Draft section

Nail biting, also known as Onychophagia, is the severe habit of biting someone’s nail. Now almost everyone has does this before, in fact “about half of all children between the ages 10 and 18 bite their nails at one time or another”, according to WebMD. Nail biting becomes a problem when an individual continues the habit into their later ages and causes significant nail and psychiatric damage. The psychiatric damage is not the typically definition people would think of, but more similar to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Many scientist today believe that nail biting is a spectrum of OCD in that its caused by an unnaturally strong urge to groom oneself. OCD is characterized by “persistent, intrusive, and distressing obsessions (persistent thoughts, impulses, or images) or compulsions (repetitive, excessive behaviors or mental acts)”, which basically means that a person with this disorder has strong compulsions to do whatever task makes them tick. OCD is believe to be caused by “alterations in the serotonin and dopamine signaling.” Serotonin and dopamine are both neurotransmitters found in the brain that have to do with the mood of an individual. Low levels of Serotonin has been linked to depression and dopamine is release when “something good happens unexpectedly”, such as the familiar sight of the free edge (cite what that is).

 Even though there has been no scientific evidence to back up the theory that Onychophagia is a spectrum of OCD, I find this to be the most accurate explanation of why someone, or me in this case, bites their nails. After biting my nails for a majority of my life, I have found that the sight of bitable nail causes me to have the greatest urge to just get rid of it. As my nails get longer I find myself constantly inspecting them for any excuse to bite off the free. Also the urge to masticate increases exponentially the longer my nails grow. I am not used to them being long and one day after about a week I couldn’t stop the urge to bite one nail, just one nail. The satisfaction  of biting the nail granted me a feeling of euphoria, but more importantly it got rid of my urges. However this example shows me that it will be harder than I thought to stop this habit cold turkey.