© Taras Taraporvala
Wellness
If you're still biting your nails, this is a PSA to stop. Here's how
If there's anything we've really focused on this year, it's hand hygiene. We've washed them (for 20 seconds while singing Happy Birthday twice), scrubbed, sanitised and re-cleansed them after touching an elevator button, a takeout package or a door handle in an attempt to protect ourselves from the COVID-10 virus. But all that exposure to soap, alcohol and water turned my otherwise strong, tough-as-nails tips into brittle, breakable, splitting versions of themselves. As they broke off one by one during the lockdown, I began to bite them again, a habit I'd given up before I went to college back in 2013.
Plus, the beginning of the pandemic-induced lockdown gave me enough reasons to bite them. Couldn't sleep? I'd go to town on my hangnails. Stressed while scrolling through Twitter or watching the news? I'd starting chewing on my already nubby nails. A month later, as I struggled with bleeding cuticles and underground nails—and a realisation that the habit wasn't doing my immune system any favours—I knew I had to stop. Here's how I did it.
Some nails were worse than the others, so I covered them up with a bandaid. It made it uncomfortable to type or eat with my fingers, but the nails that were covered couldn't be bitten, so they began to heal while left to their own devices.
When I stopped biting my nails for the first time, I did it with mindfulness. I knew I was going away to college, and having professional-looking nails were going to be important, so I stopped cold turkey. This time, I had to go the DIY route to stop. The internet told me to apply salt on my fingers, but I couldn't type with that, so it was a no-go. Jalapeno juice was likely to go into my eye than my mouth, which wasn't an option I was willing to trifle with. I bought a bitter-tasting polish from the chemist and applied it all over my nails and cuticles, and while it made eating with my hands impossible, helped to keep my fingers out of my mouth. These clear varnishes dry quickly on the nail and taste particularly nasty, which in the process, trains your brain to realise that this is a negative behaviour.
Keeping cuticle scissors and a file around everywhere was key when my nails started to grow a tiny bit. I kept a pair at my desk, in my handbags, at my vanity and on my bedside table, so if I saw a ragged cuticle, I clipped it rather than gnawing at it. If there were any jagged edges, filing them to a soft round helped. I also kept a hand lotion by my hand soap, so every time I was washing, I was moisturising too.
Cuticle oil, which usually contains Vitamin E and a quick-penetrating oil like jojoba, helps to build strong and flexible nails, promoting nail growth in the process. It is absorbed into the matrix of the nail and surrounding skin, locking moisturise and those nutritive ingredients into the nail plate. Oil also has a funky taste when applied, making it a beauty twofer in this use-case. Try mixing tea tree oil or neem oil with your regular cuticle oil for a particularly bitter (yet nourishing) cocktail.
As my nails began to grow slowly, I began giving myself manicures at home. As soon as my hands were exfoliated and nails newly painted, I was incentivised to make it last as much as I could. I tried nail art too, adding stickers and glitter to my nails to make the texture even harder to bite off.
I wistfully looked at old photos of my longer nails, and tried positive self-talk to remind myself why I was on this stop-nail-biting journey again. I also saved photos of my favourite nail art designs on Instagram, promising myself I'd get them on my own nails once my tips were long and strong enough again. When all else failed, I grossed myself out by thinking about all the bacteria under my nails, which helped considerably.
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