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If you have ever endeavored to stop your nail biting habit, you are aware of just how hard it can be. Perhaps you have worn bandages or gloves over your fingertips, or tried bitter nail polish. Likely they worked temporarily, but ultimately you found yourself with chewed-up nails and torn cuticles yet again.

The reason that a superficial nail biting cure is unlikely to get results makes sense when the reason behind the behavior is understood. The nail biting habit is inveterate and very similar in nature to other stress-related manners, such as skin picking and hair pulling. Fundamentally, these actions satisfy an inherent inclination; thus if the urge is not satiated or eliminated, the behavior will start again. No amount of bitter nail polish will curb the need for nail biting or give the sense of relaxation you have after chewing on your nails.

In that vein, a person cannot actually cure nail biting, but do not despair: Happily, time-tested treatments that can support recovery are available. There is a three-step treatment that can successfully stop nail biting if you are committed to do so. The primary step involves hypnosis.

For those unfamiliar, hypnosis brings to mind pictures of people watching swinging pendulums or barking on stage for others’ entertainment. Rest assured that at its base, hypnosis is simply profound relaxation in a trance-like state. Some people mistakenly believe that hypnotic trances are like sleep, but you are fully conscious and awake, simply very relaxed and amenable to suggestion.

In fact, most of people are subject to some manner of self-hypnosis every day, during times when we disregard many of the distractions around us to concentrate on an individual task while staying fully conscious. It happens naturally while we read, watch television or daydream.

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

You are encouraged to try many different hypnosis techniques, such as traditional hypnosis, Ericksonian hypnosis and Neuro-Linguistic Programming techniques, to boost both the state of relaxation and to realize a more complete sense of welfare. A qualified hypnotherapist can tell which method is ultimately best for you.

The following step to curbing a nail biting problem is to become sentient of the behavior since nail biting is executed unconsciously. Hypnotherapy is useful for this part of the plan, as connecting with the unconscious mind to trigger the conscious mind’s knowledge that you are going to bite your nails can help significantly. This allows you to make the decision to bite your nails or not. And because hypnotherapy has previously worked to relieve the causal stress, the significant impulse to bite your nails has been greatly reduced, or even removed.

The final action for using hypnotherapy to discontinue biting nails is to fully eliminate the underlying wish to bite or chew. There are practices that can literally program you with an urge to give up biting your nails, because just as practices can be effectively quelled thanks to hypnosis, they can be established.

Hypnotherapy is valuable for restricting behaviors like biting your nails because, though the treatment will not suddenly create complete self-control, it can reinforce your resolve and guarantee that choices you make during a relaxed state will still remain when you are agitated. Additionally, hypnotherapy can help you commune with your unconscious mind to get it to mirror your conscious mind so both units support your aspiration.

It is important to note that some potential hypnosis clients hold a fear of having suggestions planted or of recalling “hidden” memories during a trance. Rest assured that hypnotherapists are properly skilled and accredited and hold to the strictest professional and ethical procedures. The techniques used by professionals to make constructive suggestions to your unconscious are entirely distinct from the ones used for memory recall or age regression. So the use of hypnotherapy for effectively curbing the need to bite your nails will not result in unintended memories or behaviors.

CONCLUSION: Fingernail chewing is a drive like any other, and relying on determination by itself is typically not enough to give up the behavior. Using hypnotherapy or hypnosis CDs and all other resources available will more likely result in a successful, comfortable end to your nail biting.