Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with badhabits

Pain relief for nailbiting episode?

rivenwanderer — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 09:46:08 -0800

I snapped and bit my nails way too short after having kicked the habit for several months. Now all my fingertips are seriously painful. Is there any kind of ointment or something I can buy at a drug store to cut down on the pain? If not, is aspirin or an NSAID a better bet for pain reduction?

My fingertips are not actually bleeding, there's just a lot of tender skin exposed that was previously under the nails. Both the application of pressure and the skin shifting around when I bend my fingers are pretty excruciating right now. (I am totally re-quitting nail biting. Ouch.)

Help! I've fallen and I can't get up!

Anonymous — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 10:44:31 -0800

How can I change my habits? I'm a graduate student, and I am taking my PhD qualifying examinations within the next year. I am down to the wire and I need to change my habits, and they are very, very bad. Studying for the examinations will require reading a few hundred books ("reading" often means skimming, and a few months is usually all the time we have to prepare). I have made it this far, in a top ten program, by doing very very little work and playing hard to my intellectual strengths. I have excelled in the program, and no one knows the extent of my poor habits, so I can't exactly fess up. I can count on one hand the number of assigned books I have actually read. But my degree work is really important to me (yes, I promise, really), and my success in it is, too. I want to change.

The problems that have led me here are several:

1. Plain old laziness and procrastination. Because I've been able--for YEARS--to get away with doing very little and absorbing a lot, I've continued to do so. I have a set of skills that allows me to get away with this. I know hitting bottom is sometimes how people turn it around, but it hasn't happened yet, and I don't want it to. Even if I intend to do what I'm supposed to, I fuck around and don't--and get through it anyway. I am great at resolving to do things, much less so at actually doing them. And I'm great at picking a new "system" to adopt and then abandoning it. I also produce pretty good work at the last minute.

2. Depression. I have been depressed for many years, probably a combination of dysthymia and major depression. Yes, I am in treatment with a therapist and on medication. Sometimes it doesn't work. So the number of days I lose to fucking around is matched by the number I lose to being depressed.

3. Trauma. I have not had an easy time of it. In my first year of graduate school, my only living parent died. I was the executor of that parent's estate, many states away. I am still grieving, and this, too, seriously disrupted my schoolwork. Yes, I had (have) a grief counselor in addition to the therapist.

So it's not just sheer laziness. If it were, I would deserve every "get your shit together" in the world. And I know, of course, that I'd have been fired from a "real" job long ago. But that alone isn't enough.

I already know that paying serious attention to my physical well-being will be a huge help--that I need an exercise routine, a more careful diet--as will continuing with my mental-health work (therapy, medication, alternative healing). How can I make that routine work?

And really, how can I get serious about my work? How do you serial procrastinators stop yourselves in the act? How do you make a routine stick when you've been averse to one for so long? I want things to change, but sometimes it's a huge uphill climb to change them.

Throwaway email: sureillbendover@gmail.com. Please, please, please, I promise you I have done all the berating and tough love talk you feel the need to do right now. Solution-oriented advice most welcome.

Help! I'm a stuffaholic.

Metroid Baby — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 16:24:05 -0800

I’m not materialistic, just far too attached to my worldly possessions. How can I break my addiction to stuff? I have too much stuff, and I keep accumulating more. A lot of it is stuff I don’t really need: tchotchkes, clothes and accessories I rarely wear, perfume and makeup in quantities beyond what I can reasonably use. I’m both a shopaholic and a packrat, and on top of it all, I’m terribly disorganized and often can’t figure out where to even put all my stuff. I’d like to have less, but my attempts to simplify, clean things out, or stick to a budget never work out in the long run. I’ve given away countless boxes and bags full of things I don’t need, but I can never pare my belongings down to "just the essentials," and I inevitably accumulate more than enough stuff to make up for what I’ve discarded.

The thing is, I love stuff. I love getting it and I can’t bring myself to get rid of it. I’d rather go shopping than see a movie or go out drinking or read a great book. Even a visit to the supermarket has me running around like a magpie on ecstasy. Gifts with purchase, limited editions, attractive packaging, clearance racks – I’m a sucker for every marketing gimmick in the book, even though I know better. On the other hand, I’m much more hesitant to follow through with purchasing things I truly need: I can’t bring myself to spend $100 on a digital camera, even if I really want it, but I can drop the same amount of money on glittery makeup or yarn without much thought or regret.

Part of my immense pile of stuff stems from my creative nature. Nearly all of my hobbies have been hands-on, crafty things: I knit, crochet, draw, and dabble in several other crafts. I’m comfortable with having a large stash of art supplies if I know I’ll use them – I’m not a planner and like to have a bunch of different things on hand for inspiration. On the other hand, my stash grows faster than I can tackle it, and it gives me a too-easy excuse to make impulse purchases, and hang on to things longer than necessary, because "I know I’ll find something cool to do with this!!"

The bigger reason, I suspect, is that most of the objects I buy and own greatly appeal to my senses. They either look interesting, smell good, or are soft to the touch. I can spend a surprising amount of time experimenting with my dozens of colors of eyeshadow or sniffing all of my perfumes. (Does this make me weird?) I also have a very short attention span with my things: I will love the fragrance of one soap today, but in a week I’ll find a soap that I think smells even better. I can’t imagine accessorizing in neutrals or sticking to one signature scent for years. I wonder if the solution may involve finding another way to stimulate my senses, but I can’t imagine what a good substitute would be.

I have a feeling that I could successfully curb my impulse buying and finally get organized if I could just get over my attachment to all my stuff. Or is it the other way around - should I tackle the clutter and the budget first? Either way, I don’t know what to do to change, or if it’s even possible. How can I learn to be happier with less?

Seasons change, but people don't??

srrh — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 19:26:17 -0800

How can a compulsive liar change their ways? Someone very dear to me is, and has been as long as I have known him, a chronic compulsive liar. He has a good heart, and doesn't usually ever set out to hurt anyone. However, he has, literally, a compulsion to lie. Even simple questions, like who he has gone to lunch with, are often met with fabrications, and he can't articulate the reasons he does this.

A lot of the things he lies about do make more sense though -- rather than ever risk any discomfort or worrying anyone or hurting their feelings, he will make up something, even to those he loves and cares about the most.

However, he is committed to changing. He has been in counseling since February, which seemed to help temporarily, but he has fallen back into old habits. Things have come to a head for him recently because of his lying problem, and he knows he really does have to change now. He is struggling though. How can someone change a habit like this that is so ingrained, and also so hurtful to those around them? Any MeFites with advice?

How to break bad behaviors

drezdn — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 11:31:40 -0800

How do I break behaviors that I've been doing for years? I'm messy. I have trouble staying focused on task. I spend too much money. Each of these behaviors have been troubling me for years (I've been messy since I was very very young). What's the best way to break out of these habits?

Is my throat abnormally suggestible?

kittyprecious — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 19:29:47 -0800

Why is it that I feel nauseated when I hear other people rattle their phlegm (you know, that pre-loogie sound), but my own throat feels somehow "better" when I hear someone else clearing his?

The quest for happy, healthy, hard-working hands

schroedinger — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 11:21:00 -0800

PromoteSafeVolunteeringFilter. I would like to start volunteering regularly at an AIDS hospice. My nails and cuticles are an ugly, bloody mess from a pretty bad nail-and-cuticle biting habit. It hasn't bothered me until now; but even with the double-layer of gloves I wear while doing the cleaning, the nuns who run the place have pointed out this is not a good situation for the patients or myself. How do I make my hands healthy and keep them that way in as short a time as possible? Details: I don't bite or pick out of anxiety. It's more boredom and a desire to see those extra bits of skin sticking out removed, whatever the cost. I've half-heartedly tried nail polish in the past but the bitterness doesn't deter me, and I've bought and lost more nail clippers than I can remember. Anyway, it seems like the ripped-up skin appears whether or not I'm biting it.

Even when all the bloody bits do close up I don't know how to take care of my hands. How does one file one's nails, exactly? When a little bit of skin starts coming off the side of your finger, what do you do with it? What the heck are those cuticle-pushing thingies and what are they there for?

I am poor and the cost of a manicure or expensive beauty products (>$10) are out of the question until I can comfortably afford food, heating, and rent.

Fingernail Biting

Anonymous — Sun, 06 Feb 2005 12:35:58 -0800

How do I stop myself from biting my fingernails? I'm in my twenties now and this habit is really injurious to my self-esteem (and probably my health, too). Every so often I'll remove so much that my fingers are sore for a few days and once or twice I've drawn blood. I can stop for up to about a week, but inevitably I succumb in a moment of distracted agitation, and the habit returns. (Answers amounting to "stop being nervous!" are not especially welcome.)