Monday Not Your Day? It Is If You Plan to Quit Smoking

Monday, Monday.  Don't trust that day.  For those of you too young to remember, that was the Mamas and the Papas, lamenting Monday, the day that every week seems to have more of than Fridays.

But Monday may be a good day for something.  Quitting smoking.

According to Kim Painter at USA Today, "Monday is a particularly popular day to think about it – or at least Google it."

Google searches for terms such as "quit smoking help" make up a higher proportion of all searches on Mondays than on any other day, Painter reports.  Could be like the diet thing.  OK, I ate like a pig all weekend but on Monday, I'll start watching my portions again.

Call it the Monday Momentum (just made that up).

Searches for help with quitting smoking decline through the week and reach a low point on Saturdays – when they are 145% lower than on Mondays, Painter quotes the American Medical Association.

"People see Mondays as a fresh start, a chance to get their acts together," Morgan Johnson tells Painter. She's the research director for The Monday Campaigns, a not-for-profit organization that leads public health efforts such as Meatless Mondays.

And the great thing is -- cue diets again -- ""If you relapse, you can try again next Monday." Often, Johnson tells Painter, quitting attempts are planned around a big day – such as a birthday, New Year's Day or the upcoming annual Great American Smokeout – but "we want to tell people they don't have to wait a year to try again."


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Don't Wash Your Chicken and Other Food Safety Myths

I remember when I first heard this.  Don't wash your chicken , before you cook it?  I ignored it.  But over time, I began to realize it's true.  Washing it spreads deadly (or at least sick-making) bacteria.  Really. “You should assume that if you have chicken, you have either Salmonella or Campylobacter bacteria on it, if not both,”Dr. Jennifer Quinlan, an associate professor at Drexel University, told newswise.com.  These two bacteria, she noted, are the leading causes of food-borne illness. “If you wash it, you’re more likely to spray bacteria all over the kitchen and yourself," she said. And the rinse water you've been using? It's not hot enough to kill bacteria anyway. Washing raw poultry was a common unsafe practice in all the groups she studied for a documentary on safe cooking conditions, with some minor cultural differences in the method of washing. People are very attached to the idea of washing raw poultry, she told newswise.com. “Some think...
Read more

Need the ER? Pray Your Doc Plays Video Games

We're all so used to picking on our kids for playing video games but the next time he's in the ER, you just might be happy that doctors do it, too. According to new research, video games improve doctors' recognition and triage of severe trauma patients, newswise.com reports. Playing an adventure video game featuring a fictitious, young emergency physician treating severe trauma patients was better than text-based learning at priming real doctors to quickly recognize the patients who needed higher levels of care, according to a new trial led by the  University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine .  The results held, even though doctors assigned to the game enjoyed it less than those assigned to traditional, text-based education. This indicates that if game enjoyment can be improved, the already favorable results might be enhanced, the web site notes.  “Physicians must make decisions quickly and with incomplete information. Each year, 30,000 preventable deaths...
Read more

Take Herbal Supplements? Even Green Tea Extract Can Lead to Liver Damage

Take herbal supplements? You might want to listen up. A new study is warning that new information is showing that some supplements may damage the liver, along with over the counter drugs and even those prescribed by physicians, according to newswise.com. The rate of drug-induced liver injury (DILI), a rare adverse drug reaction which is challenging to diagnose -- and which can lead to jaundice, liver failure and even death -- is increasing more and more.  Experts put it down to the overwhelming use of herbal supplements and other drugs in the last 10 years.  “A lot of consumers have a preconceived notion that if it’s a natural product, it must be safe. But that is not necessarily the case,” the Web site quotes Herbert Bonkovsky, MD, FACG, co-author of the guidelines. “Most of these products are not well-regulated and have very little oversight. Traces of heavy metals and prescription drugs have even been found in some herbal and dietary supplements. We encourage pa...
Read more