<p>My daughter twists her hair constantly. Her hair has even broken in the back. I have mentioned it to her and she says she does it because it is fun. Any suggestions?</p>
<p>I do it too. It relaxes me. But I don’t do it to the extent that I damage my hair.</p>
<p>How old is she?
Perhaps if you tell her that it bothers other people, and that it is a habit that she should break, she could learn to substitute another, invisible behavior (for example, contracting some muscles or pressing a couple of fingers together whenever she gets the urge to twist. Soon, she will break the twisting habit and not have to do the substitute behavior either.)
When my son was young, he had the very annoying habit of chewing his shirt. I bought one of those rolls of chewing gum and told him that for every 10 minutes that he did not chew, he could have an inch of gum. He was able to break the habit in about 3 hours.
If you believe that this is a sign of stress, could you also relieve this stress somehow?</p>
<p>Look up trichotillomania.</p>
<p>I used to twist my hair a lot as a teen. Now I have shorter hair but occasionally will fiddle with it when tired or stressed.</p>
<p>Try giving her a rubber band to play with instead!</p>
<p>My cousin did this a lot, everyone has some quirk to relieve tension or just as a habit. A coworker of mine will french braid her hair sometimes to keep from twirling it, but she said for her, it beats picking at her nails…she always has to do something. She has a stress ball in her pocket sometimes to use instead.</p>
<p>Trichotillomania is usually pullling it out, even eyelashes, etc. although sometimes twirling can break hair depending on the condition of it.</p>
<p>This could be a quirk, that is harmless, or it could be a compulsion, which is why people are mentioning trichotillomania. In college, with increased studying and stress, these things (the quirk or the compulsion) can get worse.</p>
<p>Some people do cognitive behavioral therapy for this. This could be a fancy way to say, therapy to break this habit, or it could be a little more complicated. If the problems gets severe, then medications like SSRI’s can help.</p>
<p>Just want to emphasize that I am not saying this is a severe problem, not at all. But even if it is a mildly entrenched habit and stress-reliever (or “fun”), there is help that is easily accessible through a cognitive behavioral therapist, and the “cure” may even take only a couple of weeks.</p>
<p>our son twisted his hair and his beard rather compulsively. We took him to a therapist who told him that he needed to find a different outlet for stress relief. She suggested keeping a ‘worry stone’ in his pocket that he could rub whenever he felt the urge to twist his beard. We bought a few (they cost $3-$5) and that worked pretty well. I tried them myself, and they worked for me too - I pull out my moustache and eyebrow hair when things aren’t going too well (doesn’t everyone?),</p>
<p>i work with an older gentleman who twirls his hair all the time. it makes him look very much like a little boy.</p>
<p>i have really short hair or i might be a hair twirler myself.</p>
<p>One of my kids used to suck the end of her hair. Glad that seemed to go away on its own.</p>