Now, app to help you quit smoking

A new app has been created that could help smokers kick the bud.

A new app has been created that could help smokers kick the bud.

Craving to Quit, an app for iPad or iPhone, was developed by goBlue Labs, based at 5 Science Park, which was founded by Dr. Judson Brewer, medical director of the Yale Therapeutic Neuroscience Clinic, the New York Daily News reported.

Mindfulness, a technique rooted in Buddhism and other traditions, proved effective in a smoking-cessation study Brewer conducted in 2009.

In Brewer's four-week study, 88 smokers with an average age of 46, smoking a pack a day, used either mindfulness training or the American Lung Association's Freedom From Smoking program.

At the end of treatment, 36 percent of the group that learned mindfulness training had quit versus 15 percent using FFS.

After 17 weeks, the success rate was 31 percent vs. 6 percent.

The results are published online in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence.