Years ago I stopped biting my nails. It was a huge effort (though it seems so easy in hindsight), but I managed and was proud of my achievement.
Somehow, I ended up chewing the inside of my mouth instead :rolleyes:
This is A Bad Thing because:
I look stupid. Really.
I am eating the inside of my mouth away :eek:
Hi Opal!
So, New Year’s resolutions and all that… I want to ditch this. But how? Last shitty habit I ditched I apparently replaced with something worse. And the inside of your mouth is right there, all the time! You can’t walk away from it, or not buy it in the first place, or do something else with it instead. Even when I realise I am doing it and try to stop… I really really want to do it.
Has anyone successfully ditched this habit? How? Help
I have the same bad habit, gracer! It really is miserable. Sometimes my teeth hurt. I will go right on tearing up my cheeks and lips while thinking about how awful it is.
I have taken note of the position of my teeth and tongue when everything is in proper relaxed mode, and when I catch myself nibbling I return my mouth to correct position. I then concentrate on staying frozen there…needless to say, it doesn’t work very well, but it’s what I do.
I have also tried chewing gum. I don’t like it, because then the constant chewing goes unchecked, but in desperate times at least it keeps me from ripping further chunks out of my cheeks.
By the way, if anyone wanted to invent, like, cheek shields or something, I would totally buy those.
Not my monkey, but good luck. I chew on (bite/occassionally pick the skin off of, really) my lips, which is a habit I share with my father, sometimes to the point of drawing blood. It’s so strangely satisfying…
And then I chew my shirt collars and pens as well–pens are somewhat mitigated by sticking to my favorite brand of liquid ink with a metal clip, but I still nibble on them–but carefully.
My lips I’ve been gnawing for as long as I can remember having lips; my shirts have been targetted since sometime in elementary school. Really, I just try to manage these little addictions now…
I used to do it a lot. Years of conscious effort to stop have resulted in mostly stopping. Every now and then I take a beguiling nibble, then mentally spank myself and stop.
Which is to say, I don’t think there are any “tricks” to help with this one, you’ve just gotta exert willpower.
There’s no shortage of mouth-related habits you could pick up to help curbe it. Probably won’t solve your problem on it’s own, but having something else going on in your mouth might help cut back. Off the top of my head I can think of chewing gum, lollipops, toothpicks, hard candy, crushed ice, or celery.
Also if you’re comfortable bringing attention to your issue you might try asking your friends and family to remind you when they notice you doing it. That helped me kick or curb a couple of habits that had become so ingrained into me that I often didn’t realize I was doing them.
Thanks for the commiseration, Beetle! I would absolutely go for the shields in a second. Or bad tasting stuff that’s released when you bite, like the nail polish? Sometimes it would still be worth it, but I’d cut back.
I do try other distractions occasionally, eating (heh), gum, those floss/toothpick things. It helps awhile, but after all, you can’t chew gum all the time let alone keep a toothpick permanently in your mouth.
My SO points it out to me when I do it. I don’t think it helps: it makes me grumpy and resentful, and then I try to do it secretly. Which is crazy, because I don’t friggin want to.
I think it’s going to have to be what **Sattua **said: super-willpower.
But I need to ask: SerafinePekala (great username btw), is that really going to happen to me?! :eek: OK, I’m actually going to look at that picture. And maybe take a picture of myself doing it to remind how ridiculous I look…
ETA: These habits are so weird. I mean, what the hell?! I’m eating myself and I can’t seem to stop. And what’s so good about it anyway? Nothing I could tell you, and yet I absolutely have to do it. I read it was a form of automutilation (I guess technically it is), but it doesn’t hurt and then release happy brain stuff to relieve stress, so it doesn’t seem to qualify. Does anyone have any theories? Or any good reading on this insane habit?
Practical solution:
I have retainers on full-time after my fixed brackets braces came off last month. The retainers are basically like Invisalign; see-through moulds for my teeth. Very slippery. Bet you would have a hard time getting any, ah, purchase, on your cheeks with something like that on your teeth! Is that an option?
Emotional solution:
I’m a therapist and this type of behaviour really fascinates me. I am very interested in habits. The thing to remember about habits is that they accumulate over time, they can increase in frequency and get worse and worse. For example, smoking - smoke a little bit, then a bit more, then loads. How did you get there?? Logic dictates, then, that habits can be reduced, deconstructed, taken apart…
It sounds a little bit OCD to me, based on the very definition. It’s an obsession, you do it compulsively. This link might be interesting reading.
I do this sometimes, but only in my sleep. Is that weird or what?
I once woke myself out of a sound sleep when I chomped down on one side of my tongue. It bled like a sonofabitch for half an hour. I was afraid to go back to sleep afterwards.
Hmm maybe. But they’re very expensive aren’t they? I could get a hockey mouth guard I suppose, but then you can’t really speak. And I dunno… it wouldn’t be a permanent solution, would it? I’d just go back to chewing my cheeks as soon as I took the thing out.
I suppose it has some similar elements, one that strikes me is that I feel quite stressed when I stop myself biting. But I think the majority of symptoms don’t fit, and OCD seems very strongly related to “thoughts”. Biting my cheeks is just a habit: I don’t think anything bad will happen if I don’t do it. I just really, really want to do it, for some bizar reason.
Beware of Doug: I started clenching my fists in my sleep suddenly, a few months ago. I clenched them so hard the pain would wake me up. I tried really hard to straighten out my hands before going to sleep, even putting one hand under my face to keep it straight. It worked, I don’t do it anymore. But again, with your mouth and teeth just…being there all the time, it seems like there is very little you can do. Maybe a hockey mouth guard if it gets really bad?
Yes I think so. Repetitive motions like squinting and twisting one’s mouth up do produce grooves in the skin. Botox would be your buddy, or you could will yourself to just quit doing it.
I used to bite my cheek as a child, and my theory is that it was oral fixation + stress. So I took up thumbsucking instead and did it til I was 15. Then gave that up. Then started smoking. Finally gave that up, thank God. And yes, I did have the upper lip grooves for a while and it took a long time to get rid of them. Smoking was another major contributor to them, as well as sun worship. Good luck quitting, you can do it.
Bolding mine. All habits have a cause. Even if the habit is to eat a bit of chocolate after every meal, the cause is that it feels nice. Why does it feel so nice? Soothing, accustomed to something sweet after a meal, always used to do this at home, mama used to do it - there are your causes. Find the cause, dispute its legitimacy, break the habit.
It’s OCD in the sense of not being able to break the compulsion; OCD isn’t always the fear that something bad will happen. Or, in this case, the bad thing is that you will feel bad if you don’t bite your cheeks.
Why does chewing your cheeks feel nice? What would you be missing out on if you didn’t chew your cheeks? When did it start? These are all questions I would ask if I was your therapist, which I am not, to try and get an understanding of what the cheek-chewing means to you and how embedded it is in your life. Then I would work with you to deconstruct the habit.
Retainers are expensive, but if you’ve ever had dental work and want to keep your teeth nice, that could be an option, or just get a mouth guard. Hockey mouth guard would be big but would at least make the chewing more conscious, or you could ask your dentist for a mould of the sort that they give to tooth grinders. That would be a bit smaller and less cumbersome, moulded to your own teeth.
Thanks Low-Slung Denim! I’m definitely going to think that through and try to deconstruct the habit.
It started out as a replacement for nail biting, so I suppose I need to work out why I did that? It was definitely to relieve stress, but that needs some more thinking about. And… what would I miss out on if I didn’t do it?! I am certainly going have to ponder that one…
Thanks to everyone else as well, there were some very helpful suggestions. I’m trying the relaxing-thing now, as suggested by Dung Beetle. I think it’s working. I probably look just as crazy while I do it, because I kind of super-relax my whole face, yoga-style.
I’m also seriously looking at the picture of lip grooves. I do not want lip grooves. I do not want lip grooves (repeat).
I’ve been doing it since I was a kid, but I’m not really sure why I’d want to go to a lot of trouble to try and stop.
I’m pretty sceptical of the “lip lines” thing, I just tried it in front of a mirror and I don’t think it really that noticable to other people unless they’re looking for it (and since the only time people are looking directly at me at close range is when I’m talking to them, in which case my face is otherwise engaged). Certainly no one has ever mentioned it to me. And my life isn’t exactly lacking in people who aren’t afraid to criticize my annoying habits.
If its scientific proof you want, there’s that, showing the consequences of repetitive motion on the skin.
Other factors like skin’s elasticity, smoking, aging and sun exposure have impact as well. Dont kid yourself: they show up eventually if you keep making the same motions over and over.
Your link appears to be a study of eyebrow motion. But in any case, the amount of time I spend making repetitive motion with my mouth due to cheek-chewing is pretty small compared to the amount of time I spend 1)eating or 2) talking, so if repetitive mouth motion causes such wrinkles, it seems inevidible in anycase.
This has been a bad habit of mine, for quite a while, and I used to get a ton of puzzled questions. Sadly, there wasn’t any magic to my method, as I ended up willing myself to stop. At times I’d actively try doing something else (without leaning towards another habit), but for the most part, I’d just catch myself and forcibly not do it. After a while, there was less need, and thus far, I’m doing well.
I have done this for as long as I can remember. My mother does it as well, so I think it’s a coping mechanism that I picked up from her. My dentist said I was one of the worst cases he’s seen. I also have TMJ, which this exacerbates. It got so bad that I was taking 1800mg of ibuprofen daily to stave off the TMJ headaches and my ears were ringing due to the inflammation. So, last year, I made it my mission to quit biting my cheeks. Here’s the run down of what I did:
I tried just becoming more conscious of it and relaxing my face when I noticed it. I also chewed gum to distract myself. Some success, but only for a day or so before 1 min of distraction undid all my hard work.
I bought a nightguard - the kind you fit to your teeth by heating it up in boiling water - and wore it during the day. It was difficult at work, as I didn’t talk very clearly and, as a lab worker, I couldn’t just take it out when I needed to. But, I told people that it was for a jaw issue and that satisfied their curiosity. It worked, but as soon as I took it out for extended periods, I’d undo all my hard work. Plus, the guard started causing my teeth to hurt.
I had my dentist make a thinner guard. It was actually a custom-fit bleach tray, kinda like an invisalign. That was pricey, but at least I could wear it at work and I didn’t talk funny. Unfortunately, it also didn’t break the habit, just delayed it. So, if you are willing to wear one of these guards for a very long time, it might work. But in the short term, they allow healing but don’t break the habit.
In total desperation, I signed up with a hypnotherapist. I had read somewhere online that it had worked in the past. The guy I used had helped clients with this issue in the past. It wasn’t cheap. I payed $575 for three hour-long sessions. But, it worked! After the first session, I almost completely quit. After three sessions, it was done.
That was October. I stayed quit until last week, when the combined stress of family and work drove me to start again. I pulled out my hypnosis tapes (he records all sessions), listened to the first one, and quit again. To be fair, my hypnotist said I should listen to one of the tapes every day, but I’ve not listened for a while. I have no doubt that if I’d been listening, I wouldn’t have started back up.
Bottom line: it’s stress. You’ve got to find a way to release it some other way. For me, hypnosis, which is basically guided meditation, worked. Best money I’ve spent. It was so nice to go to the dentist and not get fussed at!
Thanks! I sort of thought myself that a guard would just delay, not actually break the habit. Gum does the same: you’re distracted for a while, but as soon as you get rid of the gum you’re back to biting.
The hypnosis is something I was wondering about. I’ll definitely look into it. I need to get insurance anyway, maybe I can find something that covers it. Thanks for sharing that one!
Yes, I am going to get on it! This thread is really helping to motivate me
