Nail biting is a common habit, and it’s often associated with stress or anxiety. It falls into the category of Body Focused Repetitive Behaviors (BFRBs), along with removing hair, picking at skin and sucking at the fingers. Worryingly, the negative consequences of biting your nails aren’t just aesthetic—some people bite their nails (or the surrounding skin) so much that intense pain and infections develop. To make matters worse, if you’re a nail biter than you probably already know just how hard it is to stop, no matter how good your intentions. In fact, it’s likely you’re often entirely unaware that you’re biting your nails until the damage is already done.
Hypnotherapy provides hope for chronic nail biters, making it easier to quit this habit and address the underlying causes as well. So, how does hypnotherapy help, and what can you expect from your treatment plan? Here’s what you need to know.
Like other Body Focused Repetitive Behaviors, nail biting is extremely common—up to 4% of people struggle with this type of habit. It is somewhere on the obsessive compulsive spectrum, so if you notice other repetitive behaviors then it is important to seek medical and psychiatric advice as well as using hypnotherapy. In many cases, there is a vicious cycle of negative emotion—for example, you might bite your nails because you’re feeling insecure or socially anxious, and then the eventual appearance of your hands may just lead to more insecurity and social anxiety.
While anyone can develop a problematic nail biting habit, studies show that people with perfectionist tendencies and a short tempter are more likely than average to bite their nails. It is also common for the behavior to start in the teenage years, though it may emerge at any time of life. Regardless of when it crops up, it is tough to shake since it is all built on processing going on deep in the subconscious part of your mind.
Interestingly, when you bite your nails your brain may well be in a state similar to that which develops in a hypnotic trance. You become very focused on one particular activity (often in response to a highly specific cue or set of cues), and you may lose a sense of timing passing. This may actually be helpful to you when you first start engaging with hypnotherapy, as you already have plenty of everyday experience of going into a behavior-reinforcing hypnotic trance! What your hypnotherapist or hypnotherapy recording can help you do is turn this skillset into something that empowers you to make positive changes (rather than encouraging you to sustain negative habits).
Hypnotherapy for overcoming nail biting will focus on changing the blueprint of the habit that exists in your mind. Your feelings, assumptions and triggers associated with nail biting all exist in your subconscious, and they can be accessed and adapted when you’re in the highly suggestible state associated with being in a strange. Your hypnotherapist has a wide range of techniques at their disposal—you may be taught to respond to your old triggers in a new way (e.g. by doing something else with your hands), you may develop affirmations that help you to resist your urge, and you will also probably learn fresh ways of processing stress and anxiety that don’t channel your anxiety into superficially damaging your body.
Since there is a strong correlation between biting your nails and having difficulty coping with stress, it’s also worth thinking about broadening the scope of your hypnotherapy work. In other words, instead of just trying to get rid of the habit of biting your nails, you may want to have sessions that focus on building up your self-esteem, inducing deeper feelings of everyday relaxation or help you to let go of a need for control.
While hypnotherapy is widely endorsed as an effective alternative treatment, the results are variable. You are likely to see the most significant improvements if you trust the process and also have a genuine, consistent desire to make changes in your life. Hypnotherapy can’t make you want to stop biting your nails if you don’t already want to quit the habit—what it can do is help you make the journey from wanting to change to actually adjusting your habits. You may notice changes in your thoughts, feelings and behaviors after just a single session, or you might need several in order to create a foundation for lasting change.
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