r/UnfuckYourHabitat • u/Ok_Lavishness_7681 • 11h ago
Advice Support
I have a very bad habit of biting my nails in anxiety or stress situations I really want to badlyy remove this habit and have normal nails After biting my nails become so small .. i bite till i feel any painnnš I tried my best to stop biting but ended up biting again and again
5
u/goingloopy 11h ago
I mostly stopped when I started getting fake nails. (You can absolutely bite themā¦the consequences arenāt as dire, but I have cracked a couple and dented others.) Eventually, I lost the urge. I noticed that I didnāt do it as much when I was anxious as when I was bored.
If youāre not into fake nails, find something else to do with your hands when you have the urge to bite them. Doodle, get a fidget toy, twirl your pen, put your hands in your pockets. Itās a hard habit to break.
2
u/Ok_Lavishness_7681 11h ago
Thank you so much!! I will try the fake nails one! I liked the idea recommended!! Will surely tell you the growth! .. it is a hard habit to break!
2
u/goingloopy 11h ago
Dip nails are very satisfyingā¦after I had tips for the first set, now itās just my actual nails with the powder. I keep mine short because I canāt type if theyāre too long, but I did tips so my nails would grow in a better shape. They naturally grow outward instead of up and tend to break.
They also have some kind of new gel nail stuff, which I will probably try soon.
Try to get a recommendation from someone for a nail salon and donāt just randomly pick one. Itās preferable to find somewhere that makes appointments and doesnāt just do walk-ins. Also, find one close to your house. If itās a pain in the ass to go there, you wonāt keep up with it.
1
u/Ok_Lavishness_7681 8h ago
Suree! Noted!!! šš» i will try the near by nail salon and get a professional recommendations for this !! Thankk you once again!!
1
u/Icy-Somewhere8630 2h ago
I came here to say this, I would do short tips with maybe a dip powder, you can do dip without the tips on but it can be murder on your natural nails over time. You could also do tips with gel polish. Just overall I would recommend tips while you let your natural nails heal. And they are thick so much harder to bite off and rip off.
3
u/lisa_rae_makes 10h ago
Painting my nails weekly has been working, finally. I've struggled on and off since I was a kid, with some large spans of time without biting/chipping/flaking them apart.
But for months I have chosen Saturday as repaint day. Even if my polish is still good enough, after a week, I remove and repaint. I can't be trusted when it starts chipping, I scrape and pick it off and then end up biting/peeling my nails. I also kept them trimmed short, with just a bit of white/edge because if it was too much, my thin nails would catch on anything and break. Now after letting them grow, trim, grow, trim, etc, my whole nail is mostly healthy with all the layers.
I feel like this process also helps my nail bed/natural nail get a bit longer/bigger. I remember having tiny nails in middle school at their worst and was made fun of for it until my uncle's cool girlfriend introduced me to nail polish. Like..good polish, not cheap kid stuff. I still think of her when I do my hair and nails. She was always so nice and complimentary and made me feel like there was nothing wrong with short nails, because there isn't! Just have to focus and get them healthy. :) You got this!
1
3
u/LadyMoonstone 9h ago
I used to do shellac manicures to help limit the nail biting because it was harder for me to chew through that and I would try harder to not mess up my nails. Nowadays, I do acrylic nails and I get them filled in every two weeks. Itās expensive and time consuming sometimes, but I absolutely cannot chew through them and they look so nice and they give me a lot of confidence. When I donāt have the acrylics, I will rip and tear and bite at my nails until thereās like nothing left and then Iāll start like going at the skin on my fingers.
1
2
u/LoomingDisaster 10h ago
I went and got very short Gel-X extensions and then switched to structured manicures and still get those. If Iām spending $60 every three to four weeks, Iām not chewing them!
1
u/Ok_Lavishness_7681 8h ago
Sometimes finance helps breaking habits!ššÆ will surelyy try this wayy!! I hope it helps
2
u/Tornado_Of_Benjamins 9h ago
Simply stop biting them.
Now, I know your inevitable response: "but I can't!"
Why not?
The answer to that question is the real problem you need to be solving. Not "I bite my nails", but something more along the lines of "I don't have any healthy coping mechanisms for acute stress/anxiety" or maybe "This maladaptive behavior is triggered without me noticing, which makes it difficult to interrupt."
1
u/Ok_Lavishness_7681 8h ago
Yeahh have to find the solution for the core problem.. i tried meditating and relieving my stress too! But sometimes i bite them off when i am bored too!
2
1
u/Pineapple_Zest 1h ago
Youāve gotten lots of good tips already. I used to be a horrible nail biter my whole life, so much pain and embarrassment of how gnawed my fingers always were, frustration I couldnāt easily open soda tabs or peel things, so many times of bleeding or biting too low and then that nerve searing throbbing that follows, and so on.Ā
The nail polish thing and nasty tastes never worked for me unfortunately. What helped me a lot was using lotion and hand cream a lot - it turns out when my fingers and nails were dry and felt uncomfortable, I was more likely to bite them. Keeping them moisturized helped them feel better, gave me something tactile to fidget with (rubbing the lotion into my hands over and over), and tasted slimy and weird. Once my nails started growing out, I had to keep them filed so no sharp edges and short bc I wasnāt used to the feeling of them long. I still fidget with my hands and mouth a bunch when Iām anxious, but itās not biting or tearing or picking at my nails.Ā
Oh another motivator was being sick of getting sick so frequently so I started washing my hands a lot more (or using hand sanitizer) and trying to pay attention to when I was putting my fingers in my mouth.
Hope this helps! It feels frustrating and impossible, but you absolutely can do it! Iāve back slid a few times or found myself fixating on one finger/nail, and thatās when I bust out the bandaids. Having a bandaid or medical tape wrapped gently around the offending or irritating finger helped soothe the urge to bite. Good luck stranger!
1
1
u/ImmortalBaguette 54m ago
You can check out the sub r/calmhands, it's all about strategies to stop biting and picking fingers and nails! Small warning though, there are a lot of pictures of the damage people have done to their hands, so if thats not something you want to see then maybe skip it. Good luck though, you're not alone!
8
u/No-Scar-905 11h ago
I was a nail biter and under stress still am.
I started painting my nails and that helped me stop. First reason was I didn't want to eat polish flakes. And second I started liking the look of painted nails.
I've e slowly healed my nail beds so they are longer. I use a nail nourishing lotion to make them stronger.
Now when I'm under stress I just chew my thumb nail. It is kind of the sacrifice nail.