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More than a habit? When to worry about nail biting, skin picking and other body-focused repetitive behaviours

Nail-biting, nose-picking, mouth-chewing, skin-picking, hair-pulling – we all do some of them, some of the time. Some normal grooming behaviours help maintain good hygiene (such as picking at a dirty finger nail) and appearance (plucking that pesky grey hair). But when do these normal behaviours become bothersome habits? And when do these habits become psychological disorders? Habits are stable, repetitive behaviours that occur automatically, without much thought. They’re stable in that, once established, they can be difficult to break. Body-focused repetitive behaviours, like those described earlier, are quite common. In one study, up to 24% of US college students reported performing some…

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  HabitAware

HabitAware's mission is to create resources, connect with, and raise awareness for those still learning to manage their Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors. We are humbled to be a for voice for those that are not yet ready to speak out on how these disorders affect their lives.

 Your Guide to Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors (BFRBs)

Nail biting, skin picking, and hair pulling. What do they all have in common? They’re all Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors (BFRBs). Up until the past few years, people weren’t talking about BFRBs. Hair pullers were in one corner and skin pickers were in another. This umbrella term has grouped people with similar self-grooming behaviors together. With this new classification system, it’s important for those of us who live with BFRBs or support people with BFRBs to understand what exactly is a “Body-Focused Repetitive Behavior.”

Articles of Interest

Bracelets That Help Kick Bad Habits

Aneela Idnani hid her stress-induced hair pulling for 20 years. “I thought I was weird. I thought I was alone,” Idnani says. “I didn’t want people to think lesser of me.” That feeling was exacerbated once she and her husband started looking for ways to control her habit and couldn’t find any user-friendly options. So she founded a company, HabitAware, to create one. Its flagship product: Keen, a sleek, smart $149 bracelet that users program to pick up on repetitive motions, such as hair pulling, skin picking or nail biting. Keen vibrates when it catches users in the act

Here’s When Hair-Pulling, Skin-Picking, or Nail-Biting Becomes a Disorder

You’re not alone if you find some “bad” habit weirdly satisfying: freeing an ingrown hair, plucking a stray gray, popping a pimple, gnawing off a pesky hangnail, or whatever else you might do in the privacy of your home (and maybe other places, too) Even if you know it’s probably not the best for you, you might derive some satisfaction from this habit all the same. What you may not know is that when done often enough and in a way that causes harm, these habits can actually be what experts call body-focused repetitive behaviors (or BFRBs).

Inside the Nightmarish Body Habit Disorders That Affect ‘One in 50 People’

We all have habits that we find difficult to stop. Some of us chew the ends off pens, others spend real human money on Candy Crush. Neither of those are great, but at least they’re relatively harmless. Some of us, however, aren’t so lucky. Some of us bite our nails to the point that the skin on each finger is always in a state of bleeding or scabbing over, and each nail is only a millimeter long.

She Kept Her Condition Secret for Decades, Then Bared It All Online

Millions of people compulsively pick their skin or pull their hair. Social media is helping some of them to recover.

What are Body Focused Repetitive Behaviors?

"Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors (BFRBs) include any repetitive self-grooming behavior that involves biting, pulling, picking, or scraping one’s own hair, skin, or nails that results in damage to the body and have been met with multiple attempts to stop or decrease the behavior and cause notable distress or impairment to the individual’s daily functioning and is not better accounted for by a medical condition, substance use, or other psychiatric disorder," says Dr. Marla Deibler, PsyD, licensed clinical psychologist and executive director at The Center for Emotional Health.

What is a BFRB?

Body-focused repetitive behaviors (BFRBs) include any repetitive self-grooming behavior that involves biting, pulling, picking, or scraping one’s own hair, skin, lips, cheeks, or nails that can lead to physical damage to the body and have been met with multiple attempts to stop or decrease the behavior.

When hair-pulling, skin-picking and nail-biting becomes a serious disorder

You’re not alone if you find some “bad” habit weirdly satisfying: freeing an ingrown hair, plucking a stray grey, popping a pimple, gnawing off a pesky hangnail, or whatever else you might do in the privacy of your home (and maybe other places, too) Even if you know it’s probably not the best for you, you might derive some satisfaction from this habit all the same.

Resources

9 Tips for Managing a Body-Focused Repetitive Behavior From People Who Have Them

Keep in mind that BFRBs are highly personalized habit disorders, so what works for one person may not work for you. That said, if any of these tips do seem promising to you, try sticking with it long enough for it to truly become a habit.

BFRB Changemakers

Hope & healing for individuals struggling with Trichotillomania, Skin Picking and other Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors.

BFRB Su[pport

BFRB Support is an effective, volunteer-run charitable organisation offering valuable information directed at managing BFRBs positively. Read our pages and contact us for encouragement to increase pick free time. It can be difficult to stop skin picking or hair pulling, but it doesn’t always have to be. We’re not offering cures or potions, but we can provide the key to recovery for many people, along with the support to continue long-term.

TLC Foundation for BFRBs

The TLC Foundation for Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors is a health-related human services organization dedicated to supporting the 1-in-20 individuals experiencing body-focused repetitive behaviors (BFRBs) through advocacy, awareness, connection, health education, celebration, and equitable access to effective evidence-based treatments.

Psychology Today

The prevalence of BFRBs is estimated to be at least 3 percent of the population, affecting both children and adults.