You want to quit nail biting. It is not only a bad and embarrassing habit. It is a lonely one. I don't need to tell you. this you already know it.
The medical term for nail biting is onychophagia. It is considered an impluse control disorder. Some other related body-focused repetitive behaviors are dermatillomania (skin picking), dermatophagia (skin biting) or trichotillomania (urge to pull out hair). Just reading those tems makes me want to quit. Mostly what makes me want to quit is when someone I want to impress sees the mess on my fingers and makes a face without knowing I am seeing their unguarded reaction. It makes me feel uncomfortable, ashamed and creates a losss of confidence, at least momentarily.
You also already know it is a seriously hard habit to break. It's not like anybody who bites their nails chose this. I mean why would anyone consciously choose nail biting over having normal healthy nails? When I say you are not alone, I mean there are millions of people who suffer the same way you do. What they have in common is there is no surefire easy cure to quit nail biting.
There are plenty of websites with people offering solutions, but most of the claims seem too good to be true. Just like in other parts of your life, it is almost always accurate that if you suspect something is not right about some claim of help, your instincts are nearly always right. This is especially true when those claims have to do with changing deeply ingrained habits.
There are many claims of easy stop nail biting fixes. Buyer Beware!
It's easy to want to believe them because part of you is desperate to learn how to stop nail biting. What you have to realize is another part of you is just as desperate to keep the habit alive. The awareness and acceptance is part of a huge first step to changing your cuticle pulling and nail biting habits. There is much more to it than that. It takes a serious committment of your time, energy and effort to learn how to become vigilant enough so you can quit. Another part no one ever bothers to teach you is that your greatest danger to relapse comes after your greatest success in quitting nail biting.
How many times have you stopped? I bet more than you can count. And, I bet some of those times your nails were starting to look pretty good. But, then something happens that triggers a response and in a matter of a few minutes you wreck weeks or even months of carefully avoiding your nailbiting habits as slip into an almost unconscious state of biting. If you are reading this, you don't need to tell me you get it and it has happened to you because I already know it has, repeatedly.
Here's the good news. Nail biting won't kill you. Probably won't ruin your health like so many other bad things people do to themselves like drinking, smoking, or overeating. You cause infections from open sores, but you are not going to die from anything related to nail biting. And, the news gets better when you come to realize you are not alone and you can learn to how to stop nail biting permanently.
There are reasonable options that work for most people who truly want to quit
You can find methods in my book that are certain to help most nail biters. I never overpromise and say what worked for me will universally work for everyone. Just as I believe there are levels of addiction to drinking, smoking, eating, sex and other nearly uncontrollable habits, I believe the same is true for nail biters. I have known some people who were able to quit smoking relatively easily. I have known others who continue to smoke through the hole in their trachea after they had throat cancer surgery due to smoking. If you are that hooked on nail biting, what I teach to help you quit may not be enough.
You have little to lose and much to gain by reading my book. You'd spend more on some nasty tasting polish treatment.
However, if you are not on the extreme side, I believe you can learn my techniques to quit your nail biting habit for good. You have to want to quit worse than you want to continue biting your nails. You have to be willing to repetitively teach youself to recognize not your biting habits, but the triggers that lead to the biting, and then you have to be willing to repetitively practice aversion techniques so you can switch your urge to bite your nails. Lastly, you have to realize that your worst days are far ahead and need to know how to prepare to avoid disaster after your guard is down.
If you can accept, believe, learn and practice these things routinely, you are a great candidate for getting true long-lasting help from my book, How to Stop Nail Biting. You can click on the book on the top right of this page and order it from Amazon.com
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