Former (… after he was caught plagiarizing in 2011) UK journalist Johann Hari put out this Ted Talk about addiction in 2015. It has become popular and, without making any claims about his credibility, I think there is still something to draw from the idea presented here. Hari says that the opposite of addiction isn’t sobriety, it’s connection. One of my observations about body-focused, repetitive behavior (BFRB) sufferers is that they don’t feel the urge to pick, pull, or bite when they are engaged in good conversation. They also don’t feel the urge to pick, pull, or bite when they are crying or yelling. What this suggests to me - if we think of BFRBs as behavioral addictions - is that connection may be at play here too. Connection may not be limited to social interactions either - it may refer to others, but can simply be to ourselves. I tend to think of BFRBs as occurring when we are subconsciously trying to feel or find something - when we need some kind of anchor amidst uncertainty or open-endedness. BFRBs offer us a mental and/or physical focus, which we wouldn’t need if we could already locate ourselves.

Clinically, this means that if we can work on engaging ourselves in a non-hair/skin/nail-based thought, feeling, or project, it may adequately compete. We are often zoned out while we pick, pull, or bite. Research has even substantiated such links between BFRBs and dissociative phenomena (Corfield et al., 2004). The antithesis then is mindfulness or presence, and doesn’t even have to mean formal meditation. The next time you are in a BFRB episode, see if you can turn your attention to anything else in yourself or your environment - it can be a colleague’s manner of speaking in your meeting, the feel of the water as you wash dishes, or even your desire to resist your BFRB. Zeroing in on a negative possibility like pissing off your boss, for example, may trigger more discomfort —> greater instincts to avoid —> more picking, pulling, or biting. But what if this thought could exist as more than flat out rumination? Consider a situation in which you could observe yourself having this experience of worry, almost as if you are an alien studying an anxious human for the first time. See if you can get curious about the reactions it brings not only to your mind, but also your body. Allow yourself to become fascinated by the speed at which your thoughts fly, the restlessness in your hands, or the impulse to seek reassurance from a friend. You’ll find that doing something mindlessly doesn’t work once you are actually mindful.