Bad Habits
How to Break a Bad Habit: A Free Method and 6 Sessions to Use Alongside It
Your thumb is at your mouth before you have decided anything, and the nail is gone before you notice the thumb. Breaking the habit starts in that gap. Below is a free, well-tested method for catching it, and six recordings that give you a calm, repeatable time each day to practise.
First, is it still a habit?A habit leaves ragged nails. A disorder leaves marks: skin that bleeds, scabs that never close, scars, bald patches, hours gone, and attempts to stop that did not hold.
If that is yours, start with a person, not a recording. None of the six here is sold for a disorder. The help with evidence behind it is habit reversal training with a psychologist.
- Your usual GP first. Ask for a mental health treatment plan and a referral to a psychologist who does habit reversal, rebated under Better Access.
- Hair pulling, brows and lashes included. Trichotillomania is a recognised condition, and nothing here is sold for it. For a child, see your local doctor as soon as possible.
- A nail fold red, swollen or with pus under it. Paronychia, an infection that can spread into the hand. A GP soon, or healthdirect on 1800 022 222 for a registered nurse, 24 hours.
- A lip or cheek sore that hasn’t cleared in two weeks, or a sharp tooth doing the biting: a dentist or doctor.
Six sessions worth your time
Sorted by where your hands or teeth go — nails, lips, cheeks, skin — each one a calm, repeatable time to practise the free habit reversal method on this page.
US$18.95each · one-off · about A$27 · ninety-day refund
Find the one that fits ↓Every session is an instant MP3 from the publisher, with ninety days to change your mind. Checkout opens on hypnosisdownloads.com in a new tab.
Chosen by Ernest McLeodClinical hypnotherapist. An Adelaide practice, seeing clients across Australia by video. Fourteen years in practice. About Ernest →
If you buy one of the six, the publisher pays me a commission. Your price is the same.
Has any of this happened this week?
- A nail bitten down to the pink, noticed only when it stung
- A cuticle worked loose under the desk through a video call
- Your tongue finding the same rough ridge inside your cheek, again
- Lips peeled until orange juice stings
- A scab on your arm opened again at the traffic lights
Find your row in the table.
What is the easiest way to break a bad habit?
There isn’t an easy one, but there is a well-tested one you can start tonight. Habit reversal training teaches you to catch the first movement of the habit, then do something with the same hands that makes it impossible, like clenching a fist. For nail biting, skin picking and hair pulling, it has the best evidence of anything tried.
Bate’s 2011 meta-analysis of 18 studies found a large effect, d = 0.80, but it pools tics, stuttering and several habits. Hair pulling is firmest: Farhat’s 2020 review of 24 trials put habit reversal ahead of everything tested. Skin picking is thinner: Selles’s 2016 review found a moderate effect (g = 0.47) across all treatments in only three controlled trials, and no single treatment clearly ahead.
Where do the recordings fit?
Each of the six is a guided relaxation of 22 to 29 minutes, with suggestions aimed at the moment the habit starts. Used alongside habit reversal, it gives you a set, repeatable time each day to relax and go over that moment in your mind.
The largest recent review of hypnosis for pain (Yim and Derbyshire, 2026) compared how it was delivered and found no meaningful difference between a live clinician, a recording and self-hypnosis. That research was on pain, not on habits, but it’s the best evidence there is that a recording isn’t a second-rate version of sitting in a room with someone.
Is it a disorder, or just a habit?
Usually just a habit. It becomes a disorder when three things stack up: it damages you, you have tried more than once to stop and couldn’t, and it upsets you or costs you time, work or company. That is the DSM-5 test for hair pulling and skin picking, and clinicians use it for nails, lips and cheeks too.
Almost everybody has done one of these at some point: 97.1% of 1,481 people in Moritz’s 2024 online survey. Skin-picking disorder is far rarer, at 3.45% in Farhat’s 2023 meta-analysis. DSM-5 files nail, lip and cheek biting on the obsessive-compulsive spectrum, without criteria of their own (Sani, 2019).
So which row is yours?
Sort by where it lands and how much damage it does, not by the word you searched. Four rows end at a GP or a dentist rather than a basket, because a disorder, an infection or a dental problem needs a trained person first.
| If this is your version of it… | Start with | Who it is wrong for |
|---|---|---|
| Pulling hair from scalp, brows or lashes, with thin or bare patches | A GP, then a psychologist who does habit reversal | Not sold here |
| Skin broken most days, scabs reopened, scars, or hours lost | A GP, and a Better Access referral | Wrong for any recording as the answer |
| A nail fold red, swollen or with pus under it | A GP soon, or healthdirect on 1800 022 222 | Everybody, until it has been looked at |
| Nails bitten short, the skin around them intact | Stop Nail Biting | Wrong once that skin is torn or bleeding most days |
| Picking and peeling at nails and cuticles, not biting | Stop Nail Picking, below | Wrong once it reaches the second or third row |
| Picking at spots, scabs or bumps, nothing left open for long | Skin Picking | Wrong the moment it matches the second row |
| Chewing your lips until they peel or split | Lip Biting | Wrong if a sharp tooth is doing the biting. Dentist first |
| Biting the inside of your cheek, often the same spot | Stop Cheek Biting | Wrong for a sore older than two weeks |
| Grinding your teeth or clenching your jaw | A dentist | Not sold here |
| Two habits at once, or one not named here | Breaking Bad Habits, below | Wrong for anything in the first three rows |
What are the 7 steps to breaking a habit?
There are two, not seven. Every tested version of habit reversal comes down to awareness, catching the habit at its first movement, and a competing response, a physical action that makes the habit impossible while the urge passes. Four free ways to practise them:
- Keep a one-week log before you try to stop
Each time you catch it, note the time, the place, the hand, and what came just before. Then find the first movement: a hand drifting to your face, a tongue searching your cheek. That is awareness training.
- Give your hands a job the habit can’t share
At that first movement, clench a fist, or hold a pen or a stress ball, until the urge passes. In Ghanizadeh’s 2013 trial with 91 young nail biters, habit reversal beat a fiddle object, and 8 of the 30 in that group stopped altogether within three months. Most didn’t.
- Put something in the way
healthdirect’s self-care list for hair pulling includes plasters or tape on your fingertips and keeping hair short. Short nails buy the same second in which you notice.
- Use the trialists’ own programme, free
Moritz’s Hamburg group, behind most of the self-help trials, publishes its techniques at free-from-bfrb.org. In their 2023 trial of 268 people, six weeks of habit replacement left 52.8% rating themselves improved against 19.6% on a waitlist. Self-rated, no follow-up, and a small effect on the main measure.
Done alone, it can disappoint. In Moritz’s 2022 head-to-head, only 10% of those who finished self-help habit reversal improved by 35% or more. If you see someone, ask for habit reversal by name: in a 2026 survey of 971 people with these habits, only 13.5% had sought professional help, and around 40% of those got no evidence-based advice.
Is there really a 21-day, 21/90 or 3-3-3 rule for habits?
I found no study behind the 21-day, 21/90 or 3-3-3 rules. The trials above ran six weeks (Moritz, 2023) and three months (Ghanizadeh, 2013), and Coyne’s 2024 study of hair pulling notes that relapse after behaviour therapy stops is common. Plan for the slip, not the streak.
Six sessions, and who each one is for
US$18.95 each, about A$27. Pick by where your hands or teeth go, and use it alongside the four steps above. Ordered by the publisher’s own sales counts.
Stop Nail Biting
For nails bitten short, skin intact. The biggest seller here.
Skin Picking
Only for picking below the line in the box at the top.
Breaking Bad Habits
A general session you aim at a habit of your choosing.
Lip Biting
For chewed lips, once a dentist has ruled out a sharp tooth.
Stop Cheek Biting
For the same spot, once a dentist has checked your bite.
Stop Nail Picking
For picking nails and cuticles, not biting them.
The publisher’s self-reported lifetime purchase counts: 5,639, 3,186, 775, 546, 322 and 197, in the order above. They count purchases, not results.
What has and hasn’t been studied
No controlled trial has tested hypnosis for nail biting, skin picking, hair pulling, or lip or cheek biting. Lochner’s 2017 systematic review of skin-picking approaches names hypnosis among the proposed alternatives, then states that no randomised trials of it have been done. The published record is case reports, mostly between 1965 and 2004, mostly children who pulled their hair, usually mixed with behavioural methods.
Rosendahl’s 2024 overview covers 49 meta-analyses of hypnosis, none on a body-focused habit. The closest trial is Weidt’s 2015 study of 105 adults who pulled their hair, where plain relaxation did as well as the active self-help technique. Relaxation may help some people somewhat, though that isn’t evidence that hypnosis stops a habit.
Who are these six wrong for?
The six are made for everyday habits, below the line in the box at the top. They are wrong for anyone past that line (damage, repeated failed attempts to stop, and real distress or lost time together), or who matches one of these. For them, a GP or dentist comes first.
- Your skin is broken, bleeding or scarring most days, or you lose hours to it.
- You pull hair from your scalp, eyebrows or lashes.
- A mouth sore hasn’t cleared in two weeks, or a tooth is doing the biting.
Free and confidential, open now. Tap to call.
Common questions about breaking a habit
How do I break a bad habit like nail biting or skin picking?
Catch the first movement of the habit, then give your hands something that makes it impossible, such as a clenched fist, until the urge passes. That pairing is habit reversal training, the method with the best evidence. If there is skin damage, or you have repeatedly failed to stop, see a GP.
Is nail biting or skin picking a sign of ADHD, OCD or autism?
Not on its own. The behaviour alone can’t tell you whether ADHD, OCD or autism is part of the picture. Sitting on the obsessive-compulsive spectrum is not the same as having OCD. If other signs make you wonder, a GP is where an assessment starts.
Does hypnosis work for nail biting or skin picking?
What a recording offers is guided relaxation and a set, repeatable time to practise noticing the habit, used alongside habit reversal. Whether hypnosis itself reduces nail biting or skin picking hasn’t been tested: no controlled trial has been run, and the published record is a few case reports, most of them decades old.
How long does it take to break a habit?
There is no fixed number, and I can find no study behind the 21-day or 21/90 rules. In hair pulling, relapse after behaviour therapy ends is common. Expect weeks of practice and some slips, and judge progress by the damage going down, not by a streak of perfect days.
Can I see a psychologist about a habit under Medicare?
Often, through Better Access. Your usual GP can prepare a mental health treatment plan if they think it warranted, and refer you to a psychologist. Medicare then rebates up to 10 individual sessions a calendar year, which is not the same as free. Ask for habit reversal training by name.
Why is there no session here for hair pulling?
Because trichotillomania, hair-pulling disorder, is a recognised clinical condition, and the help with evidence behind it is behaviour therapy with habit reversal, delivered by a person. The publisher does sell a hair-pulling session. It was left off on purpose. Start with a GP.
Where these numbers come from
- Bate KS, Malouff JM, Thorsteinsson ET, et al. The efficacy of habit reversal therapy for tics, habit disorders, and stuttering: a meta-analytic review. Clin Psychol Rev. 2011;31(5):865-71. doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2011.03.013
- Farhat LC, Olfson E, Nasir M, et al. Pharmacological and behavioral treatment for trichotillomania: an updated systematic review with meta-analysis. Depress Anxiety. 2020;37(8):715-27. doi:10.1002/da.23028
- Selles RR, McGuire JF, Small BJ, et al. A systematic review and meta-analysis of psychiatric treatments for excoriation (skin-picking) disorder. Gen Hosp Psychiatry. 2016;41:29-37. doi:10.1016/j.genhosppsych.2016.04.001
- Lochner C, Roos A, Stein DJ. Excoriation (skin-picking) disorder: a systematic review of treatment options. Neuropsychiatr Dis Treat. 2017;13:1867-72. doi:10.2147/NDT.S121138
- Rosendahl J, Alldredge CT, Haddenhorst A. Meta-analytic evidence on the efficacy of hypnosis for mental and somatic health issues: a 20-year perspective. Front Psychol. 2024;14:1330238. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1330238
- Weidt S, Klaghofer R, Kuenburg A, et al. Internet-based self-help for trichotillomania: a randomized controlled study comparing decoupling and progressive muscle relaxation. Psychother Psychosom. 2015;84(6):359-67. doi:10.1159/000431290
- Grant JE, Chamberlain SR. Trichotillomania. Am J Psychiatry. 2016;173(9):868-74. doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.2016.15111432
- Moritz S, Scheunemann J, Jelinek L, et al. Prevalence of body-focused repetitive behaviors in a diverse population sample: rates across age, gender, race and education. Psychol Med. 2024;54(8):1552-8. doi:10.1017/S0033291723003392
- Farhat LC, Reid M, Bloch MH, et al. Prevalence and gender distribution of excoriation (skin-picking) disorder: a systematic review and meta-analysis. J Psychiatr Res. 2023;161:412-8. doi:10.1016/j.jpsychires.2023.03.034
- Sani G, Gualtieri I, Paolini M, et al. Drug treatment of trichotillomania (hair-pulling disorder), excoriation (skin-picking) disorder, and nail-biting (onychophagia). Curr Neuropharmacol. 2019;17(8):775-86. doi:10.2174/1570159X17666190320164223
- Ghanizadeh A, Bazrafshan A, Firoozabadi A, et al. Habit reversal versus object manipulation training for treating nail biting: a randomized controlled clinical trial. Iran J Psychiatry. 2013;8(2):61-7. PMID 24130603
- healthdirect. Trichotillomania. Canberra: Australian Government; 2024 [cited 2026 Sep 25]. healthdirect.gov.au
- Moritz S, Penney D, Missmann F, et al. Self-help habit replacement in individuals with body-focused repetitive behaviors: a proof-of-concept randomized clinical trial. JAMA Dermatol. 2023;159(9):992-5. doi:10.1001/jamadermatol.2023.2167
- Moritz S, Penney D, Ahmed K, et al. A head-to-head comparison of three self-help techniques to reduce body-focused repetitive behaviors. Behav Modif. 2022;46(4):894-912. doi:10.1177/01454455211010707
- Moritz S, Borgmann L, Rojahn KM, et al. The silent struggle: barriers, delays, and missed opportunities in the treatment of body-focused repetitive behaviors. Compr Psychiatry. 2026;149:152733. doi:10.1016/j.comppsych.2026.152733
- Coyne AF, Carlson EJ, Malloy EJ, et al. Predicting response to and relapse after treatment of trichotillomania with the Comprehensive Behavioral model (ComB). Bull Menninger Clin. 2024;88(1):81-99. doi:10.1521/bumc.2024.88.1.81
- Oakley A, Gomez J. Paronychia. DermNet NZ; 2017 [cited 2026 Sep 25]. dermnetnz.org
- healthdirect. Mouth sores and ulcers. Canberra: Australian Government; 2026 [cited 2026 Sep 25]. healthdirect.gov.au
- Better Health Channel. Mouth ulcers. Melbourne: Victorian Department of Health [cited 2026 Sep 25]. betterhealth.vic.gov.au
- Australian Government Department of Health. Better Access initiative. Canberra [cited 2026 Sep 25]. health.gov.au
- Yim TH, Derbyshire SWG. A systematic review of hypnosis for clinical pain relief. Eur J Pain. 2026;30(8):e70369. doi:10.1002/ejp.70369
Related categories
- AnxietyIf the picking climbs on tense days, start with the tension.
- Vaping and nicotineA habit with a drug in it is a dependence, with its own page.
- Does hypnosis work?Where hypnosis has been tested, and what the trials found.
Ernest McLeod — clinical hypnotherapist. An Adelaide practice, seeing clients across Australia by video. Fourteen years in practice.
- ICHP
- FELLOW, ASCH
- IICT MEMBER
Whichever way you go, start the one-week log tonight: the time, the place, the hand, and what came just before.
Ninety days to change your mind. Email the publisher your order number and they refund you in full. One refund per customer.
Results vary from person to person, and hypnosis does not replace medical care or treatment. These are self-help audio sessions, not a substitute for professional care. Broken or infected skin, hair loss from pulling, and repeated failed attempts to stop are reasons to see a GP; a mouth sore lasting over two weeks, a dentist or doctor. Never listen at the wheel.