I successfully applied CBT to stop scratching my beard and plucking hairs until it looks apalling (blank spots, irregular). Not awesome but really satisfying for me personally.
Earlier I shaved the beard once I started this. Or avoided growing a beard in the first place. But beards are attractive and I got positive feedback about mine. Thus I tried to get rid of my not unusual behavior.
Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy has a highly successful approach for breaking habits, which requires only a very subtle alteration to this process. You notice that you are biting your nails. You immediately focus your attention on what you are doing, and you stop doing it. No rage, no blaming yourself, no negative emotions. You just stop, and you focus all the attention you can on the act of stopping. You move your arm down, focusing your attention on the act of movement, on the feeling of your arm going down, away from your mouth. That’s it. You can go back to whatever you were doing.
Actually I enhanced it by using positive reinforcement on myself (I took this from Seligmann); I praised myself whenever I succeeded in keeping my hand away. It worked quite well. Took me about a week. One relapse when I didn’t pull thru until the behaviour was extinguished. But now I’m stable. I can even stroke my beard thoughfully.
I successfully applied CBT to stop scratching my beard and plucking hairs until it looks apalling (blank spots, irregular). Not awesome but really satisfying for me personally. Earlier I shaved the beard once I started this. Or avoided growing a beard in the first place. But beards are attractive and I got positive feedback about mine. Thus I tried to get rid of my not unusual behavior.
I used this CBT approach from Attention Control is Critical:
Actually I enhanced it by using positive reinforcement on myself (I took this from Seligmann); I praised myself whenever I succeeded in keeping my hand away. It worked quite well. Took me about a week. One relapse when I didn’t pull thru until the behaviour was extinguished. But now I’m stable. I can even stroke my beard thoughfully.