How to Stop Nail Biting by a simple Replacement Habit
Do you bite your nails?
Do you like that?
If you answered Yes, and then, No, you’re probably one of the many humans who’ve got the bad habit that’s called nail-biting. Perhaps you don’t even label it as a ‘bad habit’ or never actually tried to quit doing it. You also might already know that this habit isn’t that easy to shake.
Why?
I don’t know your exact reasons for sure, but it might have something to do with the fact that, most of us, bite our nails when we’re feeling stressed, overwhelmed, or lost in thoughts. If you recognize this, then you might also recognize ‘waking up’ in the middle of… your nail while being on a phone call or just mind-wandering in traffic.
Do you want to quit nail-biting?
Nail-biting isn’t awesome. When you are destroying your nails every week, your hands don’t look that clean because of all the loose skin around your nails.
Also, especially with dirty hands, you can transfer germs between your hands and your mouth. Yucky, but chances are that’s not what’s going to help you quit because your immune system is there to the rescue.
Perhaps the worst part is when you need to open a package and you can’t peel off the translucent, just a little too strong sticker, with the absence of the thing you need most at that moment, your nails.
Having said all that, nail-biting isn’t going to be the easy winner of the
I’m your biggest problem-award. It’s not going to make you lose your job (exceptions made for when you’re a nail stylist), nor will it get you into any big trouble.
But there’s something. You know it — if you’re still reading here. Something inside you might say that it’s past time to quit biting your nails and gain a sense of control.
But how the *bleep* do you do that?
I quit nail-biting exactly a year ago. For 365 days my nails grew and for the first time in my life, I had to cut my fingernails a couple of times in the past year.
But believe me, this wasn’t my first try.
You might have tried some of the following techniques and been successful, well that’s awesome for you, send this article to a friend who hasn’t! If these don’t work for you, here’s a little why. Perhaps some of those will work, but will only help you in the short term! These approaches simply won’t keep your nails alive for more than a month or a couple of months.
The top 7 of most given short-term advice
These options will make sure you’ll feel even more frustrated when biting your nails again, after trying yet another technique.
1. Trying to quit biting nails by using sheer willpower
Use the power of the mind. Be aware when you want to bite and then just choose to not do it. Yeah, this sounds amazing, right? You’ll only need a little bit of willpower! Unfortunately, willpower is only available in a very limited supply. As soon as you become tired or used all your willpower for that day, it will go to sleep and, Bam lost again! Bye-bye nail, you’ve been great!
2. Try special stuff that makes you yucky when biting your nail
Coating your nails with stuff that has a bad taste is one the options most people already tried. It works for just a little bit, but then you forget to put it on, or even worse, after a little while, the taste gets familiar and yeah, it’s not that bad anymore. You know what happens next.
3. Using gloves
Sounds promising right? Super easy! Just put on gloves and ta-da, you don’t have nails anymore! This might work if you’re able to wear gloves every day of the week for at least 8 months or so (I didn’t test this, so this is a rough estimation based on a lot of assumptions). But even the Queen of England, won’t be able to keep this up. So, once they are off, you haven’t changed any behavioral patterns and you’re out.
4. Cut your nails short
This one is close. Cutting your nails is something you have to do at some point. In my experience, when you plan to cut your nails, that is somehow always just a little later in the future than that your nails reached the perfect length to be bitten away during that stressful movie. To stay positive: that’s at least one nail less to cut!
5. Find your triggers
This is great advice. This might sound sarcastic after reading the above, but seriously, it’s essential to know when you’re biting your nail regularly. But just knowing your triggers won’t be enough, simply because life has a way of presenting us with new situations that you didn’t prepare for. So, just finding your triggers won’t cut it (pun intended).
6. Find something to fiddle
Just keep your hands busy. This is the best advice for someone who doesn’t want to give you advice.
7. Get regular manicures
This one is recommended! Especially by nail stylists. I don’t know why, but it might have something to do with staying in business. Just kidding! Part of this might help because of the emotional pain you feel because of spending a lot of your hard-earned money on something you’re destroying, but at some stressful moment, the price of relief by biting your nails could surpass what you’ve paid for the manicure. And then what?
How to quit nail biting for good?
Do I know for sure that this option works for you? Nope.
I’m not a psychic — But I’ve been there.
I’ve tried all of the above approaches, a combination of these approaches, and more. And I failed for multiple years, multiple attempts in a row.
Doing that got me thinking.
You can’t just quit doing something.
Just like you can’t quit thinking about something. For the next minute
try not to think about a white elephant. Even if you try super hard, after a little while, the white trunky fellow walks past our thoughts, and might even trumpet!
So you simply can’t quit biting your nails by trying to quit. The good news is, you can replace the behavior by focusing on the muscles you use.
So I asked myself: What can I do in terms of behavior every day (this part is essential) what builds muscle memory with my nails?
I did this:
1. Build the habit of filing your nails every day, at the same moment in the same location.
For me, this was just putting a nail file next to my toothbrush and filing my nails before brushing my teeth (this is called habit-anchoring). By doing this every day it will take a couple of months without nail-biting before your nails get truly longer, but this way you’ll interact in a different way with your nails every day.
2. Use environment design to have a nail file at your convience in all locations you spend time and experience stress
Think at your desk, in your car, at the couch in from of the TV, etc. The more, the merrier.
3. When you bite your nail, which undoubtedly WILL HAPPEN in the first few days or even weeks, once you notice, QUIT biting, START filing.
Do this instantly and don’t blame yourself, which will only lead to quitting. Perhaps even practice it on the first day for 3~5 times and apply the Pavlov method of automated behavior to filing your nails after biting.
That’s it. Repeat every day. And watch your nails grow. After a little while you’ll need to cut your nails and at the moment I file my nails around 3~4 times a week without biting.
Some smaller key preparations you could do:
Use floss sticks at all times to remove food from your teeth. You might use your nails (especially when they get longer after a while) to clean out something annoying, however, this will only strengthen the habit of using your finger around your teeth, so try not to do this.
Hire an accountability coach. I wouldn’t recommend asking your friend to keep you accountable for not biting your nails, simply because it’s relatively not significant enough. The humans on the coach.me platform are specialized in building habits and keeping you accountable every day. This way, it’s a lot easier to keep filing your nails. If you like this option, I've got a special offer at the end of this page.
Start with some of the top seven most given advice. Change always start with your awareness, so knowing your trigger and writing them down might help at least a little. Try to make as many active decisions to prevent biting your nails, and last but not least, be kind to your mind! Don’t get mad at yourself when you do bite them. Accept that this will happen at first. Blaming yourself will only let you accumulate more stress which leads to.., you’ve guessed it, biting your nails again.
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