling.” This involves the act of naming a feeling or identifying something that triggers a feeling. The research indicates that putting feelings into words activates a specific part of the prefrontal cortex and reduces emotional responses, as measured by amygdala activity, self-report, or physiological arousal like skin sweat. This “language/emotion interaction” has shown clinical implications, including improving outcomes in behavior-based therapy for fear and anxiety, where affect labeling is now recommended as an add-on technique.
From a neuroscience perspective, the difficulty in quitting smoking stems from how nicotine and other addictive substances co-opt the brain's survival circuits, which are designed to compel actions like seeking food or water. Dopamine neurons in the brain’s reward circuits are highly responsive to pleasant or anticipated pleasant experiences. This same neurochemical, dopamine, is also crucial for initiating movement. This intertwines the desire for something that felt good previously with the action of moving towards it. Nicotine and similar substances activate this dopamine system far more intensely than everyday survival cues, leading to a powerful desire.
While traditional methods for managing cravings exist, such as mindfulness techniques—which involve observing the sensation of craving without judgment, allowing it to rise and fall like a wave—or cognitive reappraisal—which involves reframing thoughts about the desired object to make it less appealing by focusing on harmful consequences rather than pleasure—these techniques can require significant practice. The UC Irvine research suggests cue labeling offers another pathway for intervention.
The adaptation of affect labeling for craving regulation suggests a new mental strategy that might assist individuals in overcoming strong desires for addictive substances. The study was supported in part by funding from the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
