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.
These could be physical triggers, such as the presence of hangnails, or other triggers, such as boredom, stress, or anxiety. By figuring out what causes you to bite your nails, you can figure out how to avoid these situations and develop a plan to stop.
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).
In terms of causes of nail biting, it was found that psychological imbalances, such as stress, anxiety and nervousness, were perceived as the principal cause of nail biting, followed by nutritional deficiency.
Constantly bringing your nails into your mouth can bring E. coli, salmonella and the germs that cause the common cold as well as a plethora of others that may cause you to get sick. “Pathogens which transfer from your nails to the mouth during nail biting can lead to illness,” says Dr. Condello.
Chronic nail biting often has a self-soothing quality — in fact, it provides a sense of calm — so people may use it as a coping mechanism. Sometimes, a hangnail or nail imperfection spurs you to groom a nail excessively, in order to improve the look of your nail.
Biting Nails
This habit indicates nerves or insecurity. Whether this means they are nervous about talking to you or just in general, this can be a telling body language cue. It can show that you might be making them nervous (which can be a good or bad thing).
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!
For most people, nail biting is automatic: You do it without thinking about it. While it can occur without any underlying psychiatric conditions, it's also associated with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), separation anxiety, tic disorder, and other mental health problems.
Nail biting was also more common in patients with TS with ADHD than in those without (75.0% vs 47.6%; p<0.001), but the starting age was significantly later in those with concomitant ADHD than without (5.3 vs 3.8 years; p<0.001).
While skin-picking and hair-pulling are typically associated with OCD and classified as an obsessive and compulsive-related disorder, it can also occur in the context of ADHD. Skin-picking, hair-pulling, and nail-biting may be related to anxiety, sensory stimulation, and impulsivity.
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.
And repeatedly biting your nails can cause some short-term issues to develop, including: Dental problems such as misalignment and chipped teeth. Fungal infections in the nail bed. Illness, as fingers pass bacteria to your mouth.
As Diller explains, waiting for the natural nail to grow beneath the fake nails is the best way to ensure you break your nail-biting habit. "It usually takes about 90 days to change most habits (and keep the new one), but it depends on how long-standing the habit is," adds Diller.
"As the entire surface of the nail has been compromised, you're going to be dealing with that thinned-out nail plate for 3-6 months, to be exact," Erin says. "That's how long it takes for the base of your nail to become the free-edge of your nail.
Famous superstars Tom Cruise, Eva Mendes, Elijah Wood, Britney Spears, Phil Collins and Andy Roddick are all celebrity nail chewers, among others.
It's difficult to trace a specific behavior like nail biting to one gene rather than looking at the genetic causes of a more general tendency, like anxiety. The closest thing there is to a nail-biting gene, he said, is a “candidate gene” doctors think may code for Tourette syndrome and other impulse disorders.
It has been suggested that nail biting is related to high anxiety and low self-esteem (1, 15). Patients with onychophagia have been scored higher on obsessive-compulsiveness, especially those who regarded their nail biting as a serious problem (15).
Kandalec says structured gel manicures are beneficial for all nail types, especially nail biters or those trying to grow out damaged nails.
“Stimming” refers to self-stimulating behavior, which are repetitive physical or verbal tics common in individuals with autism. To some degree, we all exhibit stimming behaviors. Nail biting, twirling your hair, drumming your fingers on the table, or cracking your knuckles are all forms of stimming.