Day 9 after quitting smokingTen minutes of walking

By Yevhenii, who smoked for 26 years · Updated 30 Oct 2026 · 2 min read

In shortA short bout of activity lowered the urge to smoke in studies, for up to fifty minutes afterwards, and an easy pace was enough. Walk briskly for ten minutes just before the hour when your cravings are worst.

What's happening in your body

This is one of the better tested tools against a craving, and it fits in a lunch break. In a review of experiments where smokers abstained and then either exercised or sat still, every study that made that comparison found that a single bout of activity lowered the desire to smoke and the discomfort of withdrawal. The effect began during the exercise and lasted for up to fifty minutes afterwards.

Hard exercise was not needed. Fifteen minutes at an easy pace worked, and so did five minutes of simply tensing and holding muscles. Most of those experiments were run on people abstaining for hours rather than weeks, so treat it as a tool to test on yourself, not as a promise.

What to expect

Less breathlessness than you remember. Carbon monoxide is out of the blood and the airways have had a week of rest, so effort feels slightly cheaper than it did ten days ago. The first minutes of a walk can still bring a craving, because for years a walk often meant a cigarette. This might be the street, the bus stop, the way to work. That usually fades if you keep going.

Expect the walk to take the edge off rather than switch the craving off; in the studies it lowered the urge, it did not remove it. If effort brings chest pain or pressure, breathlessness out of proportion to the pace, or dizziness, stop and see a doctor.

Try this

Find the hour when your cravings are worst and put a ten-minute brisk walk just before it, fast enough that talking is possible but singing is not.

What else you could do

Look at how that hour goes compared with yesterday's; the Diary shows the time of each craving. When you cannot leave, the shortest version from the review works at a desk. Press your palms together hard, or tense your thighs and hold for a count of ten, a few times over. Stairs instead of the lift. A walk after dinner, which is when many people used to smoke. If there was ever a sport in your life, this is a good month to go back to it, at an easy level.

Sources. Taylor AH, Ussher MH, Faulkner G. The acute effects of exercise on cigarette cravings, withdrawal symptoms, affect and smoking behaviour: a systematic review. Addiction, 2007.