“STOP BITING THOSE NAILS”…IN FIVE MINUTES

by Mark Stein

The words still echo in my head and probably always will from the endless numbers of times that my mom, dad and even my grandmother told me to stop biting for the past 34 years of my life. I’ve always wanted to stop this annoying, bad look of a habit. From the bitter apple spray to the rubber band snap on the wrist nothing has ever seemed to work for me to change the automatic response of biting my finger nails.

I write this article out of my personal experience to advocate the amazingly simple effectiveness of an NLP process that I used to stop the nail biting for good. This NLP process would be equally effective for one who wants to break the habit of picking at their nails or any other minor unwanted habit, so go ahead and adjust the directions accordingly to the specific behavior. As I write this article I have had full finger nails now for months now. Recently, I went for my first ever manicure.

The NLP “Swish Pattern” was designed to rapidly and dramatically change habits and install new automatic behavioral responses. Again, I must stress how simple of a process this is to create powerful lasting change of unwanted habits. It takes less than five minutes to do and is very flexible in as much as one can do this process for their clients or run it on themselves.

The three elements required to making the Swish Pattern break a habit is as follows:

1. There must be a cue or trigger that is dependable for setting off habit reliable behavior. In other words the question is “How do you know when it is time to bite your nails?” (For this instance it would be the looking at the hands or fingers)

2. You must be associated in this experience such as seeing your hands move towards your mouth prior to biting

3. You must link these images with submodalities of the mind’s eye which is NLP vocabulary for size, brightness, color, of the images, etc.

The process is as follows:

1. Get a picture of the habit or situation you’d like to change. (Imagine or visualize yourself biting your nails)

2. Create a picture of the more resourceful person you’d rather be. (Imagine or visualize yourself sitting there relaxed not needing and not biting your nails)

3. Change the visual intensity of the desired state. (Imagine or visualize the brightness, size, distance, etc. increasing)

4. Bring back the old picture (#1). Step into the new picture, fully associated. (Imagine or visualize yourself looking at your hand in a position ready to bring up your hand to your mouth and bite)

5. Insert in the lower left hand corner, a small, dark picture of the desired state. This is the new picture (#2)

6. 6) Simultaneously, have a picture of the current state rapidly shrink or be washed out as the new state explodes into full view. (This can be accompanied by either an internal or external SWIISSH sound, but it is not necessary. A lot of people will use the imagery of a windshield wiper blade wiping the old image with the new one. Most important is the speed of the process. Richard Bandler the founder of NLP says speed in NLP processes is everything and most readily allows the subconscious mind to grasp and hold onto the desired changes.

7. Repeat #6 a minimum of five times. Running it faster and faster each time. The process might need to be revisited and re-run a week later or perhaps periodically over time for the purposes of reinforcement on an individual basis.

Notes for running the process:

1. Close eyes during each step of the process and open them between steps.

2. Be fully associated in the old picture (#1)

3. Have detailed sensory-specific representations in the desired state such as the visual size, brightness, color, etc