every so often I’ll decide to stop biting my nails and I can devote lots of mental energy to stop myself whenever I see it starting up again. On a really stressful day though, I can’t devote that energy and I wind up chewing them off again. Usually I stay on this wagon for a few weeks before I can re-dedicate myself to the non-nail biting mental effort. On the whole though, stop biting my nails is not that all that difficult, the problem is to be consistent about it.
It’s difficult to start doing things when the path of least resistance still takes a lot of mental energy. Checking lesswrong is easy, reading science papers for class is hard. Having a goal (not failing class the next day) is a big help though.
every so often I’ll decide to stop biting my nails and I can devote lots of mental energy to stop myself whenever I see it starting up again. On a really stressful day though, I can’t devote that energy and I wind up chewing them off again. Usually I stay on this wagon for a few weeks before I can re-dedicate myself to the non-nail biting mental effort. On the whole though, stop biting my nails is not that all that difficult, the problem is to be consistent about it.
It’s difficult to start doing things when the path of least resistance still takes a lot of mental energy. Checking lesswrong is easy, reading science papers for class is hard. Having a goal (not failing class the next day) is a big help though.
There are bitter nail polishes to help people stop thumb-sucking or nail-biting. Have you tried that?