julietsierra
Posts: 1841
Joined: 9/26/2004
Status: offline
|
What I find interesting (and I'm not being judgmental - just pointing out something that you might not have realized) is that if you are not sucking your thumb in public or when you're out, you are already controlling your thumb sucking. This, to me, means that all protests aside, this is something you CAN control. You are choosing not to - whether through habit or giving yourself permission to find a private place to do this.
I'm not saying quitting isn't difficult. Like any habit, thumb sucking is difficult to break. In reading all the responses, the other thing I found interesting is all the rationales behind why people are sucking their thumbs. They may indeed be very true, but they are also good indications that you all have beginning points available to you in your efforts to quit. But first of all, you have to stop giving yourselves permission to use this as a coping mechanism. "It's all right because it's in private" is granting yourself permission. "It's not all right, even in private" is telling yourself that you don't have permission. Believing the second and not the first seems to be a huge beginning.
If you are stressed, and know that stress causes thumb sucking, then it might be a good idea to find some other solutions to handling stressful situations. (The koosh balls, etc that were suggested are good starts.) Other non-weight gaining ideas would be gum-chewing, chewing on toothpicks, and things like that. Personally, I don't think I'd worry - yet - about doing this while sleeping. Unless you are going to be awake to catch yourself, you're setting yourself up for failure. Leave that one alone until you have the thumb-sucking you do in wakeful hours handled. It might just be that the sleeping part handles itself as you get the rest of your thumb-sucking under control.
Perhaps the best thing to do would be to carry a notebook around with you and every time you catch yourself sucking your thumb, write down the time, what you were doing and how you were feeling. It'll point out not only the triggers (stress, boredom, etc), but also what times of the day you're more susceptable to the desire to suck your thumb. (there might be some very clear-cut patterns here and once you're aware of them, you can actually start to change the circumstances rather than focusing solely on the thumb-sucking.
Like, if you notice that each day around 3:00, you start to suck your thumb, and that time seems to coincide with something important in your life, it would seem you'd be more aware of it when 3:00 started to roll around and therefore be able to catch yourself more easily and possibly even replace the thumb sucking with something else that's right there waiting for you at 3:00. This way, you're not beating yourself up for not being able to stop. You're being proactive because you know your tendencies and are adjusting your input to control those tendencies.
As with any habit, it helps to be aware of when you're in the midst of it - or when you're about to start it, so that you can stop it.
But like I said, most of you who've admitted to doing this are already saying you do have some control over it. Use that control to extend, by small increments, the times you're not involved in this activity until you don't need to do it anymore.
I'm reminded of how some of my friends stopped smoking. They didn't *stop*. They just told themselves they'd have their cigarette - later. And "later" eventually turned into not at all, but "stopping" was too big for them. I do the same thing with eating. If I want something that I know is not good for me (chocolate chip cookies chips, etc) , I don't tell myself I can't have it. I tell myself I can have it later. If I can "later" myself all the way to bedtime, I will have made it through another day without eating the things I know aren't good for me.
Just some ideas.
juliet
|
RE: hard habbit to break - 
Profile
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread