According to a new study, sending motivational texts to support people who are trying to give up smoking, can double their quit rates. The txt2stop trial was led by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

The study focused on 5,800 smokers who were randomly selected to receive motivational texts from the program and compare their rate of success compared to a control group. In the beginning of the study, the txt2group received five texts a day for the first five weeks. Afterward, they received three personalized texts a week for 26 weeks.

Examples of messages include: “This is it!-QUIT DAY, throw away all your fags. TODAY is the start of being QUIT free forever, you can do it!”.

At a six month review of the groups, the control group had a 4.9% success rate, compared to the txt2stop group’s 10.7% success rate. Authors of the study state: "Mobile phone text messaging smoking cessation support doubles quit rates at six months”.

The reason for this is smokers feel more quickly if they slip up while they try to quit as they are getting motivational texts.