My father bites his nails or at least he used to. Looking back on my life I distinctly remember starting to bite my nails because my Dad did it. I’m not sure what the exact logic was behind it, but I was young, under 10 easily, and I wanted to be like Dad. I can’t imagine how many pounds of fingernails I’ve digested over the years, ugh. I kept biting well into my early twenties. One day, though, I decided for whatever reason that I needed to stop doing it. Thus began my quest to break a lifelong habit.

I tried just not doing it, but that never worked for very long. I discovered that I did not even consciously realize when I started to move my fingers up to my mouth. By the time I figured out I was biting my nails, I had already removed half of it. Clearly I needed another tactic.

Somewhere I read about this technique to break a bad habit. You wear a rubber band around one of your wrists and every time you catch yourself doing the habit, you pull the rubber band back and flick your wrist with it. I know, it sounds bizarre and slightly masochistic, but I figured it was worth a shot. So off I went, rubber band under the cuff of my shirt.

It took a little bit for me to get into the groove of flicking myself. Sometimes I’d forget to do it or not realize I was biting, but soon I got into the groove. The first few days, I’d really pull the rubber band back and give myself a good whack, like it was punishment I deserved for my bad habit. After that though, I realized that the fear of pain was not going to stop me from biting my nails, since the pain was minor and brief. What the rubber really did was help me to acknowledge the behavior and remind me not to do it. After that, I’d just give myself a minor flick and move on.

For two weeks I kept this up, and then an amazing thing happened. I realized that after a few days, I hadn’t flicked myself once. I’d gone days without sticking my fingers in my mouth. Believe me, after twenty years of biting my nails, I was surprised. I wore the rubber band for about a week more, but I did not need it. I was cured.

The nice thing about this method was that it didn’t require willpower, just acknowledgement of the behavior. Once I recognized the behavior, I’d curb it. I’m not sure how effective it would be on addictive substances, like smoking, but for little habits that you want to break, the rubber band really worked for me. So grab a band a break a habit.

As an aside, feel free to email me at erik@erikdewey.com or add a comment if there is a topic you wish to discuss. I live for the feedback.