Newswise — NEW YORK – The American Cancer Society holds its 39th Great American Smokeout on Thursday, Nov. 17th. Joining their cause to help smokers quit for good is the Quit & Stay Quit Monday (QSQM) initiative from The Monday Campaigns.

The QSQM goal is to use this year’s Great American Smokeout as the kickoff to kick the habit. In the weeks that follow, QSQM stands ready to provide proven tobacco cessation tips and tools to help quitters stay smoke free through the holidays and into the New Year. These resources are available for free at: www.quitmonday.org

One of the unique aspects of the QSQM approach is that it focuses on Monday as being the best day to quit smoking and to help stay quit.

“Campaigns for people to quit may benefit from shifting to weekly cues to increase the number of quit attempts participants make each year so they can ultimately quit for good,” said Joanna Cohen, PhD, director of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health Institute for Global Tobacco Control. “Monday is the day people are open to starting healthy behaviors and specifically quit smoking.”

Dr. Cohen demonstrated this point in the JAMA Internal Medicine research letter she co-authored. The study analyzed eight years of Google searches and discovered that more people look for information on how to quit smoking on Monday than on any other day. This pattern was consistent in eight languages, including English, Chinese and Russian, indicating the interest in quitting on Monday is worldwide.

Making Monday the day to quit has another distinct advantage. If smokers lapse in their attempts to quit, and many do, they can quickly try again on the following Monday, which increases their chance of eventual success.

This is particularly important since a recent study, co-authored by Dr. Cohen, in the British Medical Journal reported smokers may try quitting as many as 30 times before ridding themselves of their nicotine habit.

Currently over 40 million Americans continue to smoke. Seven out of 10 smokers say they want to quit. There’s no better time than starting Monday.

About Q&SQM and The Monday Campaigns

Quit & Stay Quit Monday is a program of The Monday Campaigns, a nonprofit organization working in association with The Lerner Centers for Public Health Promotion at Johns Hopkins, Columbia and Syracuse universities. These programs dedicate the first day of every week to health, and support a global movement of individuals and organizations committed to public health and ending preventable diseases.

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