Vitality News Health Articles

The underlying causes of most physical habits may be quite varied, and rooted at different psychological levels. While hypnotherapy has a wide range of uses, the ailments that are most directly related to physical habits tend to be the ones that can be treated with hypnotherapy most quickly and directly. Hypnotherapy for smoking cessation is the most commonly recognized of these, and is one of the most effective and less invasive techniques for reaching its goal. Another popular area for hypnotherapy treatment is for weight control. Similarly, hypnotherapy is also the most effective technique for conquering the nail biting habit.

Nail biting shares many similarities to smoking. Both are physical, ritualistic habits. Either may be caused by the mechanics of a simple physical routine, or might be indicative of deeper psychological issues. And in either case the habit itself can be very effectively halted with hypnotherapy.

Discovering and treating underlying psychological problems, which are exhibited in nail biting and smoking can be a process that requires multiple sessions with a skilled hypnotherapist. Not all hypnotherapists and hypnotists are capable of performing at the deep psychological level. Fortunately, for the purposes of ending a nail biting or a smoking habit, they are not required to work below the most direct physical level.

The more immediate goal of finding a nail biting cure is much more straightforward. Many of our deeper emotional and psychological states are impacted by our physical state, so in treating physical symptoms directly, we are also able to have an indirect impact on deeper issues. In addition, not all negative physical behaviors have an underlying cause; sometimes it is truly just a physical habit; and it “feels” good for the individual to take part in them.

In my experience, the relaxed and focused state of hypnosis can have nearly miraculous results when it comes to achieving simple physical state changes. Whenever I relieve severe burn pain, remove nausea, and eliminate other physical problems for a client in mere seconds, it still amazes me, even though I’m supposedly the one with the “power” (although as we know, the true power exists in the client’s unconscious mind). Our minds are capable of blocking out severe pain and nausea; so helping 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 truly unpleasant; with substitution, one may replace the bad habit with a harmless one; with anchoring, one may link physical movement triggers with alternative feelings and behaviors.

With association, just like the simple hypnotic parlor trick can make a slice of white bread taste like a delectable slice of New York Cheesecake to a subject, one can make the feeling and taste of nail biting to be very distasteful. If your subject is consistently and repeatedly conditioned to believe that the taste and feel of nail biting is very unpleasant, it will help to cause the habit to cease.

There are chemical products that achieve this goal via unpleasant tasting nail polish. However, with a mental association they can stop nail biting without depending on consistently applying a chemical product. This “aversion” type of therapy isn’t generally very helpful. But it is only reliable when used as an adjunct to relieving the stress that causes one to bite their nails, as well as extinguishing conditioned responses (unconscious associations), which triggers one to bite their nails.

Using substitution, it can be very effective to replace the nail biting habit with a more benign compulsion. For instance, it is very 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 same feelings and resolution that nail biting used to bring. I have found the deep breathing substitute to be very effective 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 association and substitution techniques. It is useful to create the suggestion that every time subjects see their fingers approach their mouth, they strongly remember the bad taste association, and they take a deep breath instead to resolve the tension.

Hypnosis has been recognized as one of the most effective methods for negative habit modification. Just as with smoking cessation, the techniques and concepts described here prove to be very successful as a long-term nail-biting cure.

Alan B. Densky, CH has been helping clients with stress related problems since 1978. He offers a wide-ranging 7-session self-hypnosis break the nail biting habit CDs based on NLP and Ericksonian Hypnotherapy. Visit his hypnosis site for free hypnosis articles, videos, and advice.

- Alan B. Densky, CH