Do you bite your nails or crack your knuckles? These kinds of activities are usually described as nervous habits. They may be harmless and do not cause any real physical damage to the individual who engages in these habits. But they tend to disturb the people around them because such actions are considered gross.
So, how does one put a stop to such repetitive habits that annoy people? Well, a new study from German scientists suggests the answer might actually be quite simple. It involves lightly rubbing fingertips together or rubbing the palm or back of the arm. If you do this only two times a day, the study which was published in JAMA Dermatology says you might just be able to put an end to this bad behavior.
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The randomized clinical trial was conducted online in 2022. Participants were a population-based nonclinical sample with BFRBs and were recruited via social media. Initially, 481 individuals entered the assessment; 213 were excluded blind to results. A final sample of 268 participants were randomized. The intervention period was 6 weeks.
In their conclusions, the researchers stated that the present proof-of-concept randomized clinical trial tentatively demonstrates that habit replacement is a feasible and effective self-help strategy against BFRBs, especially for nail biting. Study limitations include the lack of external assessment and verified diagnoses. In addition, the study is missing follow-up data. Self-help habit replacement shows promise in reducing BFRBs but not concomitant symptoms.
The lead study author is Steffen Moritz, head of the clinical neuropsychology working group at University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, in Hamburg, Germany. “The rule is just to touch your body lightly,” he said. “If you’re under stress, you might perform the movements faster, but not with more self-applied pressure.”
“I would say one-third to half of the patients with BFRB [body-focused repetitive behavior] benefit from decoupling, but the rest do not,” Moritz added. “And so the idea was to find another technique that is perhaps more suitable for these non-responders.”
Natasha Bailen, a clinical psychologist at the Center for OCD and Related Disorders at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, told NBC News, “they might involve, for example, clenching your fists really tight when you have an urge to pull your hair or pick your skin. It might be sitting on your hands.”
