DURING the past two weeks, I have received an alarming number of emails from readers who have shared that they have developed new and what they believe to be unhealthy habits.

There were many different habits mentioned — nail-biting, tapping/shaking feet and cracking knuckles etc. While these may seem like three completely different topics, they all have something vital in common — they are all considered nervous habits. Therefore, I will talk about nervous habits in general, what may cause them, what they subsequently cause and how to overcome them.

Nervous habits are simply things that we do when we feel uncomfortable, anxious or scared. Sometimes, we do not even know that we are doing it as it becomes so common, repetitive and involuntary. Other than the aforementioned, nervous habits also include hair twirling or pulling, grinding/clenching teeth, speaking fast, chewing on things such as pen covers, etc. They mostly happen when we are not comfortable in the current situation or worse if we are not comfortable in our own skin.

These and other nervous habits are typically caused by fear, stress, anxiety or a lack of self-confidence and are basically unhealthy ways of coping with stress. Why are they unhealthy? Because they cause additional problems that tend to worsen the overall anxiety which caused the habits in the first place. It’s a cycle not unlike drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes.
Fingernail biting is one of the most common nervous habits.

It may seem harmless but actually poses threats such as grinding down of teeth, inflammation and paronychia, which is a skin infection surrounding the nail. A common method people use to decrease this is coating the nails with substances that are unpleasant to taste. For example, aloe vera or limacol. A fresh manicure often helps as well. If you have a severe case, severe measures such as latex gloves or band-aids on the nails have been known to be effective.

Shaking of the leg is something I often do — every time I’m irritated and running out of patience, or just simply feel out of place. It’s not even something that I notice anymore; I only do when someone asks “why is the desk shaking?” or when my friends observe and actually put their hand on my leg to stop it from shaking. I never considered it a problem, but when a reader asked me to help her stop this specific habit, I started to pay more attention to my own shaking. I don’t necessarily think that the action itself causes any harm, but I am confident that it doesn’t decrease the current state of anxiousness — it most likely exacerbates it.

I have been trying all week to decrease it and a few things have worked for me. The most effective was crossing my legs– this made me physically unable to shake. If you do not like crossing your legs and feel like more of a challenge, deep breathing also helped me. I breathed in through the nose for four seconds and out through the mouth for eight seconds. This helped calm my entire body and therefore stopped the shaking.

Cracking knuckles is also a very common nervous habit to relieve stress. However, this too comes with harms. It is controversial, but many studies do show that over-cracking of the knuckles makes you more susceptible to impaired hand function and arthritis. Keeping your hands busy has been known as an effective way to decrease this. For example, try to always keep a pen in your hand at work etc. Make it fun by learning how to twirl the pen between your fingers.

The rubber band method has also been successful with this. Keep a rubber band around your wrist at all times while attempting to quit. When you feel like cracking your knuckles, snap the rubber band on your hand. It stings, but that’s the point. This allows for an association between stinging pain and knuckle-cracking. Come to think about it, I believe this method can also be used to quit nail-biting.

If you have attempted and been successful at decreasing these nervous habits, please reward yourself accordingly.

The truth is, learning how to quit these habits are secondary. Your primary focus should be what causes these nervous habits in the first place. Again, more often than not, they are caused by stress, nervousness, fear and anxiety. There are a few things we can do. We can adopt healthier coping strategies, we can practise better time management and we can work daily to improve our self-confidence.

Coping skills
As covered before in a few articles, coping skills refer to how we deal with the stress in our lives. For example, if we had a bad day at work, an unhealthy way of coping would be to do any of the above, while a healthy one would be to find a replacement such as reading or going to the gym. It’s simple in words– we stop practising the ones that we do and start practising new ones. However, it is difficult in action; it requires a lot of work and repetition to form a new habit. Think of new and healthy habits that were recommended and decide which one is right for you.

Time management
It must be known that most stress may come from a lack of time management. We feel very stressed/ anxious when we have a lot of things to do and not enough time to do them. This can include anything from homework to taking care of the family. Everyone has the same 24 hours in a day, but some people get a lot more done than we do. Sometimes, it’s not that we have too much to do, but rather we are not managing our time properly.

The basics of time management are to properly plan what you have to do and suitably organise the time to do it. What happens when we fail to practise time management or use our time productively? We are not able to complete our work on time, we produce poor quality of work or miss deadlines all together- all of which lead to trouble and feeling stressed.

Here are a few ways to better manage your time.
Write everything down and tick everything off as you accomplish them. This is called visual progression and it naturally increases both motivation and productivity. Keep an appointment/scheduling book. This helps to plan ahead and therefore is a great preventative measure of minimising stress. When working, put all technology aside. These gadgets are a huge distraction to our current and future generations. Don’t have your cellphone near you, the television on, Facebook open etc. – setting aside proper, uninterrupted time will ensure the highest level of productivity.
Which one will work for you? Add your own techniques in! Remember that being busy isn’t the same as being productive.

Self-confidence.
I believe building your self-confidence is a lot like wanting and trying to lose weight. It seems as if it’s not in your control because you’ve tried and failed many times. However, it is actually in your control– it’s just that the motivation to do what is necessary is low, because of how you already feel. It’s almost like a cycle of misery.
I, myself, have suffered from low self-confidence and below are some strategies that helped me to overcome that. None of them is revolutionary — they are quite simple but also effective if practised often.

There is the obvious one of making ourselves look good on the outside. This is not as superficial as it seems. When we do things that make us feel and look good on the outside, we internalise that feeling. We start to feel good on the inside, which automatically improves our mood, thinking processes and productivity.
Replace your negative self-talk with positive ones. I write about the importance of this all the time. We are much harder on ourselves than we are on other people. I get that this can make us stronger, but it can also damage our self-esteem. ‘Be careful what you are saying to yourself because you are listening.’

Be charitable — being generous with your resources and time will allow you to build your self-image and feelings of self-worth. It always feels good to help someone.
Recognise (not obsess over) your faults and the small, daily things that need improving. I have two of these — I have really bad posture and I speak really fast. People I really care about and respect have commented on these things, which of course affects my self-esteem. Therefore, I make an effort to improve them every day. I stand tall and speak as slowly and clearly as possible.

Set small goals every day, especially if you have big ones to attain. As an example, if losing weight or quitting cigarettes are on your list of goals, those are hard places to start. It takes time and multiple attempts which lowers feelings of self-worth. Start by setting smaller goals every week, with the intention of reaching your larger, overall goal. For example, cutting down your number of cigarettes per day or cutting something specific out of your diet. Once you achieve these weekly, your self-confidence will build to achieve higher goals.

Finally, empower yourself with knowledge and be prepared for everything you need to do. Increasing feelings of competency go hand in hand with self-confidence.
My take-away message is to remember that we will always deal with some level of stress/nervousness at one point or another, which is good. If we never experience any stress, it simply means we are not challenging ourselves enough or living up to our potential. So, appreciate stress but at the same time, know your limit and how to subsequently minimise it.
Does anyone have any other nervous habits they would like to speak about? Write in and let me know!

Thank you for reading. Please keep sending any topics you’d like to talk about to caitlinvieira@gmail.com . If you would like personal counselling sessions, contact me on +592 623 0433
Suicide Prevention Helpline numbers: 223-0001, 223-0009, 623-4444, 600-7896

Say Yes to Life and No to Drugs! Always