![]() ![]() This means that, similar to how body-focused repetitive behaviours aid distraction from negative emotions, they might also help regulate unpleasant sensations felt in the body. ![]() This area of research is emerging, but a recent study found people with these behaviours are more sensitive to, and bothered by, sensations associated with stress and tension. Our research has begun to explore how sensitivity to physical sensations might lead to body-focused repetitive behaviours. When bored, body-focused repetitive behaviours can help people feel like they’re doing something active, especially those with perfectionistic personality traits. They report that touching, rubbing or biting skin, nails, and hair prompts a relaxing, trance-like state, which distracts from negative emotions. People with body-focused repetitive behaviours often struggle to cope with emotions such as anxiety, frustration, sadness, and boredom. Neurobiological research into body-focused repetitive behaviours is complex and replication studies are needed.Ī range of psychological factors influences the severity of the behaviour. N-acetyl cysteine (an amino acid that regulates glutamate in brain areas related to compulsive behaviours) has shown mixed results for reducing hair-pulling and skin-picking urges. These genes are involved in glutamate production, which plays a major role in facilitating brain cell communication. Human variants of SAPAP3 genes have been linked to some, but not all, cases of OCD and body-focused repetitive behaviours. Research in mice shows manipulating a gene called “SAPAP3” can cause them to repetitively groom their fur, resulting in baldness and open sores. While this and similar studies indicate strong heritability in these behaviours, no specific causal genes have been identified. A study investigating skin-picking in over 2,500 UK twins reported that genetic factors accounted for 40% of the variance in symptoms in twin-pairs. The exact causes of body-focused repetitive behaviours are unknown. But body-focused repetitive behaviours are not prompted by obsessions, demonstrating an important difference between the two conditions. For OCD, compulsions are typically driven by intrusive, upsetting, and irrational obsessive thoughts. Like body-focused repetitive behaviours, people with OCD struggle to control compulsive behaviours like checking, cleaning, hand-washing, counting, and ordering objects.įor both conditions, people often report a build-up of tension and anxiety that’s relieved by performing their repetitive behaviour. from Causesīody-focused repetitive behaviours are considered to be related to obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). Hair-pulling and skin picking are listed in the manual of mental disorders. Pulling out your hair in frustration? What you need to know about trichotillomania This is when mental health professionals begin to see habitual body-focused repetitive behaviours as something more serious. This was because students were asked to consider if the consequences of their habit had ever required medical attention (for infections, for example) or interfered with daily functioning. In one study, up to 24% of US college students reported performing some body-focused repetitive behaviours at least five times a day.īut a follow-up study reported much lower prevalence rates of 1-6%. Body-focused repetitive behaviours, like those described earlier, are quite common. They’re stable in that, once established, they can be difficult to break. Habits are stable, repetitive behaviours that occur automatically, without much thought. But when do these normal behaviours become bothersome habits? And when do these habits become psychological disorders? Some normal grooming behaviours help maintain good hygiene (such as picking at a dirty finger nail) and appearance (plucking that pesky grey hair). Nail-biting, nose-picking, mouth-chewing, skin-picking, hair-pulling – we all do some of them, some of the time. ![]()
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