The CBQ Method™ is a structured four-stage process for breaking unhealthy habits and creating a healthier, happier life.
CBQ stands for Cognitive Behavioral Quitting. “Quitting” does not only mean stopping a behavior. It also means breaking free from the thinking patterns, emotional associations, and automatic routines that make that behavior feel rewarding or comforting.
Created by psychologist Nasia Davos, the CBQ Method is grounded in cognitive and behavioral science, Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), neuroscience-informed habit learning, and ten years of real-world application.
Over the last decade, the CBQ Method has helped our members quit smoking and vaping, lose weight, improve their relationship with food, change unwanted thinking patterns, and build habits that support their health and wellbeing.
Five key principles make the CBQ Method effective across thousands of real-world transformations.
Most methods focus on stopping the surface behavior. But a recurring unhealthy behavior is a symptom of a deeper pattern.
The CBQ Method focuses on what keeps the behavior coming back: the deep-seated beliefs, emotions, and routines that keep a habit alive.
When that root pattern changes, the habit begins to change from the inside.
Willpower creates resistance, deprivation, and burnout.
The CBQ Method mirrors the stages that the mind naturally goes through to form and break habits, so change feels natural, not forced.
When the behavior begins to lose its pull, willpower becomes unnecessary.
Transformation doesn’t happen through trial and error.
The CBQ Method is a clear, repeatable sequence. This sequence is designed to build motivation, shift beliefs and emotional associations, and change habits in small, manageable steps.
Each step builds on the one before it, so change happens gradually. This reduces fear and overwhelm.
Habits live on multiple levels: cognitive, emotional, and behavioral.
The CBQ Method integrates all three, helping you change the thoughts that justify the habit, the emotions that give it power, and the triggers that make it feel automatic.
When all three levels change, the habit no longer has hold over you.
Created by psychologist Nasia Davos, the CBQ Method is grounded in cognitive behavioral science, neuroscience-informed habit learning, and years of practical application.
It combines established psychological principles with proprietary CBQ frameworks, refined through real results with people from different backgrounds. The result is a method that is based on science and is designed for real life.
Why do these 4 stages work? Because they mirror the psychological and behavioral steps the mind naturally goes through to form or break habits and addictions. Each stage serves a unique and necessary purpose in creating lasting change.
This stage initiates the desire and psychological openness for change.
Before a habit can change, the mind has to stop seeing change as a threat and start seeing it as something desirable and possible. This stage is designed to turn resistance into willingness. It sets the foundation by preparing the mind to embrace the journey instead of fighting it.
This stage retrains the mind and removes internal blocks.
Our recurring behaviors are symptoms of our internal world. Behavioral change lasts when the beliefs, thought patterns, and identity tied to that behavior change first. This stage helps identify and release the limiting beliefs, fears, and thought patterns that make a habit feel rewarding or comforting, so the mind no longer sabotages change.
This stage breaks the automatic patterns and conditioned responses.
Habits run on autopilot. Even when the mind is ready and our beliefs are aligned, the body and brain still follow automatic routines. This stage is designed to interrupt those patterns, rewire associations, neutralize triggers, and replace the old behavior with a new, intentional response.
This stage reinforces and stabilizes the change so it becomes second nature.
Every change comes with an adjustment period. This stage solidifies change by conditioning the new behaviors, mindset, and identity formed in the previous stages. It supports a smoother transition into a new way of living, one where the change is not just maintained, but embodied.
The CBQ Method helps change the desire to smoke and break the automatic habit, so quitting feels natural, not a battle of willpower.
Learn HowThe CBQ Method helps change the underlying relationship with food and the automatic eating patterns, so healthy weight loss can happen as a byproduct of Food Freedom, not restriction.
Learn HowThe CBQ Method helps people build healthier wellness habits around personal growth, relationships, and emotional wellbeing.
Learn HowOver the last decade, our award-winning programs have helped thousands of members around the world change their health habits with the CBQ Method.
Read thousands of success stories from members →“This method is very good. There is nothing missing from it.”
– Dr. Behrakis
(MD, PhD, Mc Gill, FCCP)
Pulmonologist-Intensivist, President of the Scientific Committee of European Network for Smoking and Tobacco Prevention, member of the Board of Regents of the American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP) and former Adjunct Professor at Harvard.
“The CBQ method is effective as it has made a difference in my patients and to people who get to know it with results, all over the world. Nasia Davos is highly recommended.”
– Dr. Zoe Vlamaki
(MD,FRCS)
Consultant General and Breast Surgeon at NHS Trust UK, Representative of Global Greek Doctors Institute in the UK (G.G.D.I), certified by the American Board of Surgery, professional member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, the Society of Laparoendoscopic Surgeons, and the American Society for Laser Medicine and Surgery.
Clinical psychotherapist quit smoking with the CBQ Method.
Watch her interview
Psychiatric nurse lost 19 pounds and achieved food freedom with the CBQ Method.
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Doctor and surgeon quit smoking after 61 years with the CBQ Method.
Watch her interview
Lasting change requires more than stopping a behavior. The CBQ Method draws on cognitive and behavioral science principles to change what keeps an unwanted habit in place.
Cognitive learning
CBQ addresses the thought patterns, beliefs, and emotional associations that shape what a behavior means and how much value the mind gives it.
Behavioral conditioning
CBQ targets the triggers, rituals, and repeated cue-response loops that reinforce automatic patterns in everyday life.
Sequenced change
Readiness, cognitive change, behavioral modification, and reinforcement happen in stages, so change can become sustainable.
A research-informed overview of the principles behind the four-stage method.
Cognitive reappraisal and craving regulation
Self-efficacy and identity-based motivation
Cue-reactivity and habit automaticity
Reward expectancy
Cognitive dissonance & belief change
Neuroplasticity through pattern retraining
RESEARCH-INFORMED OVERVIEW
CBQ
The CBQ Method was born out of experience. And it began with a question: why is knowing you need to change often not enough to make change last?
Over a decade ago psychologist Nasia Davos was repeatedly failing to quit smoking.
So she decided to use her background in psychology to find a solution. She spent months interviewing experts and ex-smokers, and studying the scientific literature on addiction and behavior change. Through that research, she saw what many approaches were missing: lasting change does not happen in one step. It follows a psychological and behavioral sequence.
So she developed the CBQ Method: a structured process that works with the mind, not against it.
After quitting smoking for good and helping family, friends, and clients apply the process successfully, she continued refining the CBQ Method into a practical process that could be taught and repeated.
Since 2015, the CBQ Method has helped people break free from nicotine, lose weight, overcome emotional eating, and build healthier wellness habits.
What began as a personal search for freedom became a structured, teachable method for changing unwanted patterns from the inside out.
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