Bad robot

For all my success with establishing new healthy habits recently I have failed completely at an old habit of mine. When I was growing up I bit my nails. Often I would chew them back til they bled. I don't remember the where, when or why of this grim habit, but it was bad. My parents tried a lot of the usual tactics to get me to stop. I remember they went with one "carrot" method, which consisted of a weekly nail check by my Dad. If I hadn't chewed a nail I would get money as a reward. I don't know if I was also penalised for chewing a nail and that cancelled out one good nail, but for a time it worked. However although I like to spend money (don't we all darling!) I am not driven by it, so in the end I went back to my chewing. The "stick" methods stick in my head too with the most common being a "telling off", which used some form of shaming and "you won't have nice nails like your father if you carry on chewing".  I find these memories hilarious because my memory recall is generally terrible, but when it comes to these things I have a movie like detail of the memories. Oh and my Mum even tried painting that fowl tasting synthetic crap on my nails in order to deter me. However it would fade after hand washing and then chomp, chomp, chomp.

At some stage in my teens something changed. I stopped chewing my nails and starting biting my cuticles, "huzzah!" No more nail biting. Oh what that is a worse habit, ah ok. So ever since I don't chew my nails to oblivion (I admit I still "trim" them), but instead I bite the skin around the nail resulting in sore fingers, bleeding and a lack of hand modelling jobs. As I look at my mitts typing this blog post I am slightly ashamed. Perhaps if I actually gave a shit about what people think or tell me then I would have stopped long ago. For like many habits it is unconscious and I have to be "told off" to realise what I am doing.

Thankfully some clever person gave a name to this habit of mine and I am by no means the worst. I remember one of my friends from Downton school who I won't name used to chew the skin on his thumb until it looked like a bad case of eczema. He was 6ft 4 when we were 13 so he may have just been hungry I don't know. In any case it is something that I do want to stop doing, so I am going to trial a few options. Below are things I have tried and things I will give a go and let you know how I get on.

Fails
Rank tasting synthetic liquid painted on nails
Dandelion stalk juice smeared on nails (again rank tasting)
Smacking of hand by family member
Chastising and shaming by family member
Monetary rewards
Being reminded of all the dirt that is under my nails (not phased at all)
Gentle encouragement
Moderate encouragement
Extreme encouragement
Food
Replacing habit with another habit (doesn't work as the bad one is performed on autopilot)

Things to try
Being calmly reminded of biting (without shaming)
Hypnotherapy
Plasters on bad fingers as visual reminder and physical barrier (currently trialling as of today)

Righto if you have any suggestions please put them on a post card and leave them below.

Let me know below if you have overcome a bad habit and how you did it, I'm keen to learn!

Tom :)