We all have had that friend who keeps biting their nails. Many do it without even thinking and it happens subconsciously. Psychologists have found that anxiousness, stress, and habitual practice could lead to such nail biting. While most of us think that nail biting is harmless, doctors think otherwise. Read on to learn how nail-biting could cause harm to you.
Nail biting could cause damage to your teeth
Nail biting creates a temporary but strong force on the teeth that impacts the root of the teeth. Each biting leads to a big force that gets applied to the teeth and the surrounding gum. While one such bite may be harmless, doing so regularly could weaken your teeth.
Ingestion of germs
Evolution has given us and other animals nails because it is useful in the day to day activities. In the modern world, nails help us to open bottle caps, and scratch that itch, and sometimes they help us to make a piercing impact. All these activities lead to germs accumulating inside our nails. When one bites their nails, these germs get ingested and get directly into your stomach.
Getting sick
Sometimes germs within the nails could also be viruses or bacteria obtained from different infected sources and can get into your respiratory system which otherwise would not be ingested. So there's a higher possibility of getting sick with biting your nails.
Nails can get infected
When nail biting leads to blood on your nail tips, it can most likely lead to infection. It is always preferable to use a nail cutter to cleanly cut your nails.
Stomach upsets
The dirt between your nails accumulated for days and weeks together. If you kept your handkerchief outside on a dirt road for a week, would you use it again on your face? The dirt inside your nails could be compared to such. There could also be toxins in the dirt that could upset your stomach and cause danger to your digestive system.
These are some of the ways nail biting could be dangerous to you and your health.