If you have ever tried to curb your nail biting habit, you are aware of just how tough it can be. Perhaps you have worn bandages or gloves over your fingers, or tried bitter-flavored nail polish. Likely they were successful for a little while, but ultimately you found yourself with ragged nails and torn cuticles again. The reason that a surface nail biting cure is unlikely to get results makes sense when the cause of the behavior is investigated. The nail biting habit is inveterate and comparable in nature to other stress-related patterns, like skin picking and hair pulling.

At the core, these actions satisfy an intrinsic impulse; thus if the urge is not eliminated or satiated, the behavior will resume. No amount of bitter nail polish will curb the need for nail biting or give the sense of relaxation you get after gnawing on your nails. In that vein, someone cannot ever cure nail biting, but do not despair: Fortunately, time-tested therapies that can help recovery are available. There is a three-step treatment that can successfully stop nail biting if you are motivated to do so. The essential step involves hypnosis. For the uninitiated, 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 deep relaxation in a trance-like state. Many mistakenly think that hypnotic trances are like sleep, but you are awake and fully conscious, simply extremely relaxed and receptive to suggestion. In fact, many of people are subject to some manner of self-hypnosis daily, during periods when we disregard most of the disruptions around us to center on a certain task while remaining fully conscious. It transpires effortlessly while we daydream, read or watch television.

Because nail biting is stress related, the more successfully you can work through and release anxiety and tension, the more successful your move to stop nail biting will be. The most important purpose of hypnotherapy is to show you how to sustain a state of relaxation at all times. You are encouraged to look into numerous hypnosis options, such as traditional hypnosis, Ericksonian hypnosis and Neuro-Linguistic Programming techniques, to enhance both the state of relaxation and to get an improved sense of comfort. A competent hypnotherapist will know which method is ultimately best. The subsequent step to curbing a nail biting tendency is to become aware of the action since nail biting is performed unconsciously. Hypnotherapy is useful for this part of the plan, as connecting with the unconscious mind to elicit the conscious mind's understanding that you will soon bite your nails can help significantly.

This allows you to make the assessment to bite your nails or not. And because hypnotherapy has previously assisted to ease the related stress, the strong craving to bite your nails has been significantly reduced, or even eliminated. The last step for using hypnotherapy to discontinue biting nails is to fully get rid of the principal craving to chew or bite. There are techniques that can effectively program you with a compulsion to give up biting your nails, because just as habits can be effectively curbed because of hypnotherapy CD's, they can also be established. Hypnosis is helpful with ending behaviors like biting your nails because, even though the hypnosis will not suddenly generate absolute willpower, it can bolster your steadfastness and make sure that choices you decide during a relaxed state will still remain when you are under stress. Additionally, hypnotherapy is able to help you connect with your unconscious mind to get it to support your conscious mind so both entities support your goal.

It should be noted that some likely hypnosis clients possess a fear of having suggestions planted or of remembering "hidden" memories while in a trance. Rest assured that hypnotherapists are properly skilled and accredited and hold to the strictest professional and ethical guidelines. The processes used by hypnotherapists to make helpful suggestions to your unconscious are entirely separate from the ones used for memory recall or age regression. So the use of hypnotherapy for successfully ending the impulse to bite your nails will not lead to unintended memories or behaviors.

CONCLUSION: Nail biting is a drive like any other, and using willpower by itself is usually not enough to give up the behavior. Using hypnotherapy or hypnosis CDs and all other resources available will more likely lead to a comfortable, successful end to your nail biting.

Alan B. Densky, CH has spent years helping thousands of clients to stop nail biting. His NLP website offers loads of Free support including Free self hypnosis videos, a hypnosis research index, and a NLP blog where you can ask questions.