Nail that problem!

Do you hide your hands or prefer not to wear rings in order to keep your hands hidden or as discrete as possible? Do you worry that people might think of you as nervous if you bite your nails? Have you been biting them since childhood, wishing you could now kick the habit? Are you ashamed of your hands?

Do you wish your hands were well looked after? Do you relish the freedom having confidence in your hands and nails would bring?

Biting your nails may seem a trivial thing to some people, but to the nail biter it can be a life-long problem they wish to eradicate. Symptoms of nail biting may range from nibbling at the nails or chewing them down to the cuticle to biting or picking the skin around them.

This habit can erode the self-esteem in some clients, leaving them with a sense of lack of self-control and confidence. Such feelings then cause further stress and can even aggravate the habit.

   How do we learn this habit and what is the cause?

As everyone is individual, each habit will have its own history and its own root cause. Most nail-biters have been biting since childhood. Sometimes the child will have “modelled” a friend or family member, sometimes the nail biting served a “positive intention” for the child, such as relieving anxiety by oral comforting. Some habits, such as nail biting, have their roots in stress, anxiety or some other negative emotion.

   How can I stop biting my nails?

The habit is learnt unconsciously and is an automatic response to either an internal thought or emotion or an external experience, such as being stressed whilst sitting in a traffic jam.

All behaviour is unconscious. Using hypnotherapy, Angela will assist your unconscious mind in eliciting the positive intention of the habit, such as relieving stress or distracting you from worry. During this process the unconscious mind learns to change the behaviour of nail biting, as well as forming other, more positive and beneficial coping strategies for stress, leaving you free from the habit to develop a real pride in your nails.

As with all conditions worked with, underlying causes are addressed in order to provide the client with lasting behavioural change. A combination of psychotherapeutic, hypnotic and NLP techniques are used to give a comprehensive treated to nail biting and other habits