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3 Ideas To Help You Stop Your Nail Biting Habit

Changing or breaking a nail biting habit can be a challenging time for most people. To successfully change a habit means developing an effective support network. Include people who will be there for you when you need encouragement or assistance. This can be a friend, family as well as professional help from doctors, psychotherapists, social workers or hypnotherapists.

1. Positive Reinforcement Helps With Behavior Changes Changing a habit is difficult. But without the support of friends or positive influences it can be even more of a challenge.

Let your friends and the rest of your support network know about your plans. This reinforces your decision in a very public way and makes it easier to quit.

New activities or a change in environment can be most important during the first critical days and weeks of your stop nail biting plan.

Many people use negative deterrents as ways of changing their behavior. We all remember being yelled at as a child. Did the yelling always reinforce the behavior your parents wanted? But think of the times you received praise for what you did. You were ready to repeat that behavior.

As an adult, it's the same. Your plan can use positive reinforcement and people to support your plan to change your nail biting habit.

If friends or others bite their nails, then stay away from them. This can be difficult to manage with family members or close friends. Also avoid situations and times where you are tempted to bite your nails.

2. Reward Yourself For Success Behavior changes occur more easily when we reinforce them. This means if you reward yourself for sticking with your plan, your brain records this as positive reinforcement for the new behavior.

Each time you reinforce the new behavior, you over ride or minimize the old habit. By reinforcing the behavior change on a daily basis new behavior reaction patterns start to form in your brain. This makes it easier for you to stay on track with your new behavior of stopping your nail biting habit.

Reinforcement rewards don't have to be large or even elaborate. Some people use calendars to mark the successful days. If a day is too long, then take it hour by hour. It sound silly, but seeing check marks all lined up can be very reassuring.

For some people stars, stickers and seals don't mean a thing. Make your reward something special for you. For it to work the reward has to be something you value. It doesn't need to be elaborate or even valuable. Just reward yourself for your progress in stopping the nail biting habit.

3. Join a support network on or offline Having other people going through the same experience as you gives people who can support you on those difficult or stressful days. Check with Yahoo or AOL groups for a nail biting support group. Frequently message boards or forums on dieting will also have a conversation thread about stopping nail biting. Or just type "nail biting support group" or "nail biting forum" into your browser search window. You can use MSN, Google, Yahoo, AOL or any search engine browser can quickly connect you with people sharing the same experience.

Be gentle with yourself. Nail biting took time to learn. Now give yourself time and the effort to stop.