How do you stop biting your nails?

Question

I do it to the point where the 'white' part of the nail starts in the middle of the nail, I peel nails, pick nails, chew the cuticle . . . yeah. It's been a habit I haven't been able to break since I was 6

Answer 1

1. Make a conscious effort to stop as soon as you catch yourself doing it.

2. You can paint the bitter solution that is available over-the-counter at any pharmacy to stop sucking fingers / biting nails.

3. You can use Nail Polish Remover also.

4. You can try getting a set of thimbles and put those on your fingers.

5. Instead of biting nails, start chewing gums as soon as you feel the desire to bite your nails. Maybe it will help.

You do not have to do all. Any one of these or a combination of some may turn out to be helpful. Good luck !!

Answer 2

lol good question...I have the same habit!

I guess what you can do is put tape on your finger, or unnoticeable nail polish(clear colour)

You can just stop by listening to me right now...dont bite your nails...it is bad for your skin & u, and when u get older your hands will be all gross.

You should quit doing it

Good Luck.

Answer 3

1.  Stick fingers up butt

2.  Don't put fingers near mouth.  

Answer 4

put tape on your fingers. thats what they do on tv anyways

Answer 5

If you rub dung under your fingernails I can guarantee you 100% you will stop biting them.

Answer 6

Get to know yourself, the first step is to be conscious when you start biting your nails. Feel your anxiety or stress levels.

Don't start thinking there is a short term solution. To stop nail biting, one requires patience and awareness.

Use an emery board to file when ever you feel like biting. Even if you file them down to nothing, it's better then chewing into your nail bed. Ouch!

Try using a coating that seals moisture in the nail and repels water and dirt. Oils or even waxy lip balm can be effective at softening nails.

Keep going with the program, any setbacks should be confronted as quickly as possible, to prevent a complete relapse.

Let white spots grow out gently. They are caused by blows or stress to the nail.

You can chew gum as it keeps you from biting your nails.

Take magnesium pills, one a day. They strengthen the nails and make them hard.

Try keeping an "egg" of Silly Putty with you! It is fun to play with and it occupies your hands during biting-prone times like while watching movies or television or sitting in class. Or you can try keeping a quarter or other coin in your pocket, and play with it when you feel the urge to bite your nails. Plus, these don't involve eating or chewing on anything, so they will help break the habit of oral fixation.

Challenge yourself: how many hours can you go without taking a bite? When you break a previous record, get yourself a treat. Then see: can you go a day? Three days? a week? two weeks?

Clean, manicured nails will be such an improvement to your self-esteem. You'll see!

If the habit is unconscious (i.e., you don't even notice yourself starting to do it), consider using NLP or hypnotherapy - practitioners will know some great techniques for retraining your mind very quickly and easily to remove unwanted habits.

See if you can notice how or when you decide to start biting. There may be an underlying cause of stress, nerves or boredom perhaps.

Dealing with the underlying and real issue could stop the nail biting and more.

Again, try chewing gum to keep your mouth busy.

You might also want to try putting nail polish on. Since it tastes so bad, you won't want to bite your nails anymore.

As your nails/skin grow, they will seem puffy and itchy. This is normal! This fudge-finger sensation will go away in time.

Clean your nails! Part of the reason you bite them is because they are dirty. Buff then, scrub them, clean them. This will make you appreciate them more.

If you are artistic, try doing projects with clay or plaster. It gets all over your hands, and the flavour stays in your nails (and all over your hands) long after you wash off any visible mess. They both taste bad to many people (clay tastes salty and can leave a slimy texture and plaster tastes chalky) and doing the projects will also keep your hands busy.

Put nail jewels on your nails. These are hard to bite, and the risk of one coming off in your mouth may scare you into quitting your habit.

Remember that long ago, people used to think that bitten nails got lodged in people's intestines (to this day some parents still tell their children this). Even though we know now that this is not actually true, it's a gross thing to think about as you chew...

Hope this all helps. I got it all off the site below, it's really quite good. Also, you can get special polishes to put on your nails which taste absolutely AWFUL when you try to bite them. This worked for my brother who bites his fingernails and his toenails!!

Answer 7

Dont bite them? lol Tape works very well. If worse comes to worse, just get frost bite and chop them off O.o!!! j/k j/k.

Hope this helps!

Answer 8

Put nail polish or rubbing alcohol on them.. You will stop when you have to go to the hospital for poison sickness.  My aunt use to do that, she stopped after the first visit.

Oh, and another thing. WILL POWER

Answer 9

well, a few tips is when you find yourself doing it sit on your hands

also you can buy stuff at a store that you put on your nails and it makes them taste nasty

but really its just a matter of not doing it

Answer 10

Make you self think of something nasty what you touched OR what your nails are actually made out of.

Answer 11

thay have nail polish stuff that tasts bad to stop you from doing it...

Answer 12

in the pharmacy they sell a kind of clear nail polish that tastes horrible especially so you wont bite your nails  and after you do put the nail Polish thing and try to bite the it tastes like nail polish remover and it eventually breaks the habit of biting  your nails  

Answer 13

put nail polish remover on them, it tasts gross and that what i did a few years ago and it worked really well!! good luck!

answer mine plz :)

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

Answer 14

Two things that I know of could really help. First, they sell clear polishes that taste terrible that are designed to help people stop nail biting. Also what works best in my case is going to get acrylic nails put on, it keeps me from being able to damage my nails and tearing up my cuticles.

Good luck.

Answer 15

You have an oral fixation. Chew gum! It helps my boyfriend because you are chewing on something else.  

Answer 16

haha idk what to tell u i bite mine all the time but i go and get them done so i wont and keep them done for a while and they start to grow, im still trying to stop but that helps me!

Answer 17

i recently just quit, and i stopped by putting a really nasty color nail polish on them, i kept trying to pick the color off instead of biting, and in just a few days i completely forgot about biting my nails

Answer 18

Step 1: Stuff nails with f***s

Step 2: Don't bite

Answer 19

paint them with nail polish or rubb some bad tasting thing on them. tape will lokk wierd. carry gum around so whenever u need to bite chew on gum.

Answer 20

me too! :D

but i stopped this summer, then they got so pretty and long, i didn't bite them. then they chipped 1 by 1. -.-. and i got so annoyed i cut them all. now i'm biting them, and i'm trying so hard not to and i finally not biting them. but i usually bite my nails when i'm nervous or stressed.

DO THIS: pertend that people has something you really like and they're about to kill it, and the only way to make them not to is to stop eating your nails. lol i don't know. that's the first thing that came into my head.

Answer 21

oohh... i used to bite my nails.. it was terrible. omgsh i grew out of it somehow. idk how i stopped but as i got older yeah. er if u are a girl, put nail polish  

Answer 22

eww thats really short..

um i bite my nails too. so i just one day was like, im not going to do this anymore so i put clear nail polish on them and whenever i wanted to bite them i would do something that would take my mind off of it.

what works too, is if you have a goal....i plan on getting my nails done for my semi formal (not for a while now) but if you have short nails the Chinese people will laugh at you and the nails will fall off in a day. it happened to me before.  

Answer 23

well this is just something my science teacher told me, but it made me stop.

if you scrape under your nail and then put that stuff in a container under a certain light, a tape worm grows.

do you want that in your mouth?

Answer 24

Take a clove of Garlic and rub them on the your finger tips or the tips of your nail.  The smell and taste alone will keep you from bitting the nails, but the garlic also helps your nails grow back out.  

Answer 25

put a clear polish on

it tastes nasty

:)

Answer 26

It is sounds like a form of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and I will say that I suffer mildly from another form, Trichotillamania.

I have tried to stop this habit myself, and here are the things you need to start doing:

1) Be aware of when you are biting your nails. Most likely you are biting out of nervousness or anxiety or simply because your passing the time. But you need to keep track of this.

2) Sometimes the action of OCD can come about because of feeling some depression, it is a good thing to remain active and as moronic as this sounds, just go out and do things, errands, activities, anything to get your mind of biting your nails. Just do activities where you can relax or where you have to take your mind off of the activity of biting your nails.

3) This is the hardest thing, but admit to a few select friends about your "condition" its especially embarrassing to me, because I actually pull my hair, but if you tell your friends, family, they can be your biggest allies and they can just yell at you tell you to stop, without you feeling as though it were a stranger. They'll truly care about your appearance self-esteem.

4) Do not wear gloves, this doesn't help you recognize your problem it will only help divert your problem. You need to take full responsibility and see what your doing to yourself. In order for you to understand what your doing may not be best for you.

I realize what I deal with may be completely different but it is a similar nervous OCD tick I believe. I hope this helps.

Answer 27

Try wrapping tape around them.....

Answer 28

there is a clear polish you put on and it tastes bad so eventually you will stop.

the one that says no bite

http://orlybeauty.com/treatment.php?c=1&...

Answer 29

Hypnosis is the quickest way. Sheer willpower is the rest or wear gloves so you can't bite them for a time.