Quitting Nail Biting Update

An interesting thing has happened since I first started this website. About 10 days into it, I stopped biting my nails. While I did actually notice myself early on in the process stopping to proofread my work as I put a post together and would notice myself picking my nails while reading, I quickly became aware of this activity and made it a point to stop.

Other than that, it’s hard for me to put my finger on why I’ve been able to suddenly – at least for now – put a stop to a nail biting and nail picking habit that I’ve been doing for probably 45 years. I’m 50 years old and as long as I can remember I’ve been a frequent nail biter but more frequent nail picker. It’s a gross habit but it is a habit and a hard one to break as many of us know.

Quitting any habit is one thing. Remaining a quitter is another. I’ve been biting my mails so frequently and for such a long period of time that it’s automatic to the point where I sometimes don’t even notice. Just like when I started picking my nails while proofreading something I’d written on this site.

Imagine. Setting up a website to stop nail biting and realizing that I actually bite and pick my nails while working on the website. But that’s what I noticed myself doing. Fortunately it seems I was able to use this behavior to help myself stop biting and picking my nails. I’m about 2 weeks into not biting my nails at this point which I haven’t been able to say in years. Decades actually. So it is an achievement for me since going this long without biting nails is not something I’m used to.

What have I noticed so far?

It’s a funny thing for me to run my fingertip along my fingernails and feel a long nail with a smooth feel to it. Normally, my bitten and picked nails feel rough with edges and are very short. Not now. It’s a different sensation and I’m getting used to having nails that have the white parts at the bottom of them now that the nails are growing. I’m not at the point of having to trim my nails but I’m getting close.

While I have had a few occasions where I started to pick a nail, I immediately caught myself and stopped. A few times I put a finger to my mouth to bite my nails and again stopped myself. I currently don’t feel the need or desire to bite or pick my nails which I find odd since I have been doing this for so long.

The only other thing I’ve noticed is that I have a split down the center of my right pinky fingernail (see pic at the top of the post). This is probably the longest the nail has been in decades but I’m not sure why it split. I have caught myself picking at the nail in the past week so it’s possible that with the extra length, I cracked it when picking away. I do need to stop this practice so I don’t start the nail biting again in earnest.

Learning points

While I’m not going to suggest every nail biter set up their own website to help quit nail biting, there are a few things I have noticed that I think have helped me to start quitting nail biting (I’m not yet ready to say I’ve quit 100%).

Journaling

I think the fact that I’ve been writing about nail biting has helped me gain a better understand of what I’m doing, that I don’t want to keep doing it and wish to stop. By writing about it on this website, I’m reminding myself about the behavior and have a better appreciation of the fact that I keep doing it, when and why.

What can you do? Every time you bite your nails make a note of it and write down why and where you were at the time. Details matter I’m finding. I had already identified that I tend to bite and pick my nails when I’m bored. But I also noticed that I pick my nails when taking a break from typing on my laptop so I became more aware of nail biting every time I do this and have so far, managed to stop.

Feeling of Success

Another thing I’ve noticed is that every day that goes by when I don’t pick my nails, I feel like it’s a victory. Especially for someone who has been biting my nails for as long as I have. Nail biting is such an easy habit to pick up I know that I have to keep on it and remind myself not to do it anymore.

Having said that, I’m surprised at how quickly I was able to stop nail biting. I basically went from biting and picking every day to not biting or picking at all. All within about 10 days after starting this website.

What can you do? Think about how badly you want to quit biting your nails and what your motivation is. Maybe it’s just to have longer nails. Maybe it’s to get manicures. Perhaps it’s to wear nail polish. Maybe it’s just to stop biting them because you don’t want to do it anymore. The pain of very short bitten nails can be a motivator, too.

For me, I found that the main reasons for me to quit weren’t really as big a reason as what I thought it would be because they didn’t need to be: Rather than quitting for any specific reason, for me it just the fact I could stop doing it is what compelled me to do so. Not for any other real reason. I do feel that writing the pages on this website has helped me identify that quitting wasn’t as hard I perhaps I thought.

I’ll keep updating this nail quitting project of mine as I am hoping the quitting part has become permanent. And I’ll keep posting on nail biting topics to help you quit also.