Why do I bite my nails? The exact cause of nail biting is unknown, but it has been associated with boredom, frustration, and reducing stress or anxiety. An estimated 20 to 30% of people bite their nails. It's especially common in children, occurring in up to 33% of 7- to 10-year-olds and up to 45% of adolescents.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, categorizes chronic nail biting as other specified obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), classified in the same group as compulsive lip biting, nose picking, and hair pulling (American Psychiatric Association, 2013).
Recently psychologists have come to a more plausible theory of nail biting: that it can provide a temporary escape, distraction, or bit of pleasure or relaxation for the biter. Penzel points out that many people get the urge to bite when they're understimulated (i.e., bored) or overstimulated (stressed out or excited).
Nail biting explained
Anxiety: Nail biting can be a sign of anxiety or stress. The repetitive behavior seems to help some people cope with challenging emotions. Boredom: Behaviors such as nail biting and hair twirling are more common when you're bored, hungry, or need to keep your hands busy.
While most people assume nail biting has to do with nerves or anxiety, one study is linking this bad habit to a surprising personality trait. According to a study published in the March 2015 issue of Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, nail biters are more likely to be perfectionists.
There can also be physical manifestations of the anxiety caused by ADHD such as headache, nausea, nail-biting or cuticle-picking.
Nail biters are more often male than female after age 10 (10% fewer bite their nails than boys), and individuals with a higher rate of intelligence tend to bite their nails more than those of less intelligence.
Scientists, in fact, are still trying to figure out exactly why people bite their nails. But they do know that it's a habit for a lot of us: about 20 to 30 percent of the population are nail biters, including up to 45 percent of teenagers.
Keep your hands or mouth busy.
Other items that you can fiddle with instead of biting your nails include stress balls or fidget toys. Or if you're looking for something to keep your mouth busy, you can even try chewing gum!
In fact, you may have heard how it takes 21 days to break a habit. This figure was popularized by a 1960s book called “The New Psycho Cybernetics” by Maxwell Maltz.
Nail biting, also known as onychophagy or onychophagia (or even erroneously onyhophagia), is an oral compulsive habit of biting one's fingernails.
A: Doctors classify chronic nail biting as a type of obsessive-compulsive disorder since the person has difficulty stopping. People often want to stop and make multiple attempts to quit without success. People with onychophagia cannot stop the behavior on their own, so it's not effective to tell a loved one to stop.
There's a spectrum of nail biting. It can range from an occasional benign behavior to a deeply ingrained self-mutilative behavior. Many people who begin biting their nails as children eventually outgrow the habit. For others, it becomes a lifelong habit that can be extremely difficult to quit.
"From chronic nail biting, you can damage the nail matrix (the tissue under the actual nail) and can have permanent nail deformities like ridges," explains Dr. Jaliman.
Your fingernails grow slowly — in fact, they grow about one tenth of an inch (2.5 millimeters) each month. At that rate it can take about 3 to 6 months to completely replace a nail. Where your nail meets your skin is your cuticle. Cuticles help to protect the new nail as it grows out from the nail root.
Nail-biting (onychophagia) is a common stress-relieving habit. You may bite your nails in times of stress or excitement, or in times of boredom or inactivity. It can also be a learned behavior from family members.
The force of biting nails can be transferred to the root of teeth and lead to apical root resorption,33 alveolar destruction,3 malocclusions,34 temporomandibular disorders,23 and gum injuries. Moreover, nail biting may damage the tissue around the nail and lead to infection and teeth root damage.
Famous superstars Tom Cruise, Eva Mendes, Elijah Wood, Britney Spears, Phil Collins and Andy Roddick are all celebrity nail chewers, among others.
Therefore, nail biting is a possible indication of the presence of the more severe ADHD-C subtype. Our results imply that a nail biting habit among these ADHD children is more related to insufficient parenting skills, rather than being part of general anxiety symptoms.
Dermatophagia or “wolf-biting”5 is another obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)-related disorder and is defined as the compulsion to bite one's own skin. Since many patients do not eat/ingest their skin but simply bite or gnaw on it, researchers have recommended using the term dermatodaxia instead of dermatophagia.
Nail biting can also transfer pinworms or bacteria buried under the surface of the nail to your mouth. When bitten-off nails are swallowed, stomach problems can develop.
Spoon nails (koilonychia) are soft nails that look scooped out. The depression usually is large enough to hold a drop of liquid. Often, spoon nails are a sign of iron deficiency anemia or a liver condition known as hemochromatosis, in which your body absorbs too much iron from the food you eat.
Once you've managed to stop biting your nails, one of the questions often asked is whether bitten nails can grow back to normal. The bad news is that although fairly uncommon, nail biting can lead to permanently damaged nails. You can cause permanent damage to your nails by biting them over a long period of time.
The best option to treat your nails with regular manicure treatment specifically designed for nail biters to finish your manicure with either gel coulors or shellac polish to ensure a longer lasting manicure. Manicures will help and using Nail Tiques will help them grow stronger so you will be less likely to bite.
When you bite your nails, those bacteria end up in your mouth and gut, where they can cause gastro-intestinal infections that lead to diarrhea and abdominal pain. Long-term, habitual nail nibblers can also suffer from a type of infection called paronychia, Scher says.