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Yes, You can stop biting your nails

Right Way With right method, you can stop biting your nails. Easily and quickly. Hypnosis can make you forget you ever had the habit. Why shouldn't you have perfect nails?

Real reason Your nails are telling you about anxiety. Your nails are signaling you need to do something about it. When you fix the anxiety, your nail biting will go away. It's that simple.

Hypnosis works! If you have never tried hypnosis you might be surprised at what it can do. It can give you hands to be proud of. You can have the long solid healthy nails you always wanted. Hypnosis is the way to do it.

Look at the evidence I have helped so many people overcome what they thought was a lifetime addiction. The examples on this page are evidence that you can give up too. With the right approach, it is easy. Why not you?

End it today Most people can stop biting their nails after one hypnosis session. Why not you? Make an appointment today.

No.1 Effective way to stop nail biting.

This is because it's not about your nails. It is about feeling stressed. Your nails reveal how you think about yourself. It is like a billboard of what is going on inside.

It is very common. About ten percent of adults bite their nails. Nail biting is unconscious. It gets triggered by stress or frustration, often after long periods of non-biting. It affects men more than women.

But the good news is that it can be fixed. You can be one of the ones who stopped forever. You can have good nails too.

People have looked for a cure for centuries. See the Tips below. Barrier methods to stop you getting to your fingers. Taste methods make the nails taste disgusting. Distraction methods encourage you to do something else instead.

The No.1 way is with hypnosis. You can stop biting, scraping, and chewing after one session.

Why do you bite your nails?

Causes of Chronic Nail biting

Nail biting typically starts in childhood. It is a sign that the child is stressed. It is very common in younger children. Teenagers do it less, and most adults stop automatically. However, for a lot of people, the nail biting habit continues into adult life.

The cause is stress. The biting or sucking, chewing or picking helps to distract you. Most people do it without even noticing until the damage is done.

No one actually sets out to damage their nails. So it is not like you are choosing it as a way to deal with stress. But when you were a child it was an activity that took your mind off the anxiety for a while.

But it then became a habit. Eventually, because it gave you some relief, you got addicted!

Why do I do start it again?

I can't stop biting my nails. It always happens when I am driving or alone or watching TV.
I stopped biting for five years, but it started again when I got a supervisor's job.

I find myself doing it when having a stressful conversation or when I'm anxious.
I have been embarrassed and ashamed most of my life. Sometimes I hate myself.

When you don't have something to engage you, when you are bored, your mind has nothing to do. So it defaults to reviewing all the emotional issues you haven't dealt with. And get stressed.

So when you doing something like looking at TV, or reading a text from a friend, engages only your surface attention. Your unconscious mind is still working. Silently, your internal anxiety builds up and that starts it.

It can be more general. When something is going on that you didn't expect, makes you worried, anxious, so the biting starts up again.

Maybe you are a bit of a perfectionist? You notice a tiny flaw in the nail, and want to fix it, but end up making it worse. Or maybe one nail is just a bit longer, and that can't be allowed.

Whatever the reason, once you start, you can't stop.

Tips to Stop Nail Biting

All these tips do work, at least for some people. The problem is that when stress comes back into your life it puts you right back to biting with anxiety.

1. Visualize the nail biting consequences.

Disgusting stuff lives under your nails. Visualize what you are actually putting in your mouth. Your hands touch everything: dirt, germs, bacteria, dead skin - everything. And it all gets transferred into your mouth every time you bite or suck your nails.

Even if you wash your hands frequently, micro-organisms like fungus and viruses live under your nails in the nail bed. These get transferred to your mouth as well. Broken and bleeding nails just give a way in for even more nasty stuff.

2. Remind yourself

It is just a habit. There is no psychological element to it, other than belief that you can't stop. You are not mentally ill. Remind yourself constantly about why you want to stop. Write a list of all the reasons you want to stop and then copy them to bits of card.

Post these all round your house: on the fridge, on the door out, in your bedside drawer, on the dashboard of your car. And on the bottom in big letters write "I CAN DO IT".

3. Keep them short

Many people pick or bite because they think one is sticking out a bit, and therefore they all need be the same, and so they nibble on them. Keeping them all short with regular, even daily, trimming avoids that trigger.

4. Carry a nail care kit

Make sure you always have a nail file on you. Most people feel the need to bite or pick when they think there is some ragged bit that needs dealt to. So always have a nail file handy. Then you can spend the time carefully filing and smoothing, and gradually the biting habit will fade away.

As your nails recover from the abuse, you can then use things from your kit to maintain your nail's appearance.

5. Be good to your nails.

Use cuticle oil at night and it will get absorbed into the nails. Spend some time moisturizing your hands daily. Book a regular professional manicure. You won't want to ruin them after they are looking so nice. Nail polish strengthens and protects nails, even men can benefit from clear polish.

6. Make a feature of your nails.

After years of hiding them, why not spend some time making them noticeable? As soon as you get some positive results, play around with different nail polishes, try some nail art, take an interest in them. Your interest will be repaid.

7. Use bitter oil

You can buy a bitter tasting oil to paint on your nails. It helps some people, but I have met many who just learn to ignore the taste and keep on chewing nails.

8. Distract yourself

Become aware of your triggers and do something to distract yourself. So if your trigger is when you are reading, give your hands something to do. Squeeze a ball while you're reading, or play with an elastic band.

As soon as you stop biting, your nails will continue to grow normally, and then you can go back to looking after them. Within a few weeks all the damage will start to heal, and you will have nails to be proud of again.

Nail Biting - Time to end it?

Is there any cure for nail biting? Some people think that extreme nail biting is an obsessive compulsive mental disorder. This almost never true. It is how you respond to stressful situations.

Your nail biting habit is actually a distraction behavior. When you were young you did it to get away from anxiety. It has turned into a nervous habit gone out of control. That's all. It's just hard to get rid of.

What works? Well, not a lot. Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) is often used. Traditional therapies are available such as Habit Reversal Training. The problem is that these treat the symptoms, not the cause. The habit often returns as soon as the stress returns. You need something to attack the cause of the anxiety.

You can focus on the anxiety. There are many forms of relaxation therapy. These do help to reduce stress. You may have heard of Mindfulness Meditation. There are many others. These work when you are aware of the stress. They are not much use if you are biting or chewing when bored or driving.

What does work: Hypnotherapy

Hypnosis is one of the most effective therapies for ending Nail Biting. There are two basic approaches.

Hypnotic Aversion changes your response to the triggers that set you off. It sets off a mental alarm the moment your hand starts to move up. You realize that you are doing it. You react. The hypnotic instruction knocks your hand away. Your mind fills with disgust at the idea of putting a finger in your mouth.

Hypnotic Visualization lets you feel the joy of having perfect hands. Many nail biters have never had that, and actually cannot imagine it. In trance, you attend a party, a work meeting, go out on a date. Deep in trance, you will learn how good you feel when you don't have to hide your hands.

You will know what it is like to not feel embarrassed or ashamed of your hands. This installs positive feelings about yourself and what you can do now. It pours in confidence. The visualization convinces you that you can change. It sweeps away a lifetime of negative feelings.

Somatic metaphor therapy works directly on your unconscious feelings. You summon up the feeling you get when you feel unsure, frustrated, or anxious. You are then guided to notice where that feeling is in your body. Next you visualize that feeling in the form of a symbol or an object.

Then you change that object, little by little, until it changes into a different thing. At that point your anxiety is completely gone. Whatever was causing it doesn't matter, even if you don't know what was causing it.
Once you have transformed it, it is gone forever. And your nail biting along with it.

Most people drop the habit after one session.

The angry father

This client was grossly overweight, and nails chewed down to the quick. She told me she is taking medication for depression. She used to be even more overweight before stomach bypass surgery. She was clearly anxious right now.

She said that she had had been anxious all her life. She was the oldest child. Her father was verbally abusive, unpredictable. She hated conflict. she always had to be the peace maker at home. Somehow it was her responsibility.

She never felt good enough. She is always afraid that there will be something somebody doesn't like. She has to keep everybody happy, or some bad stuff will happen, again.

I decided that I had to treat the anxiety first, so I put her into trance. Then I used hypnotic regression. In this form of regression, got her to visualize going down a long corridor with doors on each opening on to incidents from her life.

She was to open each door until she found the incident that started her belief about being worthless. One door led to a memory of crashing her bike into a garage door. She was frightened and hurt, but instead of comforting her, her dad got raging angry and threw the bike at her. .

In trance, I got her to go back that incident, to feel how she felt, and rescue that little from that bad place. She comforted herself, and took that little girl away from the anger and fear. And then helped that little girl let go of her fear and pain.

Then she did a visualization of entering a crowded room. Everone she knew was there, and all of them approving of her, and complimenting her. She liked that.

Then another visualization of walking along a gravel path, realizing she was dragging a net full of bad experiences, and then cutting herself free from it. She really liked that.

The hypnosis continued with direct suggestions of her hands looking great. And then gathering with her kids around her, showing them her hands.

When she came out of the trance, she looked quite surprised. "I don't know what you have done, but I feel lighter. Like I have dropped some weight I was carrying." And what about your nails? "I don't think they will be a problem any more."

I can't stop picking

This client was an attractive young woman who wanted to get into modelling. The only thing stopping her was her compulsive scratching and picking at her skin. It was destroying her confidence and her chance at a career.

I could find no particular pattern to her picking and scratching. It was just like nail biting. It started when she was entering her teenage years. She got acne and just wanted a smooth skin, so she picked at the acne to get rid of it. And then found that she could not stop.

I tried to find the emotion about picking, but all she gave me was what she thought about it. She could not get a deep feeling. So I switched to a different type of therapy.

I used hypnosis to put into trance. In trance, I was able to get her to demonstrate to herself the power of her own mind. I showed her that she was able to prevent her own eyes opening, or that her hand could move by itself. This was to convince her mind that she had the ability to stop the picking.

Then I used the visualization exercise. I got her to imagine her compulsion like some clawed thing like an octopus clinging to her back. She prised it off and killed it.

I then led her to a bridge, she looked over the side and saw her own face reflected in the water. I got her to visualise that the reflection was talking to her, telling her that she had beautiful skin and to protect it.

Then I visualized her meeting some magical figure. This figure identifies itself to her, told her it had been watching over her all her life, stroked her face and said that from now on there will be no more picking.

She said afterwards that she felt completely different about her skin now.

The harrassed bride

This was a young designer who lived 0n her nerves. She has to be busy all the time, can't delegate, has to be in control, hates being judged, everything has to be perfect.

Right now she is busy winding herself up about her wedding in February. And she needs to have her nails perfect before then.

To design the right therapy, I started asking about stress, what made her stressed. She immediately started getting weepy. Since she was now feeling a deep emotion, I used that as the basis for somatic metaphor therapy.

She said the feeling was heavy, like a large plate, flat, slippery, white, glossy. It was hard to get her to accept that she could change it, but once it started changing, she was away with it.

It turned into a card, then a laminate, then a coin. I asked her in trance what she want to do with it. Her unconscious told me that she could put with her parking money.

To finish the therapy I had to get her to destroy the coins. So her unconscious told me a big burly guy collected the coins and took them away!

To finish it off, I did more direct hypnosis suggestions about how she would turn off that old anxiety. A few weeks later she sent me a wedding invitation.

Don’t tell my mother

This client was an obese 18 year old, brought here by her mother. She said she wanted to stop biting her nails and to lose weight.

When I started talking to her it was immediately apparent that she had severe anxiety and almost certainly had depression. I led her through depression questionnaire, and she identified with every part of it.

I know from experience that when young people come to therapy they always want hypnosis. However in this case hypnosis was not what she needed. What she needed was to learn about the lifestyle changes she needed to make get control of her anxiety.

Like most young people she went into trance easily. However it was noticeable that even going into trance her fingers were moving constantly. I have never seen such levels of anxiety in anyone.

In trance I showed her how to do self-hypnosis to control her anxiety. Then I used the normal hypnotherapy visualizations and direct suggestions therapy on her nail biting.

After that, I explained to her what she had to do to get a healthy lifestyle, and why it was important. To stop her anxiety overwhelming her again, I taught her two visualization exercises she could do to manage her own anxious thoughts.

She was very keen to try out the self-hypnosis. So we practiced her going in and out of trance right there. She was delighted with her new tools.

Because her mother had brought her, I asked her what she wanted me to tell her mother. She said, "Nothing. She is the cause of it all."

Nail biting and blushing

This client had problems with nail biting and blushing. This was a particular problem because was a builder, and blushing didn't fit with the image. He has been anxious all his life.

He described how he gets red-faced and lacks confidence when meeting people. After a lot of analysis, I established that it’s because he doesn’t want people looking at him. He fears that they are judging him, and he will be not good enough.

He hates being criticized. He works extra hard to make sure that whatever he does is perfect and above criticism. He agreed with the analysis, but felt very surprised that he’d never thought of it before.

I established that nailbiting was not really his problem. It was basic anxiety. He agreed that we would go for the origins of his problems.

I tried to use somatic metaphor therapy. But after many attempts, he just could not get into the feeling. He was trying very hard. But something just wasn’t letting him get there.

So I did a quick relaxation induction. I then did a metaphor visualization of crossing a bridge to freedom. On the bridge, he met a powerful figure, who showed him how to let go of all the feelings of anxiety.

This figure then went deep into his mind to search and destroy the thing that was making him blush and cause nail biting. The session finished with direct suggestions about nail biting.

He was very impressed with the hypnosis. He could not make out who was on the bridge, but he said the thing that was destroyed was very ugly. And he was glad to get rid of it at last.