Yes, sheer willpower will get you to quit for a period… maybe long, maybe short. But, sooner or later if you aren’t taking good care of your nails, if you aren’t taking pride in the fact they have grown, if you aren’t grooming them and your cuticles, then you are going to relapse. It might be months or years before you get your nails to grow back again.

If you have grown your nails only to lose the battle against keeping them out of your mouth and looking good, then you know what I’m say is 100% accurate. It’s an ongoing battle. One you cannot win on your own without doing more than overcoming the tremendous urge to bite your nails. Here are a couple of tools, not that you don’t need even more, that will help you in your battle.

Two items you must have in your pocket or purse are a file and a cuticle nipper. Women can use all manner of files that neatly fit in their purse. Both sexes can use the Tweezerman Stainless Steel Cuticle Nipper and Cuticle Pusher. It’s not too bulky and will save you time again from going to town on a nagging cuticle.

 If you think this is too much bother, or you might be embarrassed to have it in your purse or pocket, then you are not committed to quitting your nail biting habit. Basically, you are stuck with your habit and it is not worth the time, effort and expense to order this tool.

Another “must-have” tool is a decent file. Females can have their choice of whatever they like that conveniently fits in their purse. Men, on the other hand, need something compact. Once again, I will recommend a tool from the reliable and serviceable Tweezerman family of nail care products.

The Tweezerman His Pocket Ceramic Nail File/ Cleaner is a gem. I recommend it over the files you that come on the

typical nail clipper. Those are very rough and hard to get a smooth edge, especially on nails that are soft from years of being bitten. This nail file is a little too thick for my taste. So, it takes some used to figuring out how to get the proper angle on the nail, but it’s compact and does a great job for you.

Get these two tools and you are off to a good start towards helping yourself learn how to stop nail biting permanently. To see an even broader range of products designed to help you check out these helpful  nail care tools and these useful nail care products.

I found a useful informative inspiring article on the Internet today. It is titled, Stop Biting Your Nails. It offers those who suffer from nail biting some help, so I wanted to pass it along to readers here. I don’t need to tell you if you are afflicted with the curse to bite your nails, then you can use help to learn how to stop biting your nails from where ever it comes. Nailbiting is a curse of sorts, but you don’t have to live with it forever. Learn how to get the help that will work for you and then follow it.

Here is a simple truth about growing out your bitten nails and gnawed cuticles. Even if you manage to stop biting your nails for a period of time, you are vulnerable to relapsing for many reasons. One of the primary reasons is you haven’t taken the necessary steps to learn how to take of your nails. Or, you haven’t taken the necesssary steps to make taking care of your nails.

What I mean is if you aren’t taking time to proper groom your nails and cuticles with lotions, files, polish, hardeners, et cetera, it’s only a matter of time before you succumb to your old habit and all your hard work will be for ought. If you think about the inordinate amount of time and energy you put into biting your nails and the tremendous effort you went through in the process of learning how to stop nail biting, it’s just a shame you didn’t follow. Lack of follow through and real dedication to quitting are what puts people right back on the habit chewing their nails and pulling their cuticles until they are once again embarrassed for anyone to see them.

Don’t let this happen to you. If you have read my book, you know I give you plenty of suggestions for stopping nail biting and for proper nail care and maintenance afterwards. No one can help you, but yourself. The thing is, you are all you need to quit nail biting. So get started and keep after it. You are not going to reverse a lifelong habit in a few days. It may take repeated tries. But, you can do it. Good luck!

While there is some good advice in this short video aimed at helping those who want to learn how to stop nail biting, the suggestions are minimal when it comes to getting a grip on erasing the nail biting habit for good.

Advice stops short of offering long term help to curb fingernail biting permanently

The fact still remains if you want to quit nail biting once and for all, you have to have a stronger desire to quit than you do to keep chewing on your nails and pulling on your cuticles. Without it, nothing you do will help you succeed. This includes all those so-called cures that can happen in minutes,  (yeah right), and polishes, hypnosis or other aversion therapy. Those things can have an effect, but without the strong desire, they will not overpower the deep desire to bite one’s nails.

Besides offering the instant help to deter the habit in the moment, none of the cures, methods or whatever you want to call them will work. Ain’t gonna happen! In addition to desire, you need a system to help you quit and many of the products on the market today will help with that. But, none of them help you with nail maintenance after the fact and with techniques you learn to help you when temptation arises weeks and months later.

The cause for nail biters to relapse is they have nothing to help them later on when their nails have grown

My book, How to Stop Nail Biting, gives you the full treatment. It helps you understand where you are weak and what triggers your biting urges to begin. It gives you techniques to use anywhere anytime to help you quit your nailbiting habit for good. It outlines what the tools you absolutely must own to help keep your nails and cuticles healthy and it gives you plain solid advice  on how to use them. Use the link on this page to order it from Amazon.com for about the cost of a nice lunch.

I’m betting anyone who ever bit their nails has tried to quit and failed. It’s that strong a bad habit. Having a relapse is a shame, but it’s not the end of the world, or even the end of your quest to stop nail biting. It is just a simple reminder of how hard it is to break free once and for all.

What do you do now that you have chewed your nails and cuticles back to an embarrassing state? Try to realize what triggered the initial reaction that got you started again. Burn that incident in your head and make a written vow to not let a similar situation affect you again. Get your file out and groom your nails. Taking care of your nails is part of the process to restoring your self-esteem and pride. Get back into the practices that got you on the road to recovery. If you have read a book like mine, How to Stop Nail Biting. Use whatever helped you get motivated and stay firm in the first place.

Keep in mind that it is the rare person, if one such exists, that only needed to quit one time before breaking free forever.  This is a process; a journey that will have twists and turns and perhaps some relapses. Get back to visualizing your newly grown nails and get to work on getting over the setback to start over again.

When it comes to nail biting, there are no “quick fixes” or easy short term solutions to help you learn how to quit your deeply ingrained fingernail biting habit. It’s easy enough to fall prey to those kinds of claims because for most nail biters they have suffered through repeated periods where they quit for a while then started again.

That repeated failure is the case should be enough to tell you there aren’t any easy ways to change one of the hardest of all habits to break. Just by the fact your fingers, hands, nail and cuticles remain always within sight, touch and feel adds a very difficult degree to quitting your nail biting habit. The bottom line is simple. You have to want to quit more than you want to chew your nails. If any part of you is not ready to make this kind of committment, you are setting up to fail.

Besides just summoning the will power and determination to quit, you need an effective reliable plan that takes you well beyond the first stage of reversing your lifelong nail biting habits. Think about it. Weeks after you have quit and have long stopped using the nasty tasting polish, or have had the effects of some other kinds of avoidance therapy wear off, you are still vulnerable to returning to your nail biting habits. It is then you need the deep self-administered training to fall back upon. You can’t wait to get home to polish your nails, or excuse yourself to go leave so you can quiet your nerves and steel your resolve.

You have to have a program that works to avert your nail biting or cuticle pulling habits available to you at all times. In other words, it has to be avoidance techniques that can be done under any circumstances in any situation. That way you have a great chance of keeping your newly grown nails intact. On the other hand, if you don’t have such a strong system to fall back upon, you are likely to cave in and start your habit all over again.

You know once you get started with the habit even a little bit, the odds you are going to become dismayed and give in to do more damage run high. That is why most nail biters who fail to keep up their new non-nail biting habits fails. One thing leads to another and once good looking nails look bitten to the shame of the nail biter.

You may be able to come up with your own solution for how to handle learning how to stop nail biting for good. If you do, that’s great. If you want to try what I found to work for me and others, then get my book, How to Stop Nail Biting.  For the cost of one nice lunch, it will give you the outlook, tools, techniques and confidence to quit nail biting for good. It’s easy to read and understand. You can finish it in one evening and get started on your learning new ways to effectively fight back one of the most difficult of all habits to break.

Basic How to Manicure – a necessary step to stop nail bitingIn my book, How to Stop Nail Biting, I devote lots of time to helping readers understand they need to learn how to do basic grooming. Learning to do your own basic manicure is essential if you want to be able to maintain your ability to quit nail biting for good. There is no greater temptation than a rough nail or a ragged cuticle. Those things send constant messages to you brain, which has been well trained and pre-programmed to jump on the stimulus. They are begging you do to revert to your old habit and help get rid of the nagging aggravation they cause.

To be successful in quitting your fingernail biting habit, you need to commit to regularly maintaining your nails. Let’s face it. You spend hours of time working on biting them while telling yourself you were just grooming that one rough edge. Now, you have to reprogram yourself to put in the time in a useful non-destructive way. I reviewed a bunch of videos on basic nail care. The one below gives what I think is the best all around. It’s not a slick video, but the information is straightforward and just what you need to learn to help you in your battle to stop nail biting forever.

There are lots of ways to quit nail biting, including good old will power. If you check, virtually all the systems, cures, etc., out there that offer to help you quit nail biting exclusively focus on getting you to learn to stop nail biting in the intial phase of changing your behavior. That is all well and good, but unless you also learn behavior methods that you can employ days or weeks later when an unexpected trigger tempts you to start chewing your nails, you are subject to failure

You can quit and teach yourself methods for avoiding such temptations, or you read my book and benefit from an easy to learn system I developed for myself. Part of the process is being prepared. You need to have a few implements with you at ALL times. These would include clippers and nail file at a minimum. I suggest a set of nippers as well. You can use a lipstick balm to help smooth a ragged cuticle.

There are a number of great products you can use to help you in your battle to conquer your nail biting habit. You can find a good selection of them on on my How to Stop Nail Biting website. If you want a place to get encouragement or just talk freely about your nail biting problems, you can go to the online self-help group I started, Nail Biters Anonymous. Best wishes for growing your nails and the sense of pride and accomplishment that comes with it. Only those who have been afflicted can really know how good it makes you feel to break free.

Here is a bit of information you already know. Despite all the crazy claims you can learn to stop nail biting easily, you know this is far from the truth. What is easy is you want to believe someone has a magic potion, pill, power or solution to help you quit without any difficulty. When you really examine the situation and are honest with yourself, you know it’s not true.

That’s the bad news. It’s hard to quit. Here’s some good news. You can do it. The very first thing is to muster the desire to quit. If you don’t have a very strong desire to put all the problems and embarrassment of  ugly bitten chewed nails behind you, you are not going to be successful. If you think you can quit with a quick fix, either you are in denial about your problem, or it is really not much of a problem.

The good news is if you are serious, committed and willing to work at quitting nail biting, there is help. It comes in the form of the book, How to Stop Nail Biting. You can click on the link on this page and it will take you to Amazon.com where you can buy it at a great price; probably around $15.  You can spend that and lots more on all kinds of products that offer quick fix cures, but you should buy gas or groceries instead. It will be a waste of your money.

The book gives you a detailed plan to help you quit now, to teach yourself how to be aware of your biting problems and methods for deflecting your ingrained processes that lead you to biting your nails and cuticles. It provides you with help on nail care and nail care products. If you quit and don’t learn to groom, you will have raggedy cuticles and nails that scream for your attention. Try it today and get started changing your life.

We are thrilled and proud to announce How to Stop Nail Biting has just been published as a paperback. You can find it at Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com. It is also available to retailers through Ingram.

Here is a copy of the PRWEB press release on Tuesday:

Learn How to Stop Nail Biting Permanently

If nail biting were a disease, it would be an epidemic. An estimated 11 million adults* in the U.S are faced with this problem. Although not officially an addiction, anyone so afflicted will attest that it is a hard habit to break. “How to Stop Nail Biting” is a new book which offers chronic nail biters an effective method by which to gain mastery over an entrenched and embarrassing habit.

Scottsdale, AZ (PRWEB) March 31, 2009 — Nail biters now have a comprehensive system to help them stop finger nail biting permanently. “How to Stop Nail Biting” provides a systematic approach to alleviating this problem. It starts with the premise that success comes when the desire to quit nail biting is greater than the need to continue. Readers progress through exercises designed to help them permanently reverse their deeply ingrained nail biting habits.

The learning starts with the recognition of near subconscious pre-nail biting rituals, followed by rehearsing techniques designed to help one avoid, and be distracted from, nail biting temptations as they occur. The unique method outlined in the book trains nail biters to control their biting urges with techniques they can use anywhere, anytime and under any circumstances. A proper nail care routine is also included as a crucial and integral part of the process.

Many who attempt to quit have failed because they found no help from nail biting polish and other nail biting treatments after quitting initially. It is in the long term that nail biters are most vulnerable to relapsing when an unexpected biting trigger occurs. In a few unguarded minutes, they can wreck weeks of abstinence, and psychologically undermine ongoing efforts to maintain self-restraint.

Nail biters will find the system they learn from “How to Stop Nail Biting” provides a permanent nail biting cure that puts an end to this debilitating habit. They will learn to enjoy long-lasting results by gaining confidence in their ability to maintain their newfound non-biting behavior. And when nail biters begin to enjoy the appearance of their hands and nails, this strongly reinforces their ability to sustain their new non-biting lifestyle.

In a nod to the stigma attached to nail biting, the book’s anonymous author uses the pen name, Stubbs Nomore. When he became serious about quitting, he could find no long-term cure for nail biting and became determined to create a system for himself. Through trial and error, he developed the methodical progressive methods taught in the book. The result is a book with easy-to-follow instructions that anyone who is serious about quitting can use to rid themselves of the nail biting habit once and for all

The book can be purchased at Amazon.com, BN.com and other e-bookstores. Booksellers will find it listed with Ingram. Bold Star Communications is a publishing and marketing communications company. It provides publishing services and marketing consulting for artists, authors and small businesses

*Operant learning (R-S) principles applied to nail-biting.
McClanahan TM. Psychol Rep. 1995 Oct;77(2):507-14.
PMID: 8559875 [PubMed – indexed for MEDLINE