Yoga To Quit Smoking: What Mr Iyengar, The Yoga Doctors And The Research Say

Want to quit smoking, and dread the cravings? Most people who smoke have tried to stop, often more than once. The urge to light up, the restless edge and the stress of quitting are what bring people back. This guide brings together what Mr BKS Iyengar, Dr Timothy McCall and the research say about yoga to quit smoking, and about pranayama (yogic breathing), meditation and mindfulness for cravings. Last updated: 9 November 2026.

By Chris Lalor, Certified Senior Iyengar Yoga Teacher and certified Yoga Therapist, Flametree Yoga Darwin.

Get 2 Free Yoga Classes And 2 Free Ebooks

Does yoga help you quit smoking? The short answer

Yes, yoga is well worth adding to a quit attempt. In the largest yoga trial for quitting, people given Iyengar yoga twice a week alongside a quit programme were more likely to be smoke-free than people given wellness classes, and the more classes they came to, the better they did. Ten minutes of yogic breathing cut cravings straight away in a UK trial. A 4-week mindfulness course beat a standard quit programme at 17 weeks. Yoga also eased the anxiety and low mood that come with quitting.

That best study tested Iyengar yoga, the style we teach. Most other trials tested “yoga” of other kinds, or breathing and mindfulness on their own. In our view as certified Iyengar teachers, careful, well-taught yoga with a steady breath is likely to go further than the average. Why the kind of yoga matters.

Plainly, the results are mixed. The best yoga trials found more people quit, but the reviews that pool all the trials are less clear. A 2026 review of 7 yoga trials (5 pooled) found yoga raised the odds of quitting by about half, but the result varied from trial to trial and was not statistically clear (Singh 2026, read the review). The mindfulness reviews are split: a 2025 review found higher quit rates at 6 months or more, with low confidence, and a 2022 Cochrane review found no clear difference. An online trial of 80 smokers found that a one-session mindfulness lesson eased cravings but did not change how much people smoked (Schmidt 2023, read the study). The 2026 yoga-breath trial of 139 smokers was positive, with 25.7% smoke-free against 11.6%, but 95% of the people were men and they were followed for only 8 weeks. The most consistent findings are less craving, less anxiety and a better mood. Most trials added yoga to a quit programme, so we suggest the same.

The bottom line: five key moves for quitting smoking

1. Go to a yoga class at your level, twice a week or more. In the Iyengar trial, every class attended raised the odds of quitting.
2. Learn a slow breath for cravings. A few minutes of quiet, steady yogic breathing cut the urge to smoke in trials. Use it when a craving hits.
3. Watch the craving instead of obeying it. Mindfulness training taught people to notice an urge and let it pass. Holding a yoga pose with steady attention builds the same skill.
4. Calm the stress underneath. Stress, worry and low mood drive smoking. Yoga and pranayama calm the mind and bring stress, anxiety and anger down.
5. Start now. New to Flametree, or away 3 months or more? 2 free classes, then 10 at half price, in Darwin or LIVE online.

Who was Mr BKS Iyengar? Iyengar yoga is the style we teach at Flametree. During the 20th century, Mr BKS Iyengar was the major teacher who codified traditional Indian yoga, through his seminal books and widespread teaching. He also pioneered the use of props, so poses can be adapted to almost any body. His style is sometimes called modern classical yoga. This guide is part of our encyclopaedia of yoga for health conditions.

This guide in short

• Overall evidence: Moderate. Best study (single trial): BreathEasy, a randomised trial of 227 adult smokers, added twice-weekly Iyengar yoga or wellness classes to an 8-week quit programme. The yoga group had 37% greater odds of being smoke-free at the end, checked by a saliva test, and every yoga class attended raised the odds by 12%. It is a single trial, not a review: the reviews so far are mixed, which is why we rate this Moderate.
• Mr BKS Iyengar: when the breath is steady, desire loses its grip; he asked audiences not to smoke at his lectures.
• Dr Timothy McCall, an American medical doctor and yoga therapist who studied with Mr BKS Iyengar, author of Yoga as Medicine: smoking cessation is no. 105 on his list of conditions helped by yoga.
• The research: yoga, yogic breathing and mindfulness trials, listed below, with cravings, quit rates and mood.
• Related guides: stress and burnout, anxiety and anger, breathlessness and heart health.
• Take it further: our free ebook Cutting Stress With Yoga, the 2027 masterclass on anxiety, upsets and anger, and classes in Darwin and online.

Why quitting smoking is hard

Nicotine, the drug in tobacco, acts fast on the brain. When it wears off, people feel cravings, irritability, restlessness and low mood. Smoking also becomes tied to places, times and feelings: the first coffee, the car, a stressful moment, a drink with friends. So quitting means dealing with the body, the habit and the stress all at once.

Fewer Australians smoke than ever, but it is still common. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) found that one in ten adults (10.6%) smoked every day in 2022, down from 22.4% in 2001. Most keep trying: about three in four people who smoke tried to change their smoking in the past year, according to the 2022 to 2023 National Drug Strategy Household Survey.

Why would yoga help? The people who designed the Iyengar trial gave their reasons: quitting brings cravings, stress, low mood and worry about weight, and yoga is known to ease stress and low mood. They also expected the mindfulness built in a yoga class to help people cope with cravings, and to make better choices in tempting moments.

How yoga and the breath break into the craving loop

“If breath (prana) prevails, then the desires are controlled, the senses are held in check and the mind is stilled.”

What did Mr BKS Iyengar teach about the breath and cravings?

In short: a steady breath steadies the mind, and a steady mind is not pushed around by desire. What follows is known from long practice and teacher experience. Most of it has not been tested by modern research, though the breathing trials below point the same way. Not yet tested is not the same as wrong.

• Breath and desire. In Light on Pranayama, Mr Iyengar wrote that when the breath prevails, desires are controlled and the mind is stilled, and that when desire prevails, the breathing becomes uneven and the mind agitated. A craving is a desire you can feel in the breath.
• Smoking and meditation do not mix. “A smoker cannot meditate, and a meditator cannot smoke,” he said (Sparks of Divinity). At a public lecture in 1968 he asked the audience: “please do not smoke; you have come to see yoga, not to smoke.”
• Habits change from the inside. He wrote that he did not prescribe food, but emphasised the practice of yoga, which in turn changes a person’s habits (Astadala Yogamala, volume 6). The same idea runs through his teaching on habits: practise, and let the practice change you.
• Breath first, through the poses. In Iyengar yoga, pranayama is learnt step by step, once the body can sit or lie well. The poses open the chest and steady the body, so the breath can become slow and even.

“A smoker cannot meditate, and a meditator cannot smoke.”

What Dr Timothy McCall says

In short: quitting smoking is on his list. Dr Timothy McCall, an American medical doctor and yoga therapist who studied with Mr Iyengar and wrote Yoga as Medicine, published a list of 117 health conditions helped by yoga in June 2019. “Smoking Cessation” is no. 105. Our encyclopaedia uses his list as its backbone and builds on it with newer research.

His reference list for no. 105 named two sources. The first is a 2014 review of 10 yoga studies (8 of them randomised trials), which found that most yoga programmes raised quit rates, while noting short follow-up. The second is BreathEasy, the Iyengar yoga trial described below. Since 2019, more trials of yoga, yogic breathing and mindfulness have been published, and they are added here.

“Repeated mistakes become habits.”

What does the research say about yoga to quit smoking?

In short: yoga, yogic breathing and mindfulness each helped people who were trying to quit. Single sessions cut cravings within minutes. Longer programmes raised quit rates in several trials, including an Iyengar yoga trial of 227 people. The reviews are mixed, and most trials added yoga to a quit programme rather than testing it alone. Where the yoga was not Iyengar yoga, we say so. Why that matters.

Iyengar yoga studies

This trial tested Iyengar yoga, the style we teach.

• Iyengar yoga raised the odds of quitting, and each class attended raised them more. BreathEasy (Bock and others, 2019): 227 adult smokers, average age 46, about 17 cigarettes a day, all given an 8-week quit programme plus Iyengar yoga or wellness classes, twice a week. At the end, the yoga group had 37% greater odds of being smoke-free for the past week, checked by a saliva test. Lighter smokers (10 a day or fewer) did especially well with yoga. Each yoga class attended raised the odds by 12%; wellness classes showed no such effect. Read the study.

Yoga in general and Iyengar yoga for quitting smoking

Other yoga trials

• Women given yoga were far more likely to be smoke-free at the end. Bock and others, 2012: 55 women, an 8-week quit programme plus twice-weekly yoga or wellness classes. At 8 weeks, the yoga group had about four and a half times the odds of being smoke-free for the past week (checked by a saliva test). They were still ahead at 6 months, though the gap was no longer statistically clear. They also had less anxiety and felt healthier. It was not Iyengar yoga. Read the study.
• One yoga session cut cravings faster on quit day. Jeffries and others, 2020: 55 people starting to cut down or quit, one 30-minute session of yoga or reading health material. Craving fell faster after the yoga. Read the study.
• A daily yoga-breath routine doubled the quit rate. Chandrashekar and others, 2026, in India: 139 people with moderate to heavy nicotine dependence, 95% of them men, a 12-minute yoga-breath routine online, 5 days a week for 8 weeks, against desk exercises with health education. Smoke-free for the past week: 25.7% against 11.6%. The yoga group also smoked fewer cigarettes, craved less and breathed out more strongly. Read the study.

What 8 weeks of a yoga-breath routine did

• A 2026 review found a positive effect on quitting, though not a consistent one. Singh and others, 2026: 7 randomised trials, 5 pooled. Yoga raised the odds of being smoke-free at the end of the programme by about half, but the results varied, so the finding was not statistically clear. The trials also reported less depression and anxiety and a better quality of life. The authors wrote that active styles, including Iyengar, improved quitting, and that pranayama reduced cravings and low mood. Read the study.
• An earlier review found most yoga programmes raised quit rates. Dai and Sharma, 2014: 10 studies of yoga for smoking, 8 of them randomised trials. One of the two sources on Dr McCall’s list. Read the study.

Breathing practice and pranayama

• Ten minutes of yogic breathing cut cravings straight away. Shahab and others, 2013, in London: 96 people who had not smoked for 12 hours were taught breathing exercises based on yogic pranayama, or watched a breathing video. Straight after, the urge to smoke, cravings and desire to smoke were all lower with the yogic breathing. The next day there was no difference, but few had kept practising at home. Read the study.

• One session of mindful yogic breathing halved the risk of smoking soon after. Lotfalian and others, 2020: 60 people who smoke, 20 minutes of mindful yogic breathing, a thinking strategy, or nothing. Breathing eased cravings and withdrawal, and only the breathing lifted low mood. In a 50-minute test where people could choose to smoke, the breathing group were less than half as likely to light up, and they smoked fewer cigarettes over the next day. Read the study.
• A month of yoga breathing cut urges and improved lung function. Kumar and others, 2026, in India: 20 heavy smokers, 20 sessions of 30 minutes over 4 weeks. Urges to smoke came 38.5% less often, and lung function (the air breathed out in one second) rose by 18%. There were no side effects. It had no comparison group. Read the study.

In a class, we teach slow, quiet pranayama step by step, such as ocean breath (Ujjayi), staircase breath (Viloma) and alternate nostril breathing (Nadi Sodhana). The trials above did not test these exact practices, so we say what was tested. But the direction is the same: a slow, steady breath took the edge off a craving.

Meditation and mindfulness

• Mindfulness training beat a standard quit programme at 17 weeks. Brewer and others, 2011, at Yale University: 88 people smoking about 20 a day, 4 weeks of mindfulness training or the American Lung Association’s Freedom From Smoking programme, twice a week. The mindfulness group cut down faster and kept it up. At 17 weeks, 31% were smoke-free against 6%. The lead researcher, Dr Judson Brewer, is a psychiatrist who studies craving. Read the study.

What 4 weeks of mindfulness training did

• Mindfulness loosened the link between craving and smoking. Elwafi and others, 2013: in that trial, before training, people who craved more smoked more. After 4 weeks of mindfulness, that link had almost gone, and those who practised more in daily life smoked less. Read the study.
• A review found mindfulness raised quit rates at 6 months or more. De Zylva and others, 2025, in Australia: 6 randomised trials pooled (1,708 people) from low-income settings. People given mindfulness had about 50% higher odds of quitting than those given other help, though the authors rated their confidence as low. Read the study.
• Online mindfulness cut cigarettes and eased anxiety and stress. Hemanath and others, 2023, in Malaysia: online mindfulness sessions against counselling. The mindfulness group smoked about 3 to 4 fewer cigarettes a day and had less anxiety, stress and depression. Read the study.

Not every review agrees. A 2022 Cochrane review of 21 trials of mindfulness-type programmes for quitting found no clear difference in quit rates, and rated the evidence as low or very low certainty, saying future trials may well change the picture. The only yoga in it was one trial of 55 people, and it was not Iyengar yoga. Read the review.

How long and how often?

The longer programmes ran for 4 to 8 weeks, with yoga or mindfulness twice a week, or a short breathing routine most days. In the Iyengar trial, more classes meant better odds. The craving trials show a single session can help in the moment, and the effect is strongest straight after practice.

For men: smoking is more common, and yoga can help

Men are more likely than women to smoke every day: 12.6% against 8.7%, according to the ABS National Health Survey 2022. In the Iyengar trial, men smoked more cigarettes a day than women and felt less sure about quitting. Men also do much less yoga than women, so many miss out on a tool that could help.

The good news: the 2026 yoga-breath trial that doubled the quit rate was 95% men. A short, regular breathing routine and a class or two a week fit a busy working life. Bring a mate or come alone, but give it 12 weeks.

“Freedom is about dropping the shackles of fear and desire.”

Yoga, pranayama and mindfulness: how they work together

Several of the studies above tested mindfulness courses or breathing exercises, not yoga poses. That still counts for our classes. Mindfulness is steady, present attention, and yoga poses and pranayama (yogic breathing) are old routes to that same state. So the mindfulness and yogic breathing trials for cravings also show what a good yoga and pranayama class can build. No trial separates which part does the work.

We suggest coming to both a yoga class and a pranayama class. Mr Iyengar taught that asana (poses), pranayama and meditation are not divided, and in our experience the two together do more than either alone. See every class time. We trace the history and the links in Yoga And Mindfulness: Why The Mindfulness Research Points Back To Yoga And The Breath.

How this comes together in a Flametree class

Everything above points the same way, and it is how we teach yoga in Darwin and online for people who want to quit smoking.

• Tell your teacher you are quitting. Classes are adapted to the people in them, and to how you feel on the day.
• Poses that open the chest: standing poses, supported back bends over a bolster and chair work make room for a fuller, slower breath.
• Steady attention: holding a pose gives a restless mind one job to do. That is the same skill as watching a craving rise and pass.
• Rest and breath to finish: every class ends with supported rest, and our pranayama classes teach the slow breath step by step.
• Regular classes: in the Iyengar trial, every class counted. Twice a week is a good start.

See the timetable and book a class. Body, then breath, then a quieter mind: that is the path a class follows, and it is why we offer poses and breathing together.

Read more on cravings, stress and the breath

• My Year Of Living Mindfully review: how mindfulness separates the craving from the behaviour, with smoking as the example
• Yoga for stress management: why telling yourself to relax fails
• How to quiet the mind
• Nearby guides: stress and burnout, anxiety and anger, asthma, COPD and breathlessness, heart health and weight and stress eating

Take it further

• Classes, in Darwin or LIVE online: new, or away 3 months or more? 2 free classes, then 10 at half price. Already practising yoga? See the non-beginner half price pass. See the timetable and book.
• Masterclasses: Yoga for anxiety, upsets and anger, Sunday 18 April 2027, one of our 2027 masterclasses with Chris Lalor, where you get the twists, supported forward bends and calming breath that settle the stress response. See the 2027 masterclasses.
• Retreats: a week of daily yoga and pranayama in Bali, a fresh start away from old habits. See the retreats.

Other conditions are in our encyclopaedia of yoga for health conditions.

Yoga to quit smoking: questions people ask

Can yoga help you quit smoking?

Yes. In a randomised trial of 227 smokers, people given Iyengar yoga twice a week alongside an 8-week quit programme had 37% greater odds of being smoke-free than people given wellness classes, and each class attended raised the odds by 12% (Bock 2019). A 2026 yoga-breath trial of 139 smokers found 25.7% smoke-free against 11.6%. Reviews are mixed, so we rate the overall evidence Moderate.

Does breathing help nicotine cravings?

Yes, in the moment. Ten minutes of breathing exercises based on yogic pranayama cut the urge to smoke straight away in a trial of 96 people (Shahab 2013), and one 20-minute session of mindful yogic breathing eased cravings, lifted mood and halved the chance of lighting up soon after (Lotfalian 2020). The effect was strongest straight after practice, so practise often.

Does mindfulness help you stop smoking?

It can. In a trial of 88 smokers, 4 weeks of mindfulness training left 31% smoke-free at 17 weeks, against 6% after a standard quit programme (Brewer 2011), and a 2025 review found higher quit rates at 6 months or more. A 2022 Cochrane review found no clear difference, with low certainty. Holding a yoga pose with steady attention builds the same skill of watching an urge pass.

Is Iyengar yoga good for quitting smoking?

The largest yoga trial for quitting smoking tested Iyengar yoga. Twice-weekly Iyengar yoga with a quit programme raised the odds of quitting by 37% compared with wellness classes, and the more classes people came to, the better they did (Bock 2019). Iyengar yoga uses props and step-by-step instruction, and teaches pranayama carefully once the body is ready.

Can yoga help my lungs and breathing after smoking?

Early trials say it may. In a 2026 trial, a daily yoga-breath routine improved how strongly people could breathe out, compared with desk exercises, and lowered the carbon monoxide in their breath. In another 2026 study, a month of yoga breathing raised lung function by 18%, though it had no comparison group. Our breathlessness guide covers asthma and COPD. Read the breathlessness guide.

Does yoga work on its own, without a quit programme?

Most of the longer trials added yoga, breathing or mindfulness to a quit programme, so that is what they tested. The mindfulness trial compared mindfulness with a standard programme, and mindfulness did better. The craving trials show that a single session of yogic breathing or yoga helps in the moment, on its own.

Does yoga help with vaping?

We found no trial of yoga, pranayama or mindfulness for quitting vaping. The cravings and stress are similar, and what helped with cigarettes may help here too, but it has not been tested yet. Not yet tested is not the same as does not work.

How long does yoga take to help, and how often should I go?

A single session of yogic breathing eased cravings within minutes. The longer trials ran 4 to 8 weeks, with yoga or mindfulness twice a week, or a short breathing routine most days. In the Iyengar trial, every class attended raised the odds of quitting, so come regularly and keep going.

Is yoga safe while quitting smoking?

The trials reported no problems from the yoga or breathing. In an Iyengar class, poses are adapted with props and never forced, and pranayama is slow and quiet, never forced or held. Tell your teacher you are quitting, and how you feel on the day.

“Break bad habits and cultivate good habits to make progress.”

Can I do yoga to quit smoking in Darwin or online?

Yes. Flametree Yoga teaches Iyengar yoga in Woolner and Coolalinga in Darwin, and LIVE online, with pranayama classes for the breath. New students can begin with our new-student offer of 2 free classes, then 10 at half price. Book a class

Where this comes from: BKS Iyengar, Light on Pranayama, Light on Life, Astadala Yogamala (volume 6), Sparks of Divinity and Iyengar: His Life and Work. Timothy McCall MD, his June 2019 list of 117 health conditions helped by yoga and its reference list, and Yoga as Medicine (Bantam). Australian Bureau of Statistics, National Health Survey 2022 (Smoking and vaping). Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, National Drug Strategy Household Survey 2022 to 2023, as reported in Tobacco in Australia. Studies as linked above, each looked up in PubMed in November 2026. Everything is summarised in our own words.

This page is general information, not medical advice. Flametree Yoga Studio, Darwin and LIVE online.