If your vape had nicotine in it, stopping will most likely bring nicotine withdrawal: cravings, irritability, restlessness, trouble concentrating, anxiety or low mood. In the studies that asked daily vapers to stop and then tracked them, symptoms rose over the first few days and then began to ease. What happens to your body over the months after is far less mapped than it is for cigarettes.
The first week: what the studies saw
The most direct evidence comes from small studies that had regular vapers stop. In the largest, 109 former smokers who now vaped daily used their own device as normal for a week, then stopped for six days, with abstinence checked in the lab (Hughes et al., 2020). Every symptom on the DSM-5 list of tobacco withdrawal went up. So did craving for the vape, and craving for cigarettes. Weight increased and heart rate fell. The symptoms followed the classic withdrawal shape, rising and then falling, and their size looked somewhat smaller than in an earlier study of people stopping cigarettes.
The same team ran a smaller version with 30 daily vapers who had never smoked (Hughes et al., 2020). Withdrawal appeared in most of them too, but it was mild and rarely got in the way of daily life.
A 2026 study kept 16 regular vapers off their devices for seven days under supervision and measured them four times a day (Pierce-Messick et al., 2026). Compared with their normal vaping days, demand for the vape had dropped by day 2, craving by day 3, and both the desire to vape and the relief people expected from it by day 4. All three stayed lower to the end of the week. The authors describe e-cigarette withdrawal as following a relatively rapid trajectory.
Three small studies, 155 people between them. Read them as description, not schedule.
One detail from the first study is worth keeping. Having more severe withdrawal on the first two days did not predict who was still off the vape on the last day. A rough start did not decide how the week finished.
Why it can feel different from quitting cigarettes
The withdrawal comes from the nicotine, whichever device delivered it. What differs is the pattern of use around it.
A cigarette has a beginning and an end. Vaping is often spread across the whole day, so more of your routine can end up carrying a cue: the desk, the ride home, the last minutes before sleep. That is a general pattern, not a rule.
There is also an India-specific problem. Vapes have been banned here since 2019 (what the law actually covers), so the devices in circulation are unregulated and there is no assurance that the nicotine strength on the label is what's in them. That means you may not know how much nicotine you were getting, which makes your withdrawal harder to predict.
How long the cravings last
For cigarettes, the US National Cancer Institute describes withdrawal as usually worst in the first week, peaking in the first three days, with intensity usually dropping over the first month, though some people have symptoms for several months (NCI). The vaping studies above only ran for about a week, so the full curve for vapers hasn't been drawn.
A single craving is shorter than it feels. It rises and passes within minutes if you don't act on it, which we cover in how long nicotine cravings last. A craving that turns up weeks or months later is more likely to be tied to a cue, such as a place, a person or a mood, than to nicotine leaving your body.
The full symptom list, and the things to get checked rather than put down to withdrawal, are in our post on nicotine withdrawal symptoms.
After the first month: what we know and what we don't
For cigarettes there are decades of research on what recovers and when, which we set out in what happens when you quit smoking. Much of that timeline is about smoke, which doesn't carry over to vaping, and the recovery curve after stopping a vape hasn't been established. A day-by-day lung timeline for vaping goes further than any evidence we have found.
There is some evidence on how people feel. In a large US survey that followed 912 adults who only vaped, the 331 who had stopped two years later reported improved quality of life and mental health compared with those who kept vaping (Dai and Young, 2026). That held for people who started out with higher levels of anxiety, low mood or behavioural difficulties as well. It is an association from survey data, not proof that stopping caused the change.
If you vaped to get off cigarettes
If the vape replaced cigarettes for you, the cigarette is the risk worth planning for.
A US analysis of people who had previously quit smoking found that, in the short term, those who stopped vaping were less likely to still be off smoking than those who kept vaping (Klemperer et al., 2023). About a year later the difference was no longer clear. The authors read it as a possible relapse risk rather than a certainty, and craving for cigarettes also rose in the Hughes study above. So expect the old cigarette cues to wake up as well, and decide now what you'll do the first time someone offers you one. If it happens anyway, our post on smoking one cigarette after quitting covers what a single slip does and doesn't mean.
What helps in the first week
Know which day you're on. Then the worst day reads as the top of the curve rather than proof that this isn't working.
Write if-then plans for your known moments. If I reach for my pocket after lunch, then I drink a glass of water and walk to the end of the corridor. In smoking trials, people who made specific plans like this quit at roughly twice the rate of those who didn't, 10.7% against 4.9% (McWilliams et al., 2019), though the trials varied a lot in how they were run. Those were smokers. We haven't found a trial of it in vapers.
Our view, not the studies'
A vape has no built-in end, and that is the part that has to be undone. Withdrawal is real and front-loaded, but we think it is the shorter half of the problem. The longer half is a day full of small moments that learned to come with a pull. That is our reading, not something these studies measured.
Where Nicoxit comes in
Nicoxit covers cigarettes, vapes, hookah and IQOS. It is 31 modules over seven days, about 40 minutes a day, then it's done. The first instruction is: don't quit yet. You keep vaping while you work through it, which is deliberate. We don't replace the nicotine. We dismantle the reason you reach for it.
Afterwards Nicoxit shows what's changing (mood, triggers, urges ridden) without a streak that punishes you for slipping. If you want the vape-specific version of the plan, the vape guide is here.
Not medical advice.
References
- Hughes, J. R., Peters, E. N., Callas, P. W., Peasley-Miklus, C., Oga, E., Etter, J. F., & Morley, N. (2020). Withdrawal symptoms from e-cigarette abstinence among former smokers: A pre-post clinical trial. Nicotine & Tobacco Research, 22(5), 734–739. https://doi.org/10.1093/ntr/ntz129
- Hughes, J. R., Peters, E. N., Callas, P. W., Peasley-Miklus, C., Oga, E., Etter, J. F., & Morley, N. (2020). Withdrawal symptoms from e-cigarette abstinence among adult never-smokers: A pilot experimental study. Nicotine & Tobacco Research, 22(5), 740–746. https://doi.org/10.1093/ntr/ntz169
- Pierce-Messick, Z. J., Knerr, A. W., Spindle, T. R., & Strickland, J. C. (2026). Preliminary characterization of the timecourse and magnitude of e-cigarette withdrawal among exclusive e-cigarette users: Findings from a supervised withdrawal study. Preventive Medicine, 108642. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2026.108642
- National Cancer Institute. Handling Nicotine Withdrawal and Triggers When You Decide to Quit Tobacco. https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/tobacco/withdrawal-fact-sheet
- Dai, H. D., & Young, B. (2026). Changes in quality of life and mental health outcomes related to vaping cessation among US adults. Tobacco Control, 35(4), 505–512. https://doi.org/10.1136/tc-2024-059098
- Klemperer, E. M., Bunn, J. Y., Palmer, A. M., Smith, T. T., Toll, B. A., Cummings, K. M., & Carpenter, M. J. (2023). E-cigarette cessation and transitions in combusted tobacco smoking status: Longitudinal findings from the US FDA PATH Study. Addiction, 118(6), 1161–1166. https://doi.org/10.1111/add.16141
- McWilliams, L., Bellhouse, S., Yorke, J., Lloyd, K., & Armitage, C. J. (2019). Beyond "planning": A meta-analysis of implementation intentions to support smoking cessation. Health Psychology, 38(12), 1059–1068. https://doi.org/10.1037/hea0000768
Frequently asked questions
What happens to your body when you quit vaping?
If the vape contained nicotine, you are likely to go through nicotine withdrawal: cravings, irritability, restlessness, trouble concentrating, anxiety or low mood, and often more appetite. In a study of daily vapers who stopped for six days, weight went up and heart rate went down. Longer-term physical recovery after vaping hasn't been mapped the way it has for cigarettes.
How long does vape withdrawal last?
In small studies that followed vapers for about a week, symptoms rose and then began to ease within the first few days. For cigarettes, symptoms are usually worst in the first week and ease over the first month, though some people have them for several months. The vaping studies we found didn't follow people that long.
What happens if you quit vaping cold turkey?
Stopping abruptly is what the studies above tested, and the withdrawal they found was real. In former smokers it was only somewhat milder than cigarette withdrawal. In daily vapers who had never smoked it was mild and rarely affected daily life. If you are pregnant or have a heart condition, involve the clinician who treats you.
Will I want to smoke if I quit vaping?
If you used to smoke, possibly. Craving for cigarettes rose when former smokers stopped vaping, and one US analysis found a short-term relapse risk to smoking in that group. Plan for the first time a cigarette is offered.
How long do vape cravings last?
A single craving rises and passes within minutes if you don't act on it. In one small supervised study, overall craving had dropped below normal vaping levels by about day 3. Cravings that come back weeks or months later are more likely to be set off by a place, a person or a mood.
