We all have our bad habits, but one of the most common is biting your nails. Studies show that nail biting is a habit that 20-30% of the population and 45% of young adults deal with. Whether it be because we’re nervous, frustrated, bored, or we may not even realize we’re doing it, nail biting is a habit that many of us tend to drift to, especially with the stress of college life. I myself have dealt with biting and picking at my nails ever since I was a kid, and I was able to stop for a while before starting again the summer before my first year in college. Here are some methods I use and some I have heard work for others to quit this nervous habit.
Keep your nails painted or get acrylics. You may be less likely to bite or pick your nails if they look nice, so keeping them painted is one way to slow you down. I know nail polish tends to chip off easily, so if getting acrylics is one way to make sure they last longer. Plus, it’s much harder to bite or pick acrylic nails, so keeping those on helps give your real nails time to grow and strengthen.
Put on bad-tasting clear polish. There are a variety of nail polishes designed to taste bad so that it prevents the urge to bite. Magique No-Bite and Mavala Stop are two popular products with an acidic taste that have succeeded in getting nail biters to stop. While I have not personally tried these nail polishes, I do know several people who have and claim this helped them permanently quit their habit.
Wear rings or something on your wrist. Often, we gravitate towards biting or picking our nails because our hands feel like they need something to do, so having something to fiddle with will help keep you occupied. I try to wear rings or a bracelet or hair tie on my wrist as often as I can so that I can twist them whenever I get the temptation to pick at my nails.
Wear lipstick. If you’re wearing lipstick or gloss, you’re more conscious of how often you touch your mouth, so this would make you aware of when you start to bite your nails. While you may not want to add lipstick to your everyday look, wearing some every once in a while could help you limit the amount of times you bite your nails and then make you less likely to bite on the days you don’t wear lipstick.
Keep a portable nail kit on hand. Noticing a hangnail or an uneven nail could tempt you to bite or pick at them and end up making it worse, so keep a small nail kit in your purse you can take out if you see a flaw. Even just carrying some clippers can help you easily fix your nails rather than turning a simple hangnail into something much worse.
It’s hard to break anxious habits, but developing our own little coping mechanisms can help make it easier to wane off of them, especially something as common as nail biting. If these tips don’t work, try researching more methods of quitting!