Vaping cravings at work: a 60-second smoko routine

Here is the routine. When a craving hits at work: 1) step away from your desk or station for a moment, 2) take five slow breaths through your necklace or a plain straw, breathing in, holding for a count of five, then breathing out long and slow, 3) note what set the craving off (the smoko bell, a mate heading out, the coffee, a tense email), and 4) go back to it. The whole thing takes under a minute. A craving usually fades in a few minutes on its own (Quit, Cancer Council Victoria), so you will often be back at work before it has fully gone. That is fine. The point is to give the urge somewhere to go that is not the vape.

The routine in detail

  1. Step away. Ten seconds. Outside, the corridor, the loading bay. Moving breaks the cue, and you are not going to do slow breathing in front of a customer.
  2. Five slow breaths. Breathe in deeply through the necklace or straw, filling your belly. Hold for a count of five. Breathe out slowly and evenly through it. The narrow opening does the pacing for you, so there is nothing to count or remember mid-craving. Repeat five times. The full steps are on our how it works page.
  3. Note the cue. One word in your phone: "smoko", "coffee", "boss". After a week you will have a list of exactly where the habit lives at work.
  4. Back to it. Do not wait for the craving to be fully gone. It will fade while you work.

Why the long exhale helps

Breathing out through a narrow opening stretches your exhalation out longer than your inhalation. A long, slow exhale is the signal your nervous system reads as safe: it engages the parasympathetic branch, slows your heart rate and winds down the fight-or-flight arousal that stress and nicotine withdrawal crank up. That is why counsellors teach straw breathing and pursed-lip breathing for anxiety.

The evidence on cravings specifically:

  • In a randomised trial, 96 abstaining smokers did either a breathing exercise or watched a control video. Right after practising, the breathing group reported significantly weaker urges and cravings (Shahab, Sarkar and West 2013). The effect had washed out by 24 hours later, which is exactly why this is a routine you repeat at every craving, not something you do once.
  • Controlled deep breathing during abstinence reduced withdrawal symptoms, including craving and the tense, irritable mood, in dependent smokers (McClernon, Westman and Rose 2004).
  • In a Stanford trial, five minutes a day of exhale-emphasised "cyclic sighing" for a month improved mood more than mindfulness meditation and lowered resting breathing rate (Balban et al. 2023). Long exhales, done briefly but daily, changed how people felt at baseline.

Two honest caveats. These studies are on smokers, not vapers; nicotine craving is the shared mechanism, but no vaping-specific breathing trial exists yet. And breathing is not a proven standalone way to stay quit. It handles the minutes. Support such as Quitline (0800 778 778) and nicotine replacement from your GP or pharmacist handles the weeks. We go through all of this, limits included, in Does straw breathing actually work?

The smoko-break problem

Smoko is the hardest cue at work because it is three cues at once: a set time, a set place, and other people vaping. In a survey of 1,119 New Zealanders who vape or used to, being around others who vaped was one of the three main triggers for going back to it, alongside stress and nicotine withdrawal (Rahimi et al. 2025). Habit researchers describe habits as context-response links in memory, and say breaking one means neutralising the cues that trigger it or giving the cue a competing response (Wood and Neal 2016).

You have two workable options, and both beat willpower alone:

  • Same crew, different routine. Go out with them, stand where you always stood, and run the five breaths through the necklace or straw while they vape. Same cue, same hand-to-mouth motion, different routine. This is habit substitution.
  • Different spot for a fortnight. Take the break somewhere else until the worst of withdrawal has passed. It peaks within the first week and fades over two to four weeks for most people (Hughes 2007). Then rejoin on your own terms.

Either way, tell one workmate. Someone who knows you are off it will not pass you theirs, and a short "I'm off them, give me a month" closes the conversation.

Your first week back at work: three lines

  1. Before the first break each day, decide where you will stand and what will be in your hand.
  2. At every craving: step away, five slow breaths, note the cue, back to it.
  3. At the end of each day, write down which cue got you, if any, and change that spot tomorrow.

Add free support on top. Quitline is on 0800 778 778 or text 4006; nearly 16,000 New Zealanders used it last year, about 4,000 of them to quit vaping (Whakarongorau Aotearoa, May 2026). If you were on high-nicotine vapes, ask your GP or pharmacist about nicotine replacement as well.

Where a breathing necklace fits

You can do all of this with a plain straw from the staff room. The reason we made the Inhalace V2 is that it hangs where the vape used to live, so it is there at the cue without a trip back to your bag, and the flavoured insert gives the ritual something to taste. It replaces the habit. The nicotine side is for your GP, pharmacist or Quitline. $49.99, nicotine-free, couriered NZ-wide.

General information, not medical advice. Inhalace is not a medical device and does not treat or cure anything. For help quitting, talk to your GP, pharmacist or Quitline on 0800 778 778.

FAQ

How do I deal with vape cravings at work?

Step away for a moment, take five slow breaths through a necklace or a straw (breathe in, hold for five, breathe out long and slow), note what set the craving off, and go back to work. It takes under a minute, and the craving usually fades within a few minutes.

How long does a vape craving last?

A few minutes. Delay acting on it for five minutes and it will usually pass on its own, so a one-minute routine is often enough to get you through.

Does slow breathing actually reduce cravings?

In the moment, yes. A randomised trial of 96 abstaining smokers found breathing exercises significantly reduced craving strength right after practice, though the effect was gone by the next day. It is a tool you reuse at every craving, not a standalone quit method.

What do I do at smoko when everyone else is vaping?

Either go out with them and run the five breaths through your necklace or straw while they vape, or take your break somewhere else for the first fortnight while withdrawal is at its worst. Tell one workmate so nobody offers you theirs.

Sources

Person using an Inhalace breathing necklace during a break
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