How to Reduce Your Nicotine Intake and Quit Vaping: Step-by-Step Guide

While switching to vaping can make quitting smoking as painless as possible, it's still not easy. In many cases, switching from smoking to vaping is the ultimate goal. After that, they're happy to continue vaping indefinitely, knowing they're taking a significantly less risky route than smoking.

For others, however, switching from smoking to vaping is just the beginning of a long journey towards a nicotine-free future. A great advantage of vaping is that you can control the amount of nicotine you consume unlike other forms of nicotine consumption. Different nicotine strengths are available in e-liquid, and the nicotine strengths are often so close that switching to a lower strength isn't even noticeable. Additionally, many vape mods include puff counters, allowing you to keep track of how often you vape and reduce your usage if necessary.

While vaping is a great alternative to smoking, it's still difficult to quit nicotine, especially if you've been vaping for a long time. Getting rid of vaping doesn't happen just by planning and hoping; you have to have a plan and stick to it.

Is it your hope that vaping will eventually lead to you ceasing to consume nicotine altogether? The purpose of this article is to help. The following plan will make the process as easy for you as possible, even though there are many strategies that can help you quit vaping.

Step 1: Make Sure You Have Switched Completely to Vaping

It's pointless to plan to quit smoking if you're still smoking cigarettes - even if you only smoke occasionally. It's important to remember that cigarettes deliver nicotine most efficiently. This is why it is so hard to stop using them. To even begin to think about quitting vaping, you need to stop smoking cigarettes first. Pod-based vaping devices with prefilled pods might be an option if you're having trouble giving up cigarettes completely. There is about the same amount of nicotine per puff you would get from a cigarette when you use a pod-based device, with nicotine strengths typically ranging up to around 50-60 mg/ml.

Pods that come prefilled with nicotine often come in more than one strength. In order to kick the habit, you'll need that information when you're ready to take the next step.

Step 2: Switch to the Lower Nicotine Strength If You’re Using a Pre-Filled Pod System

You can reduce your nicotine strength whenever you're ready after you've completely switched to vaping and won't ever smoke a cigarette again. The first reduction in nicotine strength may seem quite drastic to you. Pre-filled pod systems typically have a higher nicotine strength of 50-60 mg/ml and a lower strength of 20-30 mg/ml.

You may start vaping more often if you switch to lower-strength pods for your pod system since you'll essentially cut your nicotine intake per puff in half when using lower-strength pods. You don't have to worry too much about that. Eventually, you'll switch to a refillable vape device once you're used to the lower nicotine strength. After that, you'll be able to fine-tune the strength of the nicotine in your e-liquid and you'll be paying more attention to the number of puffs you take per day.

Step 3: Switch to a Refillable Vaping Device and Lower Your Nicotine Strength Again

You should reduce your nicotine strength again once you are completely comfortable using your current nicotine strength. As a result, you will have to switch to a vaping device that you can fill yourself in order to do this. For this purpose, a vape pen with an integrated puff counter is ideal. You should keep tabs on your number of puffs per day as you gradually reduce the nicotine strength of your e-liquid in order to avoid using your device more frequently to compensate for the reduced nicotine strength.

You need to reduce the nicotine strength of your e-liquid when you use a vape pen because it produces more vapour per puff than pod-based vaping devices. Your ideal nicotine strength will be between 6-18 mg/ml depending on the vapour production of your vape pen. The nicotine strength you choose should be about the same as the experience you're currently having with your pod system. Your nicotine strength is too high if you find the first use of your vape pen overly intense.

Step 4: Continue Reducing Your Nicotine Strength Gradually

You should reduce your nicotine strength again once you've become accustomed to using a vape pen. Using each lower nicotine strength as long as necessary until you're used to the way your body feels is the best way to do this. Many different strengths of e-liquid are available, including 18, 16, 12, 9, 6 and 3 mg/ml. Our next step will be to discuss what to do once the nicotine strength reaches 3 mg/ml.

If you reduce the nicotine strength of your e-liquid, we recommend using a vape pen or mod with a puff counter, so you don't have to compensate by vaping more frequently. The amount of nicotine you receive is not reduced if you switch from 12 mg/ml to 6 mg/ml e-liquid, for example - and you double your number of puffs per day. Using an automatic puff counter will help you maintain consistency as you gradually reduce nicotine levels.

Except for nicotine-free e-liquid, most e-liquid brands do not offer nicotine strengths below 3 mg/ml, and once you reach that nicotine strength, switching to nicotine-free e-liquid will probably feel like a big change. By creating your own in-between nicotine strengths, you can make the jump easier.

Using an empty bottle, you'll mix equal amounts of nicotine-free e-liquid and 3 mg/ml e-liquid to create an e-liquid with a nicotine strength of 1.5 mg/ml, for example. By varying the ratios of the two e-liquids, you can achieve even lower nicotine strengths. The e-liquid you're using will eventually be almost nicotine-free; you'll just add a few drops of nicotine to bottles of nicotine-free liquid. Whenever you're ready, you can switch to nicotine-free e-liquid.

Step 5: Switch to Nicotine-Free E-Liquid Until You’re Ready to Quit Vaping

When you’re mixing your own e-liquid and only adding a few drops of nicotine to nicotine-free e-liquids, it won’t be very difficult to take the final step down to vaping without nicotine. You can do that when you’re ready, and you'll have successfully quit smoking.

When you’re no longer using nicotine, it’s up to you to decide when to quit vaping completely. Some people continue using nicotine-free e-liquid for a while because the act of vaping – tasting the flavours and seeing the exhaled clouds sweep across a room – keeps the psychological component of addiction under control. Some, however, find it completely unnecessary to continue vaping once they’re no longer addicted to nicotine. Let your body and mind guide you until you've reached your goal of quitting vaping.