Aspiring Spirit

If you have ever endeavored to give up your nail biting habit, you know just how challenging is. Perhaps you have worn gloves or bandages over your fingernails, or tried bitter-flavored nail polish. Perhaps they were successful for a little while, but ultimately you found yourself with chewed-up nails and torn cuticles once again.

The reason that a superficial nail biting cure is not likely to work makes sense when the reason behind the behavior is looked at. The nail biting habit is persistent and parallel in nature to other stress-related activities, including skin picking and hair pulling. Basically, these actions meet an innate desire; thus if the urge is not eliminated or satiated, the behavior will resume. No amount of bitter nail polish will curb the need for nail biting or provide the sense of relaxation you get after gnawing on your nails.

In that vein, someone cannot actually cure nail biting, but do not worry: Thankfully, time-tested remedies that can aid in recovery are available. There is a three-step treatment that can successfully stop nail biting if you are motivated to do so. The primary step requires hypnosis.

For those unfamiliar, hypnosis conjures pictures of people watching swinging pendulums or acting like an animal for the entertainment of others. Rest assured that at its core, hypnosis is simply deep relaxation in a trance-like state. Some people erroneously think that hypnotic trances are like sleep, but you are awake and fully conscious, simply exceedingly relaxed and open to suggestion.

In fact, a lot of us experience some form of self-hypnosis every day, during times when we tune out most of the distractions around us to concentrate on a certain task while remaining fully conscious. It takes place effortlessly while we read, daydream or watch television.

Because nail biting is stress related, the more fully you can release and work through anxiety and tension, the more successful your commitment to stop nail biting will be. The main purpose of hypnotherapy is to afford you a way to preserve a state of relaxation always.

You are encouraged to try several different hypnosis options, such as traditional hypnosis, Ericksonian hypnosis and Neuro-Linguistic Programming techniques, to add to both the state of relaxation and to realize an improved sense of well-being. A qualified hypnotherapist will know which method is ultimately best for you.

The following step to curbing a nail biting addiction is to become conscious of the habit since nail biting is performed unconsciously. Hypnotherapy is effective for this stage, as communing with the unconscious mind to trigger the conscious mind’s understanding that you will soon bite your nails can help significantly. This allows you to make the choice to bite your nails or not. And given that hypnotherapy has previously aided to improve the main stress, the dominant compulsion to bite your nails has been notably diminished, or even eliminated.

The conclusive action for using hypnotherapy to stop biting nails is to entirely remove the primary wish to chew or bite. There are methods that can actually program you with a compulsion to stop biting your nails; because just as practices can be broken due to hypnosis CD’s, they can be initiated.

Hypnotherapy CD’s are successful for restricting behaviors like biting your nails because, even though the session will not miraculously make complete self-control, it can support your motivation and make sure that options you decide during a hypnotic state will still remain when you are under stress. Further, hypnotherapy can help you commune with your unconscious mind to get it to support your conscious mind so both entities work toward your target.

It should be noted that some prospective hypnosis clients possess a fear of having ideas planted or of experiencing “hidden” memories during a trance. Rest assured that hypnotherapists are properly taught and accredited and abide by the strictest ethical and professional guidelines. The systems used by professionals to make beneficial suggestions to your unconscious are entirely different than the ones employed or used during memory recall or age regression. So the use of hypnotherapy for efficiently ending the impulse to bite your nails will not lead to unintended memories or behaviors.

CONCLUSION: Nail biting is drive like any other, and determination by itself is generally not enough to give up the behavior. Using hypnotherapy or hypnosis CDs and all other resources available will more likely lead to a successful, comfortable end to your nail biting.

Alan B. Densky, CH has spent years helping thousands of clients with nail biting hypnosis. His NLP website offers loads of Free support including Free self hypnosis videos, a hypnosis research index, and a NLP blog where you can ask questions.

- Alan B. Densky, CH