Nail Biting Relapse: How To Break The Nail Biting Habit

If you want to know how to break the nail biting habit and avoid a nail biting relapse, you need to figure out the reasons you bite them and why you haven’t been able to stop. Many nail biters just bite and pick nails and blame it on stress or anxiety or just put it down to a habit they can’t quit. But is that really the case?

To avoid a nail biting relapse where you start biting your nails again, you need to really figure out the reasons you bite them in the first place rather than buying anti nail biting products that may not help. Don’t assume that stress or anxiety or another trigger is the real problem either.

I Wanted To Bite My Nails So Badly Today

Actually, I didn’t.

That’s the thing that I’ve found so bizarre about how I quit biting and picking my nails. I literally just quit at the age of 50 after biting and picking them since I was probably 8 years old. I certainly bit them from age 10 when my mum paid me $10 to quit – and she got a refund when I started biting them again.

After about 8 weeks of not biting my nails, I have 0 desire to bite or pick them at all. None.

So why the title I Wanted To Bite My Nails So Badly Today? This is the wording that I used to think I’d constantly say to myself if I ever did manage to quit. I assumed I’d have a really difficult time quitting for good. But it hasn’t worked out that way, thankfully.

Nail Biting And Laziness

If I’m being honest, my ultimate reason for biting and picking my nails was laziness. Laziness to quit. Laziness to not put forth a concerted effort to quit. Laziness to actually really think about my nail biting behavior.

After 8 weeks of not biting and picking my nails anymore, the fact that I have no desire to start again and don’t even think of it as an option any longer says that I didn’t need to do this in the recent past. I just did it. I just bit and picked my nails when I felt like it.

In the recent past I’d be working on this website End Nail Biting and would pick and bite my nails when I would take a short break to proofread what I had just written.

Now just 8 weeks later – and for the past 6 weeks at least – the thought of biting and picking my nails no longer exists. It’s just something I no longer consider. While I did have a few urges the first 2 weeks after quitting, they passed pretty quickly.

How did this happen?

End Nail Biting

The funny part for me was starting this website. When I started researching, typing and writing about nail biting it caused me to think more about my own habit. I discovered things that I probably should have already known but really didn’t. Namely:

• I generally picked and bit nails but mostly picked them.
• I mostly worked on my right hand and the nails were always shorter than my left hand nails.
• My nail picking and biting had become subconscious at times. Most of the time actually.
• I didn’t need to be bored, stressed, anxious or upset in order to do it. I just did bit and picked nails whenever.
• I realized I’d never really put forth much effort to quit nor had I really thought about why I did it in the first place.

What can you learn about your specific behavior that you might not have really considered?

Break The Nail Biting Habit

For me that’s really what it boiled down to. I just broke the habit. I basically just quit one day and although I picked at my nails a few times that same day and a few times over the next week, I pretty much quit after that completely. I don’t bite or pick nails at all anymore.

Clearly it isn’t this easy otherwise everyone would do it. Then again, had I put forth more effort in the recent past perhaps I could have quit sooner. Maybe years ago.

But researching and learning about nail biting in general and also what other nail biters experience did make me realize the cold truth of it all.

After you get past the bitter nail polish, the nail biting gloves, flicking yourself with a rubber band and all the other things we may do to quit nail biting, the truth is that you have to want to quit.

You have to want to quit nail biting and picking otherwise you’ll never quit.

Or you’ll quit and just start up again. For me, I basically just gave up nail biting and now I don’t even spend a second of any single day thinking about – even subconsciously – biting my nails anymore. It doesn’t dawn on me to do it anymore.

For a guy who spent 40+ years consistently biting my nails, my new job is learning how to use nail clippers for the first time ever.