Compulsive nail-biting, skin-picking, hairpulling, and lip- and cheek-biting are among a range of body-focused repetitive behaviours, or BFRBs, that can become a source of distress, but new research may offer hope for relief.
While many people may have one of these habits in a minor form, for a smaller but still significant number of people the behaviour can cause visual skin damage — such as bald patches, scars, sores and lesions — and affect their mental health, said Steffen Moritz, head of clinical neuropsychology in the department of psychiatry and psychotherapy at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf in Germany.
While often misperceived as minor, these repetitive behaviours in some extreme cases can become life-threatening. Cases of sepsis, a severe reaction to an infection, have been linked to skin-picking. And hairpulling and eating have led to severe stomach problems with fatal complications. BFRBs can be automatic, when watching television or studying, or more intentional — for example when standing in front of a mirror.
The habit replacement technique Moritz and his colleagues devised involves softly stroking your skin in a number of different ways: circling the index and middle finger, tapping the middle and index fingers against the thumb, crossing arms and stroking the forearms, circling fingertips on the palm of your other hand, among others. If you're especially worried about picking skin, you can circle your clothes instead of touching your body directly.
In the study, Moritz recruited 268 people with BFRBs — include participants exhibiting skin-picking, trichotillomania, nail-biting, and lip- and cheek-biting behaviours — who were between ages 18 and 80. Half the group was given a manual describing the technique devised by Moritz and his team, while the others were told they were on a waitlist for the same program.
"We do not know how sustained the effect is," Moritz said. "We did not do any proper face-to-face assessment," he added, explaining that many sufferers don't want to seek help from a medical practitioner.
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