So the money that you make through work or your attentional ability or the fact that you're alert and people feel you present all of that funnels back into positive reinforcement , behavioral reinforcement and then what we would call addiction . So this review covers all of that and then steps beautifully through nicotine replacement therapy and various compounds . Several of which I'm gonna talk about now , which have been shown to increase that number that we talked about earlier , of only 5% of people who try to quit with no other support pharmacologic or hypnosis or otherwise just say that's it .
They elevated every once in a while . Nicotine replacement can be used in a similar way . But in a benevolent way , in order to help you get over smoking or vaping by keeping the total amounts of dopamine variable around the clock and by changing the amount of dopamine that's released , it seems to help people behaviorally and psychologically because they don't come to expect having a particular amount of dopamine in their brain and blood at any given time .
So , nicotine patch is going to be very effective for a week or so . Again , talk to your physician about the best approach for this , but then switching to a nasal spray or switching to nicotine gum for about a week , which is gonna change the kinetics of that nicotine absorption into the bloodstream and change the release of dopamine and other neurochemicals within the brain that's going to keep the system intentionally off balance so that it never comes to expect one single pattern or amplitude of dopamine release . And that is a very powerful way for a let's just call it a quitting method to work because as I've always said , the most powerful schedule of dopamine is going to be this random intermittent reward .
So somewhat surprising . But it is very clear from the literature that I was able to find that using nicotine patches for some period of time and then switching to a gum and then perhaps switching to an a nasal spray that's going to be the most effective . Then the question is how long to continue each of those and whether or not to overlap them , it seems as if doing one for about a week and then switching to another for about a week and then switching to another is one rational and reasonable approach that many people have used successfully why would that be ?
So people are waking up in nicotine withdrawal and then immediately going into the behavior of ingesting nicotine or very soon after waking from most people . So , nicotine patch is going to be very effective for a week or so . Again , talk to your physician about the best approach for this , but then switching to a nasal spray or switching to nicotine gum for about a week , which is gonna change the kinetics of that nicotine absorption into the bloodstream and change the release of dopamine and other neurochemicals within the brain that's going to keep the system intentionally off balance so that it never comes to expect one single pattern or amplitude of dopamine release .
