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Hypnosis As The Primary Nail-biting Cure
By Alan B. Densky, CH
The underlying causes of most physical habits may be quite varied, and rooted at different psychological levels. Although hypnotherapy has a wide range of applications, the problems that are most directly related to physical habits tend to be the ones that can be treated with hypnotherapy most immediately and directly. Smoking cessation is the most well known of these, and is among the most effective and least invasive techniques for achieving its goal. Another common area for hypnotherapy treatment is for weight loss. Similarly, hypnotherapy is also the best technique for conquering the nail biting habit.
The nail biting habit has much in common with smoking. It is a ritualistic, physical habit. Either can be caused by the mechanics of a physical routine, or can be symptomatic of deeper psychological root causes. And in either case the habit itself can be effectively stopped with hypnotherapy.
Discovering and treating underlying psychological problems, which are exhibited in nail biting and smoking can be a process that necessitates several sessions with a skilled hypnotherapist. Not all hypnotists and hypnotherapists are capable of working at the deep psychological level. Thankfully, for the purposes of eliminating a smoking or a nail biting habit, they are not required to work below the most direct physical level.
The more immediate goal of curing the nail biting habit is far more straightforward. Many of our deeper psychological and emotional states are influenced by our physical state, so in treating physical symptoms directly, we can also have an indirect impact on deeper issues. In addition, not all negative physical habits have an underlying cause; sometimes it is truly just a physical habit; it just "feels" good for the individual to take part in them.
In my experience, the relaxed and focused state of can have extraordinary results when used in achieving simple changes to one's physical state. Whenever I relieve severe burn pain, remove nausea, and solve other physical problems for a client in just seconds, it still amazes me, even though I am supposedly the one with the "power" (as we know, the real power lies in the client's unconscious mind). Our minds have the capacity to block out severe pain and nausea; so the ability to prevent one from nail biting is a relatively modest goal in comparison.
I have found three of the most powerful hypnotherapy techniques to be association, substitution and anchoring. With association, one can link a behavior to something aversive; with substitution, one can replace the bad habit with an innocuous one; with anchoring, one can link physical movement triggers with alternative feelings and behaviors.
With association,
just like the simple hypnotic parlor trick can make a piece of white bread taste like the best New York Cheesecake to a subject, one can make the feeling and taste of nail biting to be extremely distasteful. If your subject is consistently and repeatedly conditioned that the taste and feel of nail biting is extremely unpleasant, it will help eliminate the habit.
There are chemical products that achieve this goal via unpleasant tasting nail polish. However, with a mental association it is easy to stop nail biting without relying upon applying a chemical product. This "aversion" type of therapy is not generally extremely helpful. But it is reliable only 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 example, 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 exhale slowly, 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 problems.
Similarly, anchoring can be used to subvert one action into a different one, and works well in combination with the association and substitution. It is useful to create the suggestion that each time subjects see their fingers coming to their mouth, they strongly remember the bad taste association, and they take a deep breath instead to relieve the tension.
In summary, hypnotherapy has been proven as one of the most effective techniques for negative habit modification. Just as with smoking cessation, the concepts and techniques outlined here prove to be extremely effective as a long-term nail-biting solution. Article Source: Article Beam - a service of A1 Web Server Web Hosting Alan B. Densky, CH has been helping clients with stress related afflictions since 1978. He offers an all-inclusive seven-session self-hypnosis break the nail biting habit CDs based on Ericksonian and NLP. Visit his self-hypnosis site for free articles on hypnosis, and advice.
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