Nail Biting Is Nasty, Eliminate The Urge With Hypnotherapy

With the majority of physical habits, the underlying causes might be quite varied, and at different psychological levels. While hypnosis has a wide range of applications, the problems that are most directly related to physical habits are usually the ones that can be treated with hypnosis most directly and immediately. Smoking cessation hypnosis is the most well known of these, and is one of the more effective and less invasive techniques for achieving its goal. Another popular area for hypnosis treatment is for weight loss. Similarly, hypnosis is also the best technique for ending a nail biting habit.

Nail biting shares many similarities to smoking. Both are physical, ritualistic habits. Either can be caused by the mechanics of a simple physical routine, or might perhaps be symptomatic of deeper psychological root causes. In either case the habit itself can be very effectively halted with hypnosis.

Discovering and treating underlying psychological issues, which manifest themselves in nail biting and smoking can be a process that necessitates numerous sessions with a skilled hypnotherapist. Not all hypnotists and hypnotherapists are capable of performing at the deep psychological level. Thankfully, for the purposes of ending a nail biting or a smoking habit, they are not required to work below the most direct physical level.

The more immediate goal of curing nail biting is much more straightforward. Many of our deeper emotional and psychological states are influenced by our physical state, so in treating physical symptoms directly, we can also indirectly impact deeper issues. Also, not all negative physical behaviors have an underlying cause; sometimes it is truly just a physical habit; and it just "feels" good for the person to take part in them.

I have seen that the relaxed and focused state of hypnosis can have nearly miraculous results when it comes to causing simple changes to one's physical state. Whenever I relieve severe burn pain, remove nausea, and solve other physical issues for a client in just seconds, it still amazes and surprises me, even though I'm supposedly the one with the "power" (although as we know, the true power lies within the client's unconscious mind). The capabilities exist in each of our minds to block severe nausea and pain; so the ability to prevent one from nail biting is a simple goal in comparison.

I've found three of the powerful aspects of hypnosis to be anchoring, substitution and association. With association, one can link a behavior to something truly unpleasant; with substitution, one can replace the bad habit with a harmless one; with anchoring, one can connect physical movement triggers with alternative feelings and behaviors.

With association, just like the simple hypnotic phenomenon can make a slice of white bread taste like the most delectable New York Cheesecake to a subject, one can make the taste and feeling of nail biting to be very distasteful. If your subject is repeatedly conditioned that the taste and feel of nail biting is extremely unpleasant, it will help the habit to disappear.

There are chemical products that achieve this goal via unpleasant tasting nail polish. However, with a mental association they can stop nail biting without relying upon using a chemical product. This "aversion" type of therapy isn't generally extremely helpful. But it is only reliable when used as an adjunct to eliminating stress that causes one to bite their nails, as well as extinguishing conditioned responses (unconscious associations), which triggers one to bite their nails.

Substitution can be used to effectively replace the nail biting habit with a more benign habit. For instance, it is quite effective to make the suggestion that whenever one feels the urges that lead them towards nail biting, they will instead take a deep breath, and slowly exhale, experiencing all the satisfaction and resolution that nail biting used to bring. I have found the deep breathing substitute to be effective and relaxing for a wide range of ailments.

Anchoring similarly can be used to subvert one action into another, and works well with association and substitution. It is useful to create the suggestion that every time subjects see their fingers coming to their mouth, they strongly remember the bad taste association, and they instead take a deep breath to resolve the tension.

In summary, hypnosis has long been recognized as one of the more effective techniques for negative habit modification. Just as with smoking cessation, the techniques and concepts outlined here prove to be extremely successful as a long-term nail-biting solution.

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Alan B. Densky, CH has been assisting clients with stress related issues since 1978. He's developed an inclusive 7-session hypnotherapy stop nail biting CD based on Ericksonian Hypnosis and NLP. Visit his hypnotherapy site for free hypnosis videos, articles, and advice. www.neuro-vision.us/

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