The Cambridge English Dictionary definition of a habit is: something that you do often and regularly, sometimes without knowing that you are doing it.

Merriam Webster Dictionary states a habit is: an acquired mode of behaviour that has become nearly or completely involuntary.

In the nail biting context these definitions ring so true, but only explain what a habit is, not how a habit forms.

My preferred definition of a habit is: a thought, feeling and action combination, that we’ve done so many times it has become unconscious and effortless.

This definition gives us more clarity about the process of habit creation. It intentionally puts ‘thought’ as the first part of the sequence.

For the purposes of understanding how habits form and become well established, I’m focussing here on explaining the sequence of habit creation. There are other factors that feed into our habits, but those can be explored at another time. Let’s understand how we create any habit, whether desired or undesired.

Nail biting is a well established habit, which has become unconscious and effortless.
Not everyone views nail biting as an undesired habit.
We each get to choose which of our habits we label as desired or undesired.
Those we determine are undesired habits can then be unlearned with effort and consciousness.

How a habit begins:

First we have the thought.

Your thoughts then create your feelings.

Your feelings now generate your actions or inactions.

I know it seems like we have a feeling before the thought. I too did question this back in the day, but having studied this for some time, and observed how time and again, first the thought then the feeling, plays out in the reality of our lives. It is a truth, that when we accept it, makes an intentional life so much easier to create. We are no longer simply subject to the vagaries of our emotions (feelings) with little control.

One reason 'thought before feeling' seems counterintuitive, is that in general we experience life through our feelings. We notice our feelings so much more and therefore commonly believe (incorrectly) that the feeling comes first. Second we are so often not aware of what our thoughts are, but we do experience the result of the thought via our feelings. It takes practice to capture the thoughts, which flash through our brain in a nano second. Many thoughts are also habitual, over time and repetition they too become unconscious and effortless, on a loop !
Thirdly our emotions / feelings are neurochemicals that float around our body for a while before being processed.

In my work I use the words feelings and emotions interchangeably. These are felt as an energy or vibration in our body. Our feelings are generated by a complex system of hormones, neurotransmitters and chemicals that are manufactured in our body. The manufacture of these substances generally starts with instructions from our brain. The instructions are in response to our thoughts. I am deliberately oversimplifying incredibly complex systems in order to better understand the nail biting habit.

Let’s use an example of chocolate. If I think “I’d really like a bar of chocolate” I am creating a desire. This desire is a feeling. I create an urgent desire or ‘urge’ to consume chocolate from that thought. My action is to source chocolate and eat it. Many will probably relate to this! There is also a reward for our brain in doing this - any time we satisfy an urge we get a dopamine hit.

If we only occasionally consume chocolate this will be a conscious thought process. Perhaps we are in a shop - we see chocolate, our brain has thoughts about chocolate, the thoughts create a feeling or desire to eat chocolate, we take action to buy and eat the chocolate OR choose inaction and don’t purchase or eat the chocolate. The decision not to buy or eat the chocolate is the action taken. This is an example of an occasional habit and as such is not ingrained, effortless and unconscious. If we weren’t in the shop we may not even think about wanting chocolate. Someone who has a chocolate allergy would have very different thoughts about chocolate, which would create no desire, no urge would be generated. Their thoughts would be of how ill consuming chocolate would make them.

Now let’s say as a kid I was given chocolate in my lunch box which I ate every day and had pocket money that I’d spend on additional chocolate to have at break times. I go on to start a job and everybody in the workplace eats chocolate every day. I now have a more established chocolate habit. I will probably make sure I have chocolate readily available or accessible so I can easily reach for / buy and eat chocolate. It may be that at 3pm every day I usually eat chocolate, it’s my afternoon treat and pick-me-up, so when the clock is heading to 3pm, the desire is there without me being conscious of the thought. It is only the urge I’m aware of. The thought, feeling, action pathway is now well rehearsed in my brain, it takes very little effort or energy for 3pm to occur and before I know it I’m unconsciously eating chocolate - even if I don’t want to. The trigger is 3pm rather than a conscious thought.

We see how when the thought, feeling and action are repeated many times, it becomes effortless. This has become a ‘less than conscious’ pathway, it’s become unconscious. We’re eating chocolate on autopilot.

Our human brain is very good at automating the things we do repeatedly, it uses much less effort and energy. Imagine if we had to consciously think about taking each and every step, when moving around. How many complex actions it would require us to think about to move opposing muscle groups, in sequence, whilst keeping our balance. It would seriously limit what else we could do when we are walking. It would take up large amounts of brain function, energy, focus and effort. It would limit human capacity to do much else. You only have to look at infants learning to walk to see how much effort, practice, time, frustration and energy learning to walk consumes. Imagine being stuck in that stage our whole lives? Humans would not have evolved very far if we didn’t have the capacity to automate repeated thought, feeling, action combinations. The action of walking requires a thought, then a feeling - the desire to go/move, then the action.

This automation serves us well in so many instances, but with habits that are unwanted or that we consider ‘bad’ - not so well. There are actions we take, that produce unwanted results, from these automatic behaviours. Snacking causes weight gain, sugary drinks cause tooth damage and unhealthy blood sugar levels, the weekly shopping trip for entertainment depletes our bank account, regular alcohol consumption - a fatty liver etc.

Exactly the same happens with nail biting. We can all recognise the urge feeling, the desire to bite, even if the thought is not so obvious. A thought is always what initiates the desire to nibble our nails. We may be aware of a thought such as “my nail is rough, catchy, uneven and I want to tidy it up”. The action we take in response to our feelings is to bite our nails. To non nail biters that desire is illogical - but it is the same sequence at work as in the chocolate example. Desire in someone who is an emotional eater triggers the action of eating, or in someone who has created a shopping habit, the action will be to buy something. We have patterns of response to our feelings.

This automation, which has been with us, often since infancy, is still simply a learned habit. The thoughts we had as children, which started the habit, are possible not easily identifiable. But as adults, we continue to perpetuate the habit, very often believing we are powerless to change it, because we think we don’t know why it happens. Allow yourself to believe nail biting is simply a habit - it is a thought, feeling, action combination that has been automated in our brain. We have a normal brain doing what it has evolved to do.

In the same way all the processes involved in walking have been delegated to a lower part of our brain, our nail biting habit has also been moved there, making it as unconscious and effortless as walking. The nail biting habit is totally reversible. Don’t believe what your primitive brain offers you as a reason to stay stuck - it gets a little dopamine reward when you bite your nails, so of course is it is going to urge you to keep doing it.

Whatever the thought is, whether subliminal or conscious, it creates the desire to nibble - an urge - and before we know it our unconscious action is to put our finger in our mouth. So often nail biters don’t realise how often fingers are in mouth - it is that unconscious. It has been practiced since infancy. It is a well worn groove in our brain.

However, what has been learned, can be unlearned. The first step is to raise your awareness. Start observing your actions, become more aware of feelings and discover the thoughts and beliefs you have around nail biting. Using the bitter tasting nail bite solution daily will help to raise awareness of when your fingers are in your mouth. Whenever you find your fingers are in your mouth just ask yourself what was I feeling, what was I thinking just before I noticed them there?

So many nail biters focus all their attention on changing their actions. There is no consideration given to the first parts of this definition of the habit. My work is helping you to uncover the thoughts, beliefs and feelings that are driving the action of nail biting.