nail and finger biting

LegacyUser

I am a male in my early 30s and for years now I bite both my nails and the skin at the top of my fingers/around my nails pretty badly (rad raw and bleeding). Some days or weeks I wouldnt touch them at all, but when I do it - I do it uncontrollably. I seem to do it everywhere in every situation, even on my own. I really need to stop this as its embarassing in work, relationships etc when people see them (Not that they mention it mind).

Has anyone any tips apart from stopping (apart from the nail biting liquid that you can buy)?.

By the way I am a nervous / anxious person at times. But so are others who dont do this!!

thefeatheredcat

I'm actually pretty much the same to some degree with biting my nails, both consciously and subconsciously and even do it in my sleep!

I've tried the nail biting formula although it didn't work for me, but it's worth giving a try and see how you get on. Long before I knew about the nail biting varnish stuff I actually resorted to putting sellotape over my nails to stop biting them, particularly at night.

I find that with some bad/nervous habits I have and the way I've gone about resolving them (although not nail biting) is to catch myself in that behaviour, stop myself, acknowledge the behaviour and recognise it as a negative but in a positive way. Distracting yourself with something else can be helpful too, although be careful not to transfer the behaviour pattern from one thing to something else, so you'd need to address the anxiety itself too if that is the reason for biting your nails.

I have found a Rubik's cube and puzzles like that to keep my fingers and hands busy a useful distraction with some things and distracted my mind from the behaviour.

littlefriend

Hypnosis works very well for this problem.

LegacyUser

I've been biting my nails for 15 years, and I just decided to give up one day this summer (mainly to get people off my back, always mentioning it when I was biting). I used the gross tasting nail varnish stuff (it never worked when I was younger strangely enough) and kept my nails painted with clear varnish. I also carried a nail file with me everywhere as I can't stand the feeling of there being a bit of the nail uneven or jagged.

I have lovely long nails now! I still have to paint them with the clear varnish every 2 days or so (harder to bite them with a layer of varnish on) and keep a nailfile with me (broke one the other day and had no file: instantly began to bite!) I haven't managed to stop biting the skin around them yet but I'm sure that will just happen eventually.

Good luck with stopping. as much as I love biting my nails, my new long nails are nicer!