A method to stop biting fingernails
Biting your nails (Onychophagia, which is a phobia) in both children and adults it’s a common habit to relieve stress and usually stops at approximately thirty years old.
In 1995 an analysis known as ‘Operant Learning Principles applied to Nail Biting’ author Terry McClanahan, says that approximately 28% to 33% of youths age 7 to 10, 44% of teenagers, 19 to 29% of adults who are younger and 5% of adults who are older bite their nails.
Nail biting tends to be at its highest between the ages of ten and eighteen, and, although boys and girls appear equally inclined to bite their nails in their earlier years, after the age of 10, more boys than girls are nail biters.
You might resort to nail biting when your stressed, excited, or bored, or it might be a behaviour you picked up from someone close to you. It is possible to bite your nails without even realising that you are doing so, while you are watching television, on the phone, or feeling anxious at work.
You start to nibble on your nails when you feel nervous and tense because it provides a sting and a sense of relief when you’ve bitten them to the quick.
One way to cease biting your nails is hypnotherapy: Through deep relaxation and easy access to the unconscious mind that governs our habits, one can painlessly stop any habit.
Nail biting is a nasty habit, is often considered to be a common reaction to stress. Children and adults make use of this as a way to cope to let loose pent up stress and emotions. Naturally, if you bite your nails you are substituting one condition for another, and in many circumstances you are trying to relieve tension.
Although nail biting is sometimes nothing more than a bad habit, it can also be caused by more serious issues, such as an emotional trauma, or a stressful environment at work, home, or school. Biting your nails may run in the family thus indicating a genetic factor, it can be due to many things.
Nail biting is a nasty habit includes biting the cuticle, and the soft skin surrounding the nail, as well as the nail itself, leaving your fingertips red and sore and your cuticles may bleed, increasing the risk of infections around your fingers and mouth. Nail biting not only harms your fingernails, but can also be the cause of dental problems and gum infections.
There are several treatments which will help you stop biting your nails:
- Hypnotherapy Plymouth has had a lot of success with helping nail biters - it is a relaxing way to change your behaviour, and stop biting your nails. Nail biting is done at an unconscious level, you do it without even noticing - by using hypnosis the urge to bite your nails disappears. It is a very safe and relaxing way to help you stop that habit.
- Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT)
- Stimulus Control (SC) - to help you identify and then eliminate, avoid, or change the particular environmental factors, mood states, or circumstances that have become associated with that trigger, ‘picking’ or ‘biting’
Trim and file your nails, or manicure them, you can paint them with nail strengthener. (Nail Envy by OPI is a great company) a clear nail varnish that is for men and women developed to help stop nail biting. A special Matt Strengthener is available for men as well. Taking care of your nails can help reduce your nail biting habit and encourage you to keep your nails attractive.
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