Does quitting vaping help anxiety? What the evidence says

The question behind the question

Many people vape partly because it seems to calm them, so the fear is understandable: if the vape keeps anxiety down, stopping should make it worse. The honest answer has two parts, because the first weeks and the months after them are different. It also comes with a caveat that matters throughout this guide: most of the evidence on mood after quitting comes from people who stopped smoking, not from people who stopped vaping.

Why vaping feels calming

The NHS explains the pattern for smoking. When smokers have not had nicotine for a while, the craving makes them feel irritable and anxious, and those feelings are relieved temporarily when they smoke, so they come to associate the improved mood with smoking. In the NHS’s words, the effects of smoking itself are likely to have caused the anxiety in the first place. Vapes deliver nicotine in a similar rhythm of frequent doses. Smokefree adds that stress and anxiety can trigger vape cravings, and that vaping is not a healthy way to deal with them.

In the short term, anxiety can rise

Expect the first weeks to be harder, not easier. Hughes’s 2007 review of tobacco abstinence identified anxiety, anger, depression, restlessness and difficulty concentrating as valid withdrawal symptoms that typically peak within the first week and last two to four weeks. Smokefree lists feeling anxious, irritable and sad among the common symptoms of quitting vaping, and says these mood changes are usually temporary while your body adjusts. A rise in anxiety early on is an expected part of withdrawal, not proof that you need nicotine.

What happens later: the smoking evidence

The largest summary is a 2021 Cochrane review by Taylor and colleagues, which included 102 studies of people who smoked tobacco. Compared with continuing to smoke, stopping was associated with improvements in anxiety, depression, mixed anxiety and depression, and stress. The authors concluded that mental health does not worsen as a result of quitting smoking, and that there is very low to moderate certainty evidence that quitting is associated with small to moderate improvements. For anxiety specifically, they rated the certainty as low.

Why that evidence is about smoking, not vaping

The Cochrane review recruited adults who smoked tobacco, and the studies were observational, which the authors flagged as a source of possible bias. It did not study vaping. The shared mechanism, nicotine withdrawal between doses, gives a reasonable basis to expect something similar when people stop vaping, but a reasonable expectation is not a demonstrated result. Read the findings as the best available guide to the direction of change, not as a promise about your own mood.

An earlier review pointed the same way

Before the Cochrane review, a 2014 meta-analysis in the BMJ by Taylor and colleagues, covering 26 studies, found that anxiety, depression and stress decreased in people who quit smoking compared with those who continued, and that positive mood and psychological quality of life improved. It found no evidence that the size of the association differed between the general population and people with physical or psychiatric conditions. The two reviews agree on direction, and both are about smoking.

Separate anxiety from craving

In the first weeks, much of what feels like anxiety is the craving itself: tension, restlessness, a sense that something is missing. Cravings rise, peak and fall, often within minutes. Naming the feeling helps: this is withdrawal, it has a shape, and it passes. Smokefree suggests learning what makes you anxious and recording it on your phone or in a journal so you can look for patterns, which is also how you tell a craving apart from a worry with a real cause.

Things that help during the dip

Smokefree’s guidance on stress, anxiety and vaping suggests pausing to breathe slowly, focusing on the inhale and the exhale; moving your body, for example with a walk or yoga; getting back to basics with regular meals, water and enough sleep; and staying in the present rather than rehearsing what comes next. None of these is dramatic, and some will suit you better than others. The point is to have two or three ready before a hard moment, not to invent them during one.

Caffeine deserves a second look

Smokefree notes that caffeine can make you feel tense, jittery and stressed, and that when quitting vaping it can make you feel even worse; it suggests cutting back or gradually reducing it. Many people drink more coffee while quitting to fight tiredness, then read the resulting jitteriness as proof that quitting is making them anxious. Try reducing caffeine for a week before drawing that conclusion.

If you already live with anxiety or depression

The Cochrane review found that the improvements after quitting smoking were also seen in people diagnosed with mental health conditions. The NHS notes that smoking interferes with how some antipsychotic medicines and antidepressants work, and that doses may need adjusting after quitting; that interaction is linked to tobacco smoke, but it is one more reason to involve your doctor. If you take medication for your mental health, tell your prescriber before you quit, whichever product you are stopping.

When low mood is more than withdrawal

Smokefree’s page on vaping and depression says that mood changes after quitting are usually temporary, but that sadness which is extreme, lasts a long time or interferes with daily activities and relationships may be depression and deserves help. The same applies to anxiety that stops you functioning. Talk to a doctor if that is where you are. If you ever have thoughts of harming yourself, contact emergency services or a crisis line in your country straight away.

Give it a fair test

The worst time to judge whether quitting helps your anxiety is the first week, when withdrawal is at its peak. A fairer comparison is between how you felt before quitting and how you feel a month or two after, once the withdrawal window described by Hughes has passed. A short daily note of mood, rated the same way each day, makes that comparison possible instead of relying on memory, which tends to remember the worst days most clearly.

What not to conclude

Do not conclude that quitting will cure anxiety. The evidence describes an association with small to moderate improvements, and anxiety has many causes that nicotine does not touch. Do not conclude the opposite either: the Cochrane review found no evidence that quitting smoking worsens mental health. The realistic expectation is a harder few weeks, then, for many people, a mood that is at least no worse and often somewhat better than before.

Where PuffOff fits

PuffOff’s daily check-ins record mood and cravings, which gives you the simple day-by-day record needed for a fair comparison between the first week and the weeks after. When anxiety and a craving arrive together, the SOS tools offer guided breathing and a reminder of your own reasons. The app does not diagnose or treat anxiety or depression, and it is not a substitute for a doctor or a mental health professional.

Further reading

• Taylor et al. (2021), Smoking cessation for improving mental health, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews
• Taylor et al. (2014), Change in mental health after smoking cessation: systematic review and meta-analysis, BMJ
• Hughes (2007), Effects of abstinence from tobacco: valid symptoms and time course, Nicotine & Tobacco Research
• NHS: Stopping smoking for your mental health
• Smokefree: Stress, anxiety and vaping
• Smokefree: Vaping and depression