With most physical habits, the underlying causes might be quite varied, and at different psychological levels. Although hypnosis has a wide range of uses, the behaviors that are most directly related to physical habits are usually the ones that can be treated with hypnosis most quickly and directly. Smoking cessation hypnosis is the most well known of these, and is among the more successful and less invasive techniques for reaching its goal. Another common area for hypnosis treatment is for weight reduction. Similarly, hypnosis is also the most effective technique for conquering the nail biting habit.

Nail biting shares many similarities to smoking. Both are ritualistic, physical habits. Either might be caused by the mechanics of a physical routine, or might perhaps be symptomatic of deeper psychological root causes. In either case the habit itself can be very effectively stopped with hypnosis.

Discovering and treating underlying psychological problems, which manifest themselves in nail biting or smoking can be a process that requires several sessions with a skilled hypnotherapist. However, not all hypnotists and hypnotherapists are capable of performing at the deep psychological level. Thankfully, for the purposes of ending a nail biting or a smoking habit, they are not required to work below the most direct physical level.

The immediate goal of finding a nail biting cure is much more straightforward. Many of our deeper emotional and psychological states are influenced by our physical state, so in solving physical symptoms directly, we are also able to indirectly impact deeper issues. In addition, not all negative physical habits have underlying causes; sometimes it is merely just a physical habit; and it "feels" good for the person to take part in them.

I have seen that the relaxed and focused state of hypnosis can have extraordinary results when used in causing simple physical state changes. Whenever I eliminate severe burn pain, remove nausea, and relieve other physical conditions for a client in mere seconds, it still surprises and amazes me, even though I'm supposedly the one with the "power" (although as we know, the real power exists in the client's unconscious mind). Our minds have the capacity to block out severe nausea and pain; so the ability to prevent one from nail biting is a relatively modest goal in comparison.

I have found three of the most powerful hypnotic techniques to be anchoring, substitution and association. With association, one can link a negative behavior to something very unpleasant; with substitution, one can replace the bad habit with a harmless one; with anchoring, one can link physical movement triggers with alternative feelings and behaviors.

With association, just like the simple hypnosis trick can make a slice of white bread taste like the best New York Cheesecake to a subject, one can make the feeling and taste of nail biting to be extremely distasteful. If your subject is repeatedly conditioned to believe that the taste and feel of nail biting is extremely unpleasant, it will help eliminate the habit.

There are chemical products that achieve this goal via unpleasant tasting nail polish. However, with a mental association they can stop nail biting without depending upon consistently applying a chemical product. This "aversion" type of therapy generally isn't extremely helpful. But it is reliable only when used as an adjunct to eliminating stress that causes one to bite their nails, as well as extinguishing conditioned responses (unconscious associations), which triggers one to bite their nails.

Using substitution, it can be very effective to replace the nail-biting habit with a more benign pattern. For example, it is quite effective to place the suggestion that whenever one feels the impulses that lead them towards nail biting, they will instead take a deep breath, and exhale slowly, achieving all the satisfaction and resolution that nail biting used to bring. I have found the deep breathing substitute to be very effective for a wide range of issues.

Similarly, anchoring can be used to subvert one action into a different one, and works well in combination with the association and substitution. It is useful to create the suggestion that each and every time subjects see their fingers coming to their mouth, they vividly remember the bad taste association, and that they instead take that deep breath to resolve the tension.

In summary, hypnosis has long been recognized as one of the more successful techniques for negative behavior modification. Just as with smoking cessation, the concepts and techniques discussed here prove to be extremely successful as a long-term nail-biting solution.