Deliver Us From Swedish Furniture

Nail Biting and other body focused repetitive behaviors

I found this article about a guy in the Netherlands called Alain-Raymond van Abbe, who claims he has developed a method to combat these types of behaviour. When Iwas younger I was a terrible nail biter, but as I have, ahem, matured, I only have the occasional nibble these days. Apparently this is pretty common as you get older you learn to deal with anxieties/boredom in other ways, which will probably explain my smack habit*.

The problem actually feeds itself as a person that is anxious bites their nails/skin and then feels anxious about the way their hands look and so feel more anxious. So the way he deal with it is two-fold. The first is to inhibit your ability to bite your nails with a tooth guard. Apparently it is barely noticeable and can be removed to allow you to eat, but stops you being able to bite your nails. Once you have had this in for about 4 weeks the brain adapts to curb the impulse to bite your nails as it likes being frustrated even more! He then offers a amnicurist service to enhance the appearance of the sufferes nails to make them less anxious about their appearance too. How much for all this? Prices got to as much as €500 for a course of treatments

*For those suffering an accute sense of humour bypass, yes that was a joke. I wouldn’t touch heroin, I use crack.