United News of Bangladesh

Whether it’s a bad habit or the memory of something or somebody, letting go is always hard. However, with the right plan, strong determination and emotional discipline, you can make a change in a short period, like three to four weeks. If guided with definite purpose and a proper mindset, a human mind can be adaptive. Even though the attachment is deep or the habit is stubborn, it will start to lose its grip. Here’s how you can get rid of a habit or forget an individual within 21 to 30 days. Tips for Leaving a Habit or Forgetting a Person within a Month . Recognising Attachment Attachment is the common link, whether you have formed a habit over a certain period or allowed a person to play a pivotal role in your life. Usually, such attachments tend to fill a psychological or emotional void, like identity crisis, aspiration for validation, stress relief, loneliness, etc. Once you have found out the habit or person’s contribution in your life, you have reached the first step of letting go. Understanding the attachment’s underlying need, like convenience, habit, routine, security, connection, etc., you can start overpowering it. Now you can utilise this awareness to replace the habit or person with something healthier or someone better. Read more: How to Recognise Your Emotional Red Flags Disrupting Pattern  Habits and emotional connections often follow a pattern. For instance, a smoker often tends to light a cigarette after having a meal; you check social media after waking up. Each habit is formed over a neural pathway. To break this, one should disrupt the routine or ambience which helps the attachment to thrive. Cognitive distance can be created by reordering the schedule, altering surroundings, or opting for a different route. New attachments can help your brain to leave a regular behaviour. It can be done by bringing tiny but consistent changes. Though you may not be able to forget someone or doing something overnight, it will weaken the urge or inclination over time. Out of Sight Out of Mind When one is trying to quit a habit like sugar consumption, one should not store cakes in the refrigerator. Avoiding the purchase and storage of the sugary foods will help one to break the cravings. Rather than testing one’s willpower, the out-of-sight trick will take the sugary food out of mind. What’s more, it's the first step to drop an unhealthy habit. Instead of making the ambience painful, make it your ally to change a habit.  The same applies to mental attachments. Emotional detachment requires space. When one tries to forget a person, one should remove the reminding triggers like exchanged gifts, shared music playlists, couple photos, social media connections, etc. This step does not make one selfish or in denial; rather, it creates space for disconnection. Read more: How to Improve Focus by Training the ‘Attention Muscle’ Relearn to Unlearn Faster The process of relearning makes it fast to unlearn. The human brain acts like a vacuum, which needs something to focus on. Whether one is trying to leave a habit or forget a person, one should find a more interesting replacement. For instance, to avoid a sedentary lifestyle habit, one can opt for a new routine that includes mindfulness and learning, like going to the gym, learning new workouts, adopting fitness routines, etc.  Grabbing a new sustainable habit or adopting a healthier lifestyle fills the emotional vacuum. This mental space gives one a sense of personal development, improvement, and success. Thus, one can bit by bit learn to thrive without the habit or person one had an attachment with. Know the Hurdle The first two-week period is usually the hardest while you are trying to let go of a habit or a person. Your brain will react, whether you are avoiding nicotine or missing someone's phone or messages. You may experience anxiety, sadness, stress, cravings, chest pain or other physical symptoms. This is biology, not failure. You have to accept this pain and discomfort as a part of the process. To overcome this period, one can talk to an empathetic friend or maintain a journal. By tracking one’s mental status, failures, and victories, one can create self-awareness and emotional detachment from the habit or person one wishes to remove from one’s life. Besides this, to ease your journey, remember why you want to do this by writing it on a paper and repeating it like a resolution. Read more: Good Stress: What Are the Benefits of Eustress? Make a Commitment  You may pick a three-week or four-week window to reach your goal. Though this short period may not remove a habit or erase all feelings, it is a strong foundation. Research suggests that a consistent effort can help one overcome the emotional or physical pull towards something or somebody. Counting each day and setting daily intentions can keep your determination strong. For example, one can divide the time window into days instead of seeing it as a fixed period of time. By reaching tiny and attainable goals every day, one can make the struggle less stressful. Thus, success can be achieved through piecemeal victories. Visualise Your Future When one understands that letting go means regaining control over oneself rather than losing something precious. When one aims to drop a habit that is unhealthy or forget a person who no longer complies with one’s well-being, one is protecting one’s future self. Visualising the independent, focused, and progressive version of yourself, your hardship aligns with healing instead of longing. Conclusion  The process of letting go is incremental; it doesn’t act like a switch. The idea of getting rid of a habit or forgetting someone completely in three or four weeks may sound ambitious. To be honest, some emotional urges may exist beyond the 30-day period. But a four-week time window is quite reasonable to start, to weaken the hold, and to regain one's emotional control. Thus, you allow life to continue in healthier, better, freer and more peaceful ways than before. The process wants you to be patient, disciplined, and self-compassionate. On the whole, when you are fully determined to drop a habit or forget a person in 21 days or 30 days, you will discover the attachment is fading away gradually. Read more: 15 Japanese Concepts for Personal and Professional Development

Nail-biting is a common issue in school-age children and teens. It is generally very common at puberty. It is annoying as well as problematic for their health. When children feel more stressed, it may happen. But like other habits such as thumb sucking, teeth grinding, hair twisting, and nose picking, it usually goes away on its own with time. But what if it doesn’t? Check out here some proven ways to help children to stop biting their nails. What is Nail-biting? Nail-biting, known as ‘onychophagia’ is a general stress-relieving habit. Children may bite their nails in times of stress or excitement, or in times of boredom or inactivity. Sometimes, they learn this behavior from family members. But they may bite their nails without realizing that they are doing it. Biting the cuticle and soft tissue surrounding the nail as well as biting the nail itself usually includes nail-biting.  Read Benefits of Pets for Kids: Why Raising Children around Livestock? Common Causes of Nail Biting in Children Research has shown that about 30% to 60% of kids and teens bite their nails.  Various reasons are responsible for nail-biting in children like anxiety, stress, boredom, and comfort. Common reasons include:  For Comfort Actually, nail-biting is a modified form of thumb-sucking that little kids feel comfortable doing when they are playing or being on their own. Like them, children and teenagers bite their nails as it feels comforting to them. Read: Organ Donation by Living Donor: Which organs can be donated while alive? Boredom Kids prefer to bite their nails if they feel bored or doing something monotonous. Children and teenagers may do it when they are not involved in an activity and their hands are free; during watching TV or attending a class. To Relieve Anxiety and Stress Circumstances at home or school that can cause stress or anxiety provoke nail-biting in teenagers and children. The stressful situations that can cause them to get anxious include Quarrels between family members or parents; Deprivation of a family member or a close one; Divorce; Relocating to a new city or home; Joining a new school; Getting bullied by other kids; Punishment; and The pressure to do better in class or sports. Read Panic Attacks: Symptoms, Causes, Remedies, and Treatment Imitating Habits of Others Children pick up the behaviors of others quickly. Nail-biting is one such behavior that is common, and when they see another sibling or a family member doing it, they imitate the habit. Genetics It can be a genetic habit also. This habit develops among those children who experience it in the family, especially in parents.  Read Baby Massage: Know the Pros, Cons, Safety Issues of Infant Spa Dangers and Health Risks of Nail Biting Habit If this habit simply wears itself out and disappears, there is nothing serious to worry about. But, sometimes it creates dangerous health risks for your child. It could negatively affect your child’s social relationships or interfere with their daily functioning. You will notice that sometimes your child complains that other children are teasing them about their bitten nails. The noticeable health risk is that it can lead to painful ingrown nails or nail infections caused by bacteria that have entered the damaged skin around the nail. Not common but chronic nail biters usually, adolescents can damage their nail beds and teeth. This is known as onychophagia. Severe nail-biting is an indication of anxiety. Read Benefits of hobbies: Ways to help your child find a hobby Proven Ways to Stop Nail Biting in Children A sturdy dose of self-control is necessary to stop any habit. But in the case of a child who bites their nails, you need to increase self-control — yours plus theirs. Here are proven strategies to help:  Pacify Anxiety If you feel your child bites his nails more when he or she is stressed or anxious, take time to talk to him. Children as well as teenagers are generally anxious about matters like changing schools, moving to a different place, or conflicts within the family. Make sure you talk with him when he is in the right mood. Read Mild Autism: How to identify a child who is slightly autistic? Cut nails short Your toddler can not bite nails if they are not there.  So keep their nails well-trimmed. This also saves your kid from bacteria and dirt that are caught under the nails. In the same way, you can educate your teenage son or daughter about the health risks of nail-biting and encourage them to keep their nails short. Create a code It would not be easy to stop your kid from nail-biting by telling him always. But you can choose a secret code to use to remind them to stop. That may be a specific word that you say, a touch on the shoulder, or a whistle. Read: Kleptomania or the habit of stealing in children: How to deal with it? Offer an Alternative An alternative something can release their anxiety and fidgeting. In this case, you can use a stress ball which is great for releasing anxiety. When children squeeze and roll it in their hands. They can feel relaxed.  Considering the age of your children, you can make them busy with various activities and projects. For children, arts and crafts can be the best option that stimulates their imagination to relieve their stress. Besides, outdoor activities, playtime, and sports are also some of the best ways to release pent-up energy for teenagers. Make Them Aware of the Habit Nail-biting is an unconscious habit. Children do not know that they are doing it and hence get surprised when you yell at them to stop. So, you need to talk to the child about the bad sides of nail-bating and suggest ways to make them stop it.  Read How to Teach Growth Mindsets to Your Child? Use a reward system Children like rewards. So make sure you offer a small prize or reward for each day they don’t bite their nails. At the end of the week, of course, they get to choose a prize instead of nail-biting.  Engage them with busting activities Engaging them with some creative activities like coloring books, blank drawing pads, pretend play, pillow forts, relieving them from nail-biting. Moreover, you can also distract your child from the habit by taking them to the park, working on a puzzle together, or cooking or baking together. The Bitter Taste Trick You will find child-safe liquids available in medical stores that are made to quit the nail-biting habit in children. You could apply one of those to their nails according to the recommendation of your child’s pediatrician. The bitter taste of those liquids may stop this habit. Read Childhood Cancer: Risk factors and causes of cancer in children