Abstract

Smoking tobacco products is an activity that people all over the world have done for hundreds of years. However, over the past few decades, research has shown that smoking is an activity that can lead to serious health concerns or death. Therefore, much of the existing research on smoking has been dedicated to discovering effective smoking cessation techniques. This thesis focuses on smoking as a meditative activity with the ultimate goal of expanding current understanding of smoking behavior and contributing to the dialogue on effective cessation techniques.

In order to examine the concept of smoking as a meditative behavior, this research employed a qualitative study interviewing smokers and meditators in order to find similar themes between the perceptions of the two groups. The findings of this research suggest that the smokers and meditators had some related motivations for their respective activities which suggests that smoking may have meditative properties and these properties are part of why people smoke. If this is the case, future research may be able to develop an effective form of smoking cessation therapy which would combine nicotine replacement therapy and mindfulness-meditation cessation therapy.

Semester/Year of Award

Spring 2019

Mentor

Caroline Reid

Mentor Professional Affiliation

Anthropology, Sociology, and Social Work

Access Options

Restricted Access Thesis

Document Type

Bachelor Thesis

Degree Name

Honors Scholars

Degree Level

Bachelor's

Department

Safety, Security, and Emergency Management

IRB Approval Number (if applicable)

2150

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