To begin with, the phenomenon itself is considered a disease, and medicine decided to call it a rather unpleasant word - onychophagia. It is generally accepted that people who bite their nails have some mental and psychological problems, increased anxiety and are unbalanced themselves. But in order to get rid of the habit of biting nails, first you need to determine the reason why the person bites them.
According to scientists, there are many factors that provoke such a bad habit. And always this process begins precisely with the manifestation of any kind of emotions or with an attempt to hide them. So, the most common reasons are:
Reasons why a person bites his nails
1. When a person is tensely thinking about something. At this moment, the reflex unconsciously turns on. It is known that many people, for example, when thinking or talking on the phone, draw different figures on a piece of paper. But such a person, expressing emotions in his own way, begins to bite his nails. Moreover, it often becomes a habit, and he stops even when there is real pain. That is, he himself does not even notice what he is doing.
2. There is also a theory that if a person has something to present to himself. That is, the so-called aggression directed against oneself. Situations when a person is busy with self-flagellation and self-accusation.
3. Another reason is obsessive-compulsive syndrome. When people try to suppress the obsessions and anxieties that arise in this way. Surely you have met people who wind their hair around their fingers, constantly adjust their collars, bite their nails and many other actions (at the discretion of a particular person).
4. There is also an opinion that the habit of biting nails is inherited. I mean, if the parents gnawed their nails, then the children will also be "rodents". But you shouldn't relax and say that nothing can be done - it's hereditary.
5. Some people think that if the nail plate is fragile and the nails often break, then you can just gnaw the nail - and that's it! And if the first time did not work out, then you can "finish" to perfection. And there is absolutely no reason to use a manicure set.
How do you stop biting your nails?
For example, you can smear your fingers with some kind of pepper, or you can apply corporal punishment to someone who chewed his nails; over time, another way was found - to decorate the nails so that it was a pity to spoil the beauty. But, in general, the way to get rid of such weakness depends on the person himself. You can even stumble upon the advice of mothers on the forums, which say that in order for a child to stop biting nails, it is enough just to find photos with nail diseases on the Internet. Next, show all this to the child and explain that this will also happen to him. They say that the habit of biting nails goes away.
Her very effective way to get rid of the habit is to grow nails, and then all interest in this activity will disappear. For two reasons: I feel sorry for the beauty, and there is no pleasure in biting into acrylic. You can also scratch the soap with your nails (it doesn't matter which one) - in any case, you won't want to eat the soap from your nails, that's for sure. There are also special bitter nail polishes.
If the nails bite only because of fragility, then you need to strengthen the nail plate: drink drugs that contain calcium, do salt baths. By the way, the last method has an additional plus - the nails will be salty all the time, which means they will not taste good.
When the process of nail biting itself is nothing more than a soothing ritual, then all of the above methods are absolutely useless. Here you have to dig much deeper. See a neurologist for a consultation. Let him decide what to do with you. It is quite possible that he will prescribe you a course of sedatives. Plus, experts advise using the so-called behavioral therapy. When a constant collision with an object or a cause of stress is required in order to learn how to properly respond to it.
Well, in general, adults and mature people should also think about how disgusting this process looks from the outside, what disgust it causes in others (both the process and automatically the person himself). For people who respect themselves, this should be a sobering fact.
