Nail biting and picking is a common habit that can be difficult to break. That’s why at The Gel Collection, we spoke with clinical psychologist Tamara Hansen to provide you with the best knowledge and the necessary tools to stop this habit and achieve beautiful, healthy nails instead. You can read about the following:

• Psychological hacks to stop nail biting
• The 5 steps to break the habit
• Customer stories

Psychological hacks to stop nail biting

By Clinical Psychologist Tamara Hansen:
How do I stop biting my nails? It’s a question often asked at The Gel Collection, and one I asked myself before I became a psychologist and started working with habit disorders in clinical settings. With a combination of psychological tools and The Gel Collection's gel products, I finally overcame my own nail biting.

My name is Tamara Hansen, and I am a clinical psychologist at the private practice Psychologists Johansen and Kristoffersen in Frederiksberg. The psychologists in our practice specialize in evidence-based cognitive behavioral therapy for a wide range of issues, one of which is habit disorders such as dermatillomania, also known as skin picking, and trichotillomania, also known as hair pulling. These disorders involve compulsive and repetitive picking, biting, and pulling at skin and hair. While these can manifest as more serious conditions, such as bald patches, infections, and bleeding, regular nail biting can also be understood as a variation of this habit, where one can't stop biting their nails despite repeated efforts.

Today, I’ll share how I help people overcome repetitive habits like nail biting as a psychologist, and how using the right products, especially those gentle and developed with minimal harmful chemicals, such as those from The Gel Collection, can be a crucial tool in the process. You can read about the revolutionary products right here.

Why can’t I stop biting my nails?
The exact reason why habits like nail biting develop in the first place is not definitively established in research. However, it is believed that it has a stress-relieving or regulatory function for the nervous system. Many people experience that both stress or intense emotions, as well as understimulation and boredom, can cause nail biting to escalate.

The difficulty in stopping also stems from the fact that the human brain forms stronger and stronger connections the more times the same action is repeated. This forms the basis of what we call habits.

How do bad habits work?
When explaining habits and the basis for psychological treatment of habit disorders, I always use the metaphor of a “path through the woods.”

Imagine you have to walk through a forest to get to work every day. You’ve walked the same bumpy, rough path hundreds of times, and your feet almost walk on their own. The path is clear and well-trodden because you’ve walked it so many times. Walking this path represents your bad habit – nail biting.

Now imagine one day you discover there’s a much shorter and nicer path through the forest. This new path represents the good habit of not biting your nails. Naturally, you’d prefer to take this route in the future, but if you don’t actively take control and pay attention to which path you’re on, your feet will automatically carry you down the old, rough path.

The reason for this is that you’ve walked this path so many times, but also because the new path is completely overgrown and hard to spot. So what can be done? The key is to help yourself recognize the point where the two paths split and remember to take the good, new path each time. Over time, this new path will become well-trodden, while the old path will gradually become overgrown. This represents the neurological process in which old nerve pathways weaken, and new ones are strengthened through repeated actions over time, as old habits are extinguished, and new ones are reinforced.

The five steps

Step 1: Awareness training – Recognize your triggers and warning signs
To start turning down the new path, you first need to recognize where the paths split. To help, you can begin by identifying specific landmarks around where you need to remember to turn. Metaphorically, you might learn that when you see that distinctive purple flower by the small stream, it’s time to remember to turn onto the good path.

Start by writing down any particular triggers or warning signs associated with your nail biting. You can use the following questions:

• External triggers: Are there specific external conditions such as places, people, times of day, or contexts where you are more prone to bite your nails? Examples: When you are alone, it’s evening, you’re watching TV, or when you’re working on a difficult task.
  
  
• Internal triggers: Are there specific internal conditions such as certain emotions, sensations, or feelings that increase your risk of biting your nails? Examples: When you feel bored, stressed, restless, or notice rough edges on your nails.
  
  
• Warning signs: What typically happens in the few seconds before you start biting your nails? Examples: You look at your nails and search for imperfections, run your nails over your lips, or click them against your teeth.

Using the above, record all instances of nail biting over a week – where you were, what you were doing, and how many nails you bit at a time. Knowing and writing down these markers and patterns can help you become more aware and make an active choice before you bite your nails without realizing it.

Step 2: Stimulus control – Make it easier to choose the good habit
Another thing you can do is metaphorically put up signs for yourself at the point where the paths split or set up visible lights to guide you along the right path.

When it comes to nail biting, this involves both actively helping yourself become aware and motivating yourself to choose the good habit over the bad one.

If you’ve tried to stop biting your nails for a while, you’re probably familiar with those awful nail oils designed to taste terrible to punish you for putting your fingers in your mouth. However, research shows that humans are more motivated by rewards, known as positive reinforcement, than by punishment.

This is where gel products come in. Applying gel products to your nails feels and looks different, which can help you recruit your attention in time. Additionally, having a set of nails you really want to preserve can be very motivating.

• Create your dream nails. Choose beautiful colors for your desired look here and don’t compromise on the design. This way, you increase your motivation to not bite your nails.
  
  
• Use bright colors initially. Give yourself a mental reminder that this color is meant to remind you that you want to stop biting your nails. It’s easier to notice a bright color heading toward your face, increasing your chances of catching yourself in time and moving your hand away from your mouth.
  
  
• Spend extra time on prep and product application. Set yourself a goal to be extra meticulous with every step. You can see the detailed video guides for using the products here. This will not only make your nails look better and last longer but also increase your investment in your nails and your motivation to keep them intact.
  
  
• Get inspired! Spend time finding inspiration for nail designs or techniques you’d like to try, and save the images for later. You can find lots of inspiration on The Gel Collection’s Instagram or through their amazing Facebook Community.
  
  
• Reward yourself! As mentioned earlier, rewards are very motivating for habit changes. Use this to your advantage by treating yourself when you succeed in not biting your nails. For example, allow yourself to buy one or more products from your nail wish list for each day/week you succeed in not biting your nails!
  
  

Step 3: Response blocking – Make it difficult or impossible to choose the bad habit
Returning to the forest path metaphor, an obvious option is to lay a big log across the old path, blocking the way. This is one of the most effective ways to change a bad habit.

In treatment for habits, this is called response blocking. For example, if you have a habit of pulling your hair, you can prevent it by always wearing a hat or shaving your head. You simply ensure the habit cannot be performed, which weakens the nerve pathways associated with the habit. For nail biters, the classic method has been to wear gloves. I, Tamara Hansen, have heard of people being taped into gloves as children. But again, The Gel Collection offers a more aesthetic alternative.

1. Use hard/strong products: If your nails allow it, I recommend creating some strong sets of nails that are difficult to bite into. You can use products like BuilderGel and Rubber Base. Be extra careful sealing the free edge, as the goal is to ensure there’s nothing loose or frayed that might tempt you to bite or pick.

2. Consider extensions: If you’ve had short nails for a long time due to nail biting, it will be a completely different experience to have longer nails, and you’ll block the possibility of biting into your natural nail. For some, however, long nails might increase the urge to bite because you constantly notice the protruding tips. I recommend experimenting and starting with a shorter extension if you choose this method.

You can read more about ensuring a good experience with nail products here.

Step 4: Counteraction – Choose to do something else
So far, you’ve remembered the landmarks and put up big neon signs and strong barriers where the paths split. The final step, once you’ve noticed the paths diverge, is to point your feet toward the new, good path and actually walk that way. But how do you translate this to nail biting? How do you walk the path of the good habit?

The human brain notoriously struggles with the concept of not, making it difficult to consider “not biting nails” as a concrete alternative to biting. Therefore, we introduce an alternative action, known as a counteraction, that supports our goal of not biting nails.

• Choose a counteraction that directly opposes nail biting. For example, clenching both fists, sitting on your hands, or performing an action that requires both hands.
  
  
• Perform this action for 60 seconds every time you notice one of your warning signs and every time you realize you’ve already started biting your nails. It’s important that it’s 60 seconds, even if it’s annoying and disruptive – that’s the whole point.
  
  
• If you bite your nails frequently, set aside time each day to practice implementing your counteraction as described above.
  
  

Step 5: Be kind to yourself – Habit change is a process
Lastly, I encourage you to be kind to yourself throughout the process. If you’ve made it this far, you clearly have a strong desire to stop biting your nails, and you are actively working on overcoming your nail biting.

Changing an ingrained habit is incredibly difficult, and countless people struggle with their bad habits every day. For some, professional help may be necessary, and if so, you’re welcome to contact our clinic.

Remember, the goal of the tools and methods mentioned above isn’t to stop biting your nails overnight. It’s to learn about your habit and gradually weaken it. This means you’ll definitely bite your nails despite all your efforts to follow these tips. When that happens, you’re learning to understand and recognize your habit! Instead of beating yourself up, remind yourself that you’re strengthening your awareness and good habit every time you notice the nail biting and lower your hand again. It’s not about always walking the good path, but about noticing when you’re off course and changing direction – again and again!

Thanks and Conclusion
A huge thank you to Tamara Hansen and the private practice Psychologists Johansen and Kristoffersen in Frederiksberg for contributing to this section on nail biting and picking. To give you a boost on your journey to stop nail biting or picking, we’ve gathered several success stories below that will hopefully provide some motivation.

Customer stories

In our fantastic Gel Collection Lounge, we’ve heard some of your stories about nail picking and biting. It’s important to us that we inspire and learn valuable insights from each other, which is why we’ve included three of these stories here.

Customer story – a difficult struggle
By Nanna Thorsen

I’ve been picking at my nails for as long as I can remember. Every time I could pick at a nail or the skin around them, I did – even when it hurt a lot, and I got wounds around my nails. I would pick my nails down to make them super short and ugly. If I couldn’t pick properly, I’d bite them off. About three years ago, I had my nails done by a technician. It’s very expensive.

Then I discovered The Gel Collection and started doing them myself. It’s cheaper and has become a nice hobby since my nails look nice with length and pretty colors. That’s when I realized picking and biting nails doesn’t do any good. In the picture without color, you can see how much damage picking at the skin caused, and it’s not pretty. In the other pictures, you can see a clear improvement since I stopped picking at my skin and nails. The length isn’t entirely mine yet, but they’re on the right track.

It was undoubtedly a difficult struggle to stop picking and biting, especially since it was a habit when I got nervous. But with the pretty colors and slightly longer nails, it gradually helped me stop. Now I have the nicest nails, thanks to you and your products!

Customer story – Penicillin due to infection
By Conny Rudbeck

I am a nail biter and pick at my cuticles and the skin around my nails. I’ve done this my whole life and still do. Without any product on, my nails are non-existent because I bite them down until they bleed and hurt. It’s so severe that I’ve ended up on penicillin due to infections several times. With or without product, I still bite at the skin around my nails, and I can’t stand it if there’s a loose piece of skin or something similar. This especially happens when I forget to use nail oil.

Now I do my nails with Press On Tips, and I love it! It spares my nails from so much damage and strain while making my natural nails look beautiful, strong/healthy, and not to mention longer underneath.

Before discovering The Gel Collection’s products, I tried everything to stop the hell that is biting/picking at nails.
The various products meant to taste bad enough to make you stop didn’t work. I spent a lot of money on professional nail technicians, and while some were disappointing, others were good. But in the end, I must admit that it doesn’t hold up as well as when I do them myself with The Gel Collection products and can fix them at the slightest sign of damage, mistakes, etc. Nail oil is my favorite product for my issues. I feel feminine and beautiful with my healthy nails, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Customer story – Picking until bleeding
By Christina Clemmensen

As a child and into my twenties, I bit my nails and picked at the skin around them so badly that I had terrible cuticles and often picked until I bled because I just had to bite/pick.

I naturally have soft and thin nails, so they break with the slightest bump, just barely peeking over the edge. All kinds of remedies like nail strengtheners were tried, but it was pure bad habit and boredom. It became a process of trying all kinds of bad fake nails and different products. But as the wise know from experience, when you’re fumbling in the dark like that, you do more harm than good, and it certainly didn’t help with the picking.

About 8-9 years ago, I tried doing my own gel nails with a bit of determination for strength. But because I didn’t have the basic knowledge and theory behind it, I got lifting, they fell off, and it didn’t help with the picking either.

Then I “met” The Gel Collection and felt their vision deep in my heart – mostly out of gratitude that they market themselves on the idea that anyone can join. I don’t like salons because they burn my nails, and my cuticles are so sensitive. I almost feel violated – and that’s not the point.

So, I went on a shopping spree a little over a year ago and still learn something new each time. But because I don’t get lifting, use nail oil, and best of all, my trusty cuticle nipper, there’s nothing left to pick at anymore. If there’s a tiny bump, I don’t pick at it – I snip it off and apply oil, and I’m not rewarded on that front.

I love The Gel Collection’s concept and products, and they’ve awakened a little nail princess in me and given me the courage to try lots of cool things with their amazing products.