The clinical name for nail biting is chronic onychophagia. It occurs in approximately:
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28% to 33% of children ages 7-10 years old,
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44% of adolescents,
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19% to 29% of young adults and
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5% of older adults
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and is slightly more common in young males.
A nail biting habit is very often developed in childhood and usually is a response to stress or anxiety. In later life that nail biting habit continues as a learned habit. A sufferer may well still bite their nails as a response to stress because this is what they have taught themselves to do over many years.
Negative side effects of nail biting include and increased risk of infection through transmission of germs and a lowered self esteem. Treatments for chronic nail biting include aversion therapy, medication and/or behavioural therapy and hypnotherapy.
As the nail biting habit takes place at an unconscious level and is an automatic response, it is at this level that the habit must be changed. Hypnosis can help you achieve this change and Rewriting The Script will enable you to stop biting your nails permanently and painlessly.
For changing unwanted habits, use this hypnosis CD program:
