Nail biting (The condition known as Onychophagia) is a quite typical habit for alleviating stress which affects kids as well as grown-ups; the majority of nail biters stop the habit when they reach the age of around 30.
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.
Biting your nails 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.
Nail biting is commonly associated with difficult times, increased excitement, being bored, or it could just be a bad habit. 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.
When you are stressed your hand often goes up to your mouth ready to bite, because there is an increasing sense of tension, and a sense of relief and rush of pleasure, after you have bitten them to the quick – then there is probably a stinging sensation.
Hypnotherapy is a terrific method to eliminate nail biting because it induces a calm state facilitating access to the unconscious, which rules our mannerisms and habits, in order to eliminate the habit with ease.
The condition called nail biting, is often considered to be a common reaction to stress. Any individual might use this as a management tool to exhaust emotions or anxiety held in too long. Some people use nail-biting as a way to relieve stress and tension, and substitute one bad habit for a stressful problem.
Sometimes nail biting is just a bad habit, other times its due to emotional trauma, or disharmony among the family, work or school, any of these can trigger it. Biting your nails may run in the family thus indicating a genetic factor, it can be due to many things.
Biting your nails 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’
You can manicure your nails by trimming and filing them and painting them with nail strengthener. (Nail Envy product made by OPI) its like a clear nail varnish, and yes, men can use it as well! There is a product, Matt Strengthener, for the men. Making sure that your nails are appealing and tended to will make you think twice before you continue biting them.