How To Stop Biting Your Nails

You Can Stop Biting Your Nails, Here's How!

Are you tired of being self-conscious about your hands and nails? I know exactly what you're going through because I've been there. Did you notice I said, "I've been there". That's right, I have finally quit biting my nails. I never thought it was possible, but after years of trying to figure it out, I learned how to stop biting my nails.

As I mentioned, it took me years to "nail" down how to quit this habit. I had several failed attempts, too many to count. I found myself always hiding my nails and truly embarrassed about them. I was even envious of people with nice nails because I was so uncomfortable with my own.

Being uncomfortable about my nails forced me to really think about the problem. I tried all the cover-ups and distractions such as bad tasting nail cream and chewing gum. However, nothing seemed to work on a permanent basis. I would kick the habit for a couple weeks to a month, but I would relapse and be back to square one in no time.

In order to stop this habit on a permanent basis, you have to get to the root of the problem. All the cover-ups and distractions help alleviate the desire to bite and make quitting the habit somewhat easier, but they are not a permanent solution. For a permanent solution, you must ask yourself the following question:

In what situations do I sub-consciously start to bite my nails?

All you nail-biters out there know what I mean! You bring your fingers to your mouth without even thinking about it. For me, as it is for most people, it was stress situations causing me to do this. I was also guilty when I was thinking, panicked, nervous and worried. As you can tell, this covers a lot of situations and feelings, so I was biting my nails a lot.

Even with all these feelings causing me to bite my nails, I have quit this habit. I did it by being conscious of these causes and therefore my emotions. In other words, when I was getting nervous, or panicked, I would be mindful of the situation and somewhat control my emotions. I would realize that I was in this emotional state. With the thought in the back of my mind not to bite my nails, I wouldn't do it. This is the key to quitting this habit. This is the only permanent solution. Try this and you will be pleasantly surprised with the results. A spin-off of this method is being generally more relaxed and in control. I found myself being able to handle pressure situations better because I was more in control, not only of my nail biting, but of my entire emotional state.

2003 by Kevin Hamill

For free section previews and downloads of an ebook with 20 "more" proven ideas to help you stop biting your nails, please visit http://www.stopbitingyournails.ca .