Nail biting is a difficult habit for many of us to break the longer we do it. Unlike other habits which cost money (smoking) or that leave you with short term side effects (excessive drinking), nail biting is relatively tame by comparison or so we think. We believe that the up front cost of nail biting is zero and the side effects we see are just short nails and saving time on manicures and nail cutting.
Hypnosis is a tactic that has been used to help people with many habits including smoking, excessive drinking, overeating and nail biting. Many people have claimed online that hypnosis has helped kick their worst, lifelong habit. Research and anecdotal evidence appears to show that while not everyone is highly hypnotizable, hypnotherapy may have a high rate of success to aid with breaking various habits like nail biting.
Do You Believe?
The old story with hypnosis is that you have to believe in it for it to work. And there is another rumor that only certain people can be hypnotized and again, it has do with whether or not you believe. That’s the rumor anyways.
And we’ve probably all seen the act where the hypnotist in the movies waves a small watch in front of the patient’s face and tells them “you’re getting sleepy…” Unfortunately there is so much misinformation about exactly what hypnosis is, it’s no wonder people are skeptical.
Who Can Be Hypnotized
Research from Stanford University from 2012 showed that highly hypnotizable individuals showed better results than low hypnotizable patients. One of the authors of the report also suggested that in his experience, up to 25% of his patients cannot be hypnotized. Other research has shown that 10%-15% of people are highly hypnotizable and 20% are completely resistant to it with the remainder of people somewhere in between. Interestingly, children are regarded to be highly hypnotizable.
Hypnosis Belief
So do you need to believe it hypnosis for it to work? According to a hypnotist who treated Glamour magazine writer Lynn Harris for nail biting:
“You don’t need to ‘believe’ in hypnosis for it to work,” says New York City psychotherapist Ana Tucker (the hypnogoddess I went to). “You just have to be willing to go through the process.”
NBC News
Hypnosis Success Rate
I’ve come across several claims from hypnotists claiming success rates of 90% and up with multiple sessions, typically 2 – 6 in length, to help nail biters quit the habit. Some more general hypnosis studies suggest success rates of around 93%. At the end of the day though, nail biting is an easy habit to restart and then have to quit again. It takes willpower to quit and stay that way.
As mentioned above, quitting nail biting in conjunction with hypnotherapy is a willingness to go through the process but breaking the habit completely requires willpower and effort.
Nail Biting Side Effects
It appears at first glance that the worst side effects for nail biting really aren’t that bad. Plus nail biting is so easy to start with, it literally just takes a second and suddenly we’re biting and picking nails with reckless abandon. Sometimes we don’t even know we’re doing it and it effectively becomes an automatic part of our everyday life.
But side effects for nail biting include increased chances of infection to both the mouth and fingers as well as longer term, potentially serious damage to teeth. And if you have orthodontic braces, your potential for tooth and root damage goes up as does the chance your orthodontic treatment is impaired because of nail biting.
Motivation To Change
As with any habit you want to break, you need motivation to quit and make the change you wish to achieve. This is especially true with nail biting which as we spoke about above doesn’t involve a monetary cost up front so the incentive to break this habit might appear very low to the average nail biter. Once we’ve been biting our nails for a period of time, we get used to the bitten nails and the occasional pain and bleeding when we bite a little too much and learn to live with it.
Simplicity Works
Sometimes the answer is sitting right in front of us but you can’t see the forest for the trees, to mix two popular expressions. We’ve already spoken about nail biting triggers and first identifying them and then trying to avoid them. Please review that page or check it out for the first time where I discuss my own triggers that I took forever to identify.
Opposites Attract
But what about identifying the opposite: If you can identify the triggers that cause you to bite your nails, you can also identify the times where you don’t bite your nails. And try to increase those times.
Some people can’t bite their nails because of their job if it involves wearing gloves or because the nature of the job doesn’t permit them to do so. Many nail biters don’t bite their nails when they’re preoccupied or are otherwise busy and simply don’t think about biting nails. So if we can increase the chance of doing the opposite of what allows us to bite our nails, we give ourselves less opportunity to bite them.
Avoidance
So if you tend to bite your nails when you’re bored, anxious, stressed, hungry, upset or frustrated, figure out what you can do to decrease or avoid those situations and do the opposite when possible. Certainly you don’t want to eat food every single time you’re bored or hungry and are about to bite your nails. But you could drink water instead or otherwise occupy yourself with a tea or something with low or no calories. Reward yourself for avoiding biting your nails.
Conclusion
- Can hypnotherapy help to stop nail biting, or other habits like overeating, excessive drinking or smoking? Some might agree that it’s worth a shot especially if you are willing to give it a chance.
- Hypnosis success is more a case of you having the motivation to change rather than your belief in whether or not hypnosis works.
- Not everyone is hypnotizable. Around 10%-15% of the population is considered highly hypnotizable although some studies suggest it could be as high as 20%.
- Research appears to suggest success with hypnosis in general with multiple treatments for various habit breaking including nail biting is possible.
Below is a short video where a 28-year old hypnosis skeptic who also happens to be a lifelong nail biter shares his experience with 2 hypnotherapy sessions to try to stop biting his nails. It’s interesting because he asks good questions about what an “ideal” hypnotherapy patient looks like before the first session and also explains his skepticism and short term results.
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