Nervousness

We all have nerves sometimes:

• The sweaty palm handshake at a high-profile business meeting…
• The heart-thumping call to ask the girl of your dreams out on a date…
• Warily watching your son climb a jungle gym ladder higher than your supporting arms can reach…

But when one’s nervousness spawns a repetitive habit of biting, picking, or generally harming oneself, there’s a problem that needs to be confronted and dealt with.

Repetitive behavior such as picking, biting, chewing the skin and fingers is frequently meant to soothing the nerves. Compulsive finger pickers, for example, often report feeling better when they pick. The ritual action of picking sooths the nerves and reduces levels of stimulation.

On the other side of nervousness is boredom — which can also provide impetus to pick, bite and chew the skin or fingers. In this case, the behavior serves to stimulate the nervous system when there just “isn’t enough action” going on. Parents or caretakers of small children sometimes experience this — as lovely and cute as kids can be, the boredom of care taking for hours on end can lead to a compulsive picking habit, just to while the time away.