These helpful remedies will keep you from biting your nails.
Do You Bite Your Nails? Try These Tips to Quit!
Take care of your hands and nails! Here are ways to deal with nail-biting habits and what to do when your nails are brittle.
5 Nail-Biting Remedies
Nail-biting often starts in childhood, and can be an extremely hard habit to break. Here are some suggestions on how to quit.
- It is said that the easiest way to stop biting your nails is to become more relaxed, as nail-biting is often associated with pressure, anxiety, or nervousness. See our remedies for stress and anxiety.
- A physical reminder is to put sticky tape on each finger. By the time you chew through the tape, you probably will have worked off the impulse to chew your nails.
- Put brightly colored polish on your nails. If you spend time caring for your nails, you鈥檙e less likely to want to bite them off.
- Most people bite their nails subconsciously. To get yourself to think about what you鈥檙e doing, give yourself a small reward for every nail that grows long enough to cut.
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10 Tips for Dealing With Brittle Nails
If you have nails that break easily, here are some tips. Only rarely is a disease or vitamin deficiency an issue, despite what you may read. (If your fingernails split, but the toenails are strong, then an external factor is the cause.) Usually, brittle nails are simply due to a lack of moisture. Brittle nails are worse in winter when there is low humidity and dry heat indoors.
- Nails become more brittle from constant wetting and drying. Don鈥檛 wash dishes with your bare hands. Wear dry, cotton-lined rubber gloves, available at most drugstores.
- Drink plenty of water. If you鈥檙e dry, your nails will be.
- Apply lotions containing alpha-hydroxy acids or lanolin containing lotions such as 鈥淓lon鈥 to the nails after first soaking nails in water for 5 minutes.
- Some fingernail polishes contain formaldehyde, which can irritate skin and nails. If you think your polish is causing problems, switch to a polish that doesn鈥檛 contain formaldehyde, or avoid polish altogether.
- Biotin (a vitamin) taken by mouth is beneficial if you have a year-round issue. It takes at least 6 months, but does really help at least 1/3 of the time. (Do not take this if you are pregnant.)
- Eat Jell-O. Seriously, gelatin helps many people (though not as reliable as Biotin). Or you can mix your favorite flavor of Jell-O and drink it while it鈥檚 still warm, if you don鈥檛 feel like waiting to refrigerate it. Calcium also helps some people.
- Keep a natural nail shape. Round the tips in a gentle curve. File in the same direction as the nail grows and not in a 鈥渂ack and forth鈥 motion.
- Gently remove nail snags as soon as you can.
- Avoid using metal instruments on the nail surface to push back the cuticle.
- One reader says, 鈥淎pply petroleum jelly to your nails at bedtime. Cover them with cotton gloves and your nails will retain more of the moisture.鈥
If you have any more tips, please post what works for you below!
Heidi Stonehill
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Okay. So you mean to tell me if an animal that can be used as a food source should not be used to help mankind and a human should find another way or suffer through it? Interesting鈥
I鈥檒l give you an example, someone I love dearly needed a replacement heart valve and would have died without it. The valve was from a sheep. Mankind will surely self destruct if they don鈥檛 stop their nonsense. I am not talking about wiping out animals. I am talking about helping mankind. Plants are not the answer and neither is AI.
I much prefer coconut oil or other natural oils to petroleum jelly. There aren't many petroleum
products in my home at all
BIOTIN
supplement, inexpensive, can be found in the grocery store
I found that taking a collagen supplement worked really well for helping my brittle nails to stop splitting and peeling off. It had the extra benefit of reducing the amount of hair that I shed as well.
petroleum jelly-? why would anyone put that on their nails or skin?
A relative told me I should take kelp to improve my hair and nails. My nails are extremely brittle and often split. I know kelp contains iodine and I already take a medication prescribed for low thyroid function. Thanks for your replies.
Next time one starts biting their nails, have them stand in front of a mirror and continue biting. It doesn't (didn't) take long to break the habit - trust me!
I use Hoofmaker on my hands just before I go to bed. It is completely absorbed so there's no greasy feeling and it sure keeps my nails in tip top shape! Helps them grow and mosisturizes them. Works great on my horses' hooves as well!
I have brittle nails - I also had thyroid (hypo) and thyroid cancer. For a very brief time, I was eating lots of yogurt which seemed to help my nails grow out and were nice - then I stopped and they went back to brittleness again. I guess the yogurt / calcium helped a little.
The most common reason for brittle nails is problems with the thyroid. Talk to your health care provider and do the blood tests to see if an under active/overactive thyroid is causing the problems. Nails do not absorb the oils or lotions. It is the surrounding tissues that plumps up.
