Simple question, really. I’ve been biting/picking my fingernails (and the skin around them) for most of the last 15 years, at least, and I really, REALLY, *REALLY *want to quit. I once tried one of those foul-tasting nail polish things, but I just picked my way through that and continued biting again once most of the polish was gone. Every once in a while I’ll take a pair of fingernail clippers to them and get them to where I have no hangnails and the nails themselves are more or less rounded off, and I’ll think, “OK, I’ve got them to a good starting point. No more biting.” That typically lasts a day or two.
So what tricks have the Teeming Millions found that finally got them to stop their nailbiting? I’m willing to try about anything, and even though I’m a guy and I would be willing to paint them (I read that if you paint your fingernails, you’re less likely to bite them so you don’t ruin your paint job), except that I’m in the military, and they frown upon that sort of thing. Anything else, I’m game. So whatcha got?
I wore acrylic nails for over a year. Took the nails some time to get over that when I had them removed - although years of biting my nails had wrecked them anyway - but after year I had lost the urge to bite them. Not sure how that works for a guy, though.
Now I only want to bite them if there’s something wrong - a tear or a rough edge or something - so I make sure to carry emery boards and a nail clipper for that sort of emergency.
YMMV, but that worked for me. Expensive fix, though.
Try some negative punishment on yourself. Every time you bite your nails, make a 25 cent donation to a cause you hate. No, really, I’m serious. You can keep track of the nail-biting through tally marks on a notepad you carry with you, and at the end of the day count the tallies. Every week sent a check for the amount to Focus on the Family or something.
I wish I could help you. I bit my nails from the time I was around 6 yrs old until I got pregnant at 28. No idea why, but I just stopped. I still pick a bit at my cuticles though.
No real “how” involved. I just decided one day to stop. Bought a good set of nail scissors, and have used them ever since.
(Stopped drinking the same way. Just said, “Enough,” and never looked back.)
(Now, losing weight… Sigh…)
What I want to know is how you started. I’ve never done that and don’t get why anyone would want to.
Pyper’s suggestion is novel. I think it would be just as good to donate to a cause you believe in. The act of stopping, thinking, notating, whenever you find yourself biting would probably help you stop, and as a bonus you would be donating money to something you care about.
I used to bite my cuticles reeeeeally bad. Like, at one point, I had 18 out of a possible 20 bloody cuticles (two sides to each nail = 20). This was after I had mysteriously stopped wanting to bite the actual nails themselves, something I’d done for a good 15 years.
What helped me stop was writing down what I was thinking about each time I found myself with a sliver of finger-skin between my teeth. This is actually a self-harm behavior, like cutting oneself, although way more socially acceptable.
I enjoy writing down dreams and re-reading them later, and this data was similarly fascinating to me. Usually I was thinking about something stupid or hurtful I’d said, or something hurtful someone else said to me. Occasionally I was thinking about a task I had built up in my mind as stressful and was dreading.
I never found that I was biting my cuticles without a negative thought in my head. That clarified things for me. Getting in the habit of pausing and considering my thoughts from a birds’ eye view whenever I had the urge to bite my fingers bloody helped me detach myself from intensely negative thoughts, consider them more objectively/healthily, and desist from hurting myself - physically hurting myself by biting my cuticles, mentally hurting myself by dwelling on negative things.
I hope this helps.
Sometimes I think it’s a monkeylike behavior. When I see chimps picking fleas off each other it reminds me of my many urges to bite my nails/cuticles, pick at scabs, find and break off split ends from my hair, and many other things. My mom’s friend calls this urge “the pickens”… as in, when she sees someone picking at a scab she says knowingly, “You’ve got The Pickens.” I think chimps all have the pickens and have fleas to take it out on. Some humans have it but without lice have nothing to act it out on.
I realize this theory contradicts what I just said in my previous post, but I think there’s room for both to be true.
I wish I could tell you, but I don’t know. I bit my nails for - as far as I’m aware - 40 years. I can’t remember not doing it. The earliest I remember thinking of it was when my mom painted my nails with awful tasting stuff. I remember what my bedroom looked like, so I cannot have been older than 6, which is when we moved from that house.
I meticulously licked each finger until the taste was gone, then bit my nails anyway.
I also sucked my thumb, FWIW, until I was way older than I should have been. I just gradually stopped that, but no amount of bribery or punishment could make me stop either habit.
Cold turkey.
I used to bite my nails a lot (as a kid and teenager). Then I read an article about the bacteria living under your nail and how many people get diarrhea and stomach issues from biting their nails. I am very afraid of vomiting and knowing that I can make myself sick by biting my nails, I completely stopped. Plus, I picked up a habit of washing my hand a lot. Just thinking of your nails as being dirty (which they just are) makes you not want to bite them.
If you can go without doing it for a month, you should have kicked the habit.
If you bite them only when you are nervous, stressed or unhappy, you could try to tackle it also by finding new coping strategies.
Good luck! You can do it!
Pretty much, I’d bitten my nails for around 20 years (I guess) when I chipped my front tooth while doing so. The dentist fixed it up, but within a few weeks the filling broke off again (while nailbiting of course). After the next fix up, I decided to stop and haven’t really done it since. In the beginning I sometimes had a reflex of moving my fingers to my teeth, but I never once bit down. The biggest thing to get used to is cutting your right hand finger nails with your left hand:p.
If you bit your nails in such a way that there was an “under” for bacteria to live in, you weren’t doing it in the way the OP describes. My fingernails would have to be twice as long as they currently are, just to reach the tips of my fingers. There’s nowhere for bacteria to hide.
Mavala Stop. It has 945 positive customer reviews, so I guess it really works. It did for me, anyway.
ETA: if you are a guy and are hesitant to use nail hardener nal polish, because you think glossy nails are not manly-looking, buy nail hardener in a matte finish. It looks very natural and you still get all the benefits of nail hardener.
Everyone on my father’s side of the family bites their nails. Have since they were little. I just quit one day and for the most part haven’t done it much since then. I do still bite the cuticles.
My parents tried the nasty tasting stuff on my nails, but like a lot of others I didn’t care that much about the taste. What I do do however is keep my nails really short. I cut them every other day or two.
Honestly I think it’s genetic, my oldest daughter bites hers yet never has seen me bite mine since I don’t anymore. She also bites her toenails, something I used to do as a kid. I also think that it’s partly because my nails are soft. I didn’t cut one nail for a few days and it had grown out. I grabbed something and the damn nail bent in half and hurt like hell.
For me the key was keeping my nails trimmed neatly and as short as possible. I found that if they got at all uneven, I’d tend to gnaw on them. It might not be a bad idea to keep a nail trimmer and nail file on hand.
Cold turkey. Had a boss who thought she was perfect. She smoked; I was a nail biter. It came up one day about vices, and I decided to quit cold turkey so that I wouldn’t have such an obvious nasty habit, but she’d have one.
Drover 'er nuts!
Took her two years to stop smoking.
Ain’t been a nail biter since.
Same for me; I bit my nails frantically all my life, but simply stopped when I got knocked up.
However, I have a worse nervous habit now: I shred my lips and inner cheeks. You can take your fingers out of your mouth, but you can’t take your mouth out of your mouth.
Now that I have great fingernails, I always carry a clipper and file. I also never paint them. If I did, it would just give me something to pick at.
I broke a molar. Can’t stress my teeth like that anymore. I’ve cut back about 90 percent. It’s just not comfortable to do it anymore. Wasn’t able to stop with willpower alone.
Another vote for using a product to harden your nails. When my nails were crappy (due at least in part to anemia), I would pick them because they were so soft it was easy to make inroads, so to speak. I like Sally Hansen Hard as Wraps, which does come in clear. If it’s too girly looking, then a matte top coat should help.
I still am tempted to pick my cuticles, though.