117: Why You Can't "Just Stop" + A Science-Based Approach to What Works Instead

Did you know there is a specific brain function that is largely responsible for your chronic picking, pulling, and biting?

That's right, you're not broken. You never were. It's your brain over-functioning.

In fact, it's a really common struggle in this modern, overstimulated world.

Look at all the people who are overworking, overeating, overgiving, overexercising, overthinking, overgrooming.

We're all chronically overwhelmed and addicted to it.

And it's because of something called intermittent reinforcement.

In this episode, I share with you how this particular brain function is one of the key drivers behind your BFPA* + tangible steps to rewiring your brain.

These steps don't require force, are backed by science, and will pull on your heartstrings. Not to mention, they will actually help you to move forward towards freedom.

Journaling prompts from the episode

"Needs" list. Which one calls to you?

• Relief
• Escape 
• Comfort
• Stimulation
• Certainty
• Control
• Numbing
• Achievement
• Connection

Whatever stood out to you in the list above, ask yourself these Qs:

1. Why is that need so important to you right now?
2. What would it give you to make the space to meet that need for yourself?
3. How might this impact those around you?
4. What will it cost you to not make the space to meet that need?
5. What are 3 tangibles things you can do to meet that need in your life right now?

References & Resources

• Determinants of Addiction: Neurobiological, Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sociocultural Factors
https://www.sciencedirect.com/book/monograph/9780323905787/determinants-of-addiction

• Intermittent Reinforcement: Why Toxic Relationships Feel Addictive
https://reachlink.com/advice/relations/intermittent-reinforcement/

• Engineered Highs: Reward Variability and Frequency as Potential Prerequisites of Behavioural Addiction
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306460323000217

• Wired for Want: How Dopamine Drives the New Epidemic of Everyday Addictions
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Zoe-Wyatt/publication/391756047_Wired_for_Want_How_Dopamine_Drives_the_New_Epidemic_of_Everyday_Addictions

• Stuck in a Toxic Cycle? This Psychological Pattern Might Be Why
https://www.catharticspacecounseling.com/blog/stuck-in-a-toxic-cycle-this-psychological-pattern-might-be-why

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My name is Raffaela Marie. I'm a holistic BFRB coach who has healed from 15 years of chronic skin picking myself and dedicated my life to helping driven women do the same. Through my podcast, free resources, and programs, I teach strategies to overcome urges, build emotional safety, and expand into authenticity. My approach goes beyond quick fixes, focusing on root causes and long-term recovery.

Transcript

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The reason why you can't just stop is not because of a personal failing or because there's something wrong with your brain or your defective. It's actually because of a powerful psychological conditioning schedule called intermittent reinforcement, which is a normal, healthy function of the human brain. But in our modern world, which is packed full of stimulation and is designed for dysregulation rather than regulation, it's very easy for this healthy functional part of our brain to go into overdrive. You see it in gambling, doom scrolling on social media, and gaming addictions. It's one of the big reasons why we get so hooked. Intermittent reinforcement is what happens when rewards are given sporadically and unpredictably instead of on a consistent schedule. This is what gets us hooked on things like gambling, social media, gaming, eating. It's the anticipation of what we might get from engaging in the behavior that keeps us coming back. And doesn't that sound familiar? When you learn how intermittent reinforcement keeps you hooked in chronic skin picking, hair pulling, or nail or nail biting, you can begin to rewire your brain without force. You're listening to episode 100 and is it 16? Huh. No, it's 17. You are listening to episode 117 of Beyond Skin Picking and Hair Pulling, the place to be if you want to learn how to address the root cause of why you pick, pull, or bite at your body. And also if you feel like what you're struggling with is more like an addiction than anything else. My name is Rafaela Marie. I'm your host. I healed from 15 years of chronic skin picking through addressing the root cause and treating it like an addiction. And I share absolutely everything I know with you on this podcast so that you can heal like I did. And as one of my dear, dear listeners, I want to invite you to a very unique opportunity to share your story with me. Not only that, but then to also receive insight and guidance on what you can do right now to take steps forward in your healing journey. This is a space where you will feel deeply seen, heard, and understood. I've had so many incredible calls recently, and it is truly amazing to be able to meet you in person, firstly, but also to be able to give you the support that I wish I had received when I was struggling. If you want access to that, if you want to share your story with me, go ahead and click on the link in the show notes. I came across intermittent reinforcement a couple of weeks ago when I was doing some reading for another episode, and it just explains so clearly why we can't just stop chronic skin peeking, hair pulling, and nail biting. And my intention behind sharing this with you is that you can stop judging yourself so much. Stop feeling like you're broken, like there's no way forward. Recognize that, oh, this is why I can't just stop. It's not because you lack willpower. It's because a very primal and strong part of your brain has come into play. And we want to learn how to work with it rather than trying to force it out of our way because that's never going to work. Now I want to start with a question. I'm curious if you have that one type of hair, that one type of pimple or blackhead or dry piece of skin that is just so satisfying to pick, pull, or bite. Just think of that now and notice how even the thought of it has an impact on you. This is one of the big drivers behind why we can't just stop. It's the anticipation of what you might get out of the behavior. Here's a quote from a paper I read called Wired for Want. I am sharing all the resources that I use for this episode, by the way. I'm going to be leaving the links in the show notes if you want to have a look at them too. But this is a quote from Wired to Want, one of the papers that I read. While often simplistically associated with pleasure, dopamine's primary role is in modulating the anticipation of reward, driving organisms to pursue rather than passively experience gratification. So dopamine isn't actually about getting the thing. We don't experience dopamine or a that reward-soothing satisfaction fulfillment feeling when we have the thing that we're wanting. We experience in anticipation of receiving it. This is one of the key components that drives intermittent reinforcement. And so the urge that you're feeling the urge to pick, pull, or bite at your body, it is anticipation of a reward. Anticipation of that particular kind of texture or sensation or experience that you have learned can be very satisfying or soothing. What's important here is we're not feeling that anticipation because we're guaranteed something. We're feeling that anticipation because something isn't guaranteed, but we think we might get something out of it. If we know we're going to get a reward, then the anticipation is either not going to be there or it's going to be much, much smaller. And the reason why this is a healthy and good evolutionary adaptation, evolutionary development, the reason why it's positive is because our brain is going to reward us for engaging in behaviors that are good for our survival. It needs to find a way to get us to do things, engage in things. And if you think of our survival, for example, foraging. What motivates a human being to forage? Yes, it's hunger, but there's also the anticipation of the reward, which is when I forage, there is a chance I'm going to find something to eat. So the anticipation, we all we are already getting a hit of dopamine just through engaging in searching for, trying to move towards the thing, the reward that we're looking for. Even if we're not guaranteed the outcome, especially if we're not guaranteed the outcome. It's part of the reason why gambling slot machines are so addictive because it plays off that evolutionary adaptation. When you play a slot machine, you're not guaranteed there's going to be a win, but there's a possibility. When you play a video game, you don't know exactly what's going to come. You know there's some rewards, or you know there's going to be challenges, but you don't know when and you don't know how. It's the possibility that is so enticing. When you engage in scanning, when you feel that urge, it's the anticipation that maybe there's going to be something really satisfying there. It's the possibility that keeps us coming back. It's the anticipation of what we're going to get out of the behavior. And I know you're thinking, okay, but I also know that I'm also I'm going to feel shit engaging the behavior. I know all the negative consequences. So how does that play into it? We're going to come back to that in a moment. But let's go a little bit deeper into intermittent reinforcement. As I said before, intermittent reinforcement is when rewards are given sporadically and unpredictably instead of on a consistent schedule. The unpredictability is what makes these behaviors incredibly persistent and really hard to eradicate. And this concept was discovered by B.F. Skinner, he was a psychologist in the 1930s and later as well. He found that when a rat or pigeon was rewarded with food every single time it pressed a lever, the animal quickly learned the behavior. However, if the food was provided unpredictably, sometimes after one press, sometimes after 20 presses, or sometimes not at all, the animals became obsessed with pressing the lever. The uncertainty caused the animals to work much harder and longer than those on a consistent reward schedule. It's the unpredictability that makes us obsessive. And what's interesting is I'm only going to briefly mention this because I didn't necessarily find this connection in anything that I read, but it's just coming to my mind now. When you type in intermittent reinforcement, a lot of stuff is going to come up on relationships, especially toxic relationships. Those are relationships where people get really addicted to the toxicity and they can't seem to be able to leave a really unhealthy relationship. Intermittent reinforcement has plays a big role in that because a key component to toxic relationships is unpredictability. You don't know if that person is going to be open and warm or are they going to be cold and distant? What version of them am I going to get? There's unpredictability inside the relationship, which makes us switch into that obsessive state. When B.F. Skinner was doing his research, he found that rats would obsessively press the lever thousands of times sometimes before they got exhausted, before they walked away. And so when we are met with that kind of unpredictability in our relationships, then those relationships can become obsessive rather than healthy connection. And then we take that back further and look at your relationship with your caregivers or another person who was in a position of leadership. Was their love predictable? Was their presence predictable? Could you rely on them to be there for you when you were having a hard time? And this isn't to say that you're, I say this every time, but I think it's necessary. This isn't to say that your parents are bad if you felt like you couldn't rely on them to be there for you emotionally. But this is again, if our parents couldn't be there for themselves emotionally, they couldn't be there for us either. Now, if that unpredictability is there, then I can imagine it would make us more susceptible if we are experiencing intermittent reinforcement in our primary relationships with our primary caregivers as children. It probably primes us to seek out in intermittent reinforcement in other areas of our life. The attachment we have with our caregivers, our parents, or significant people in our life becomes the attachment we have to ourselves, becomes the attachment that we seek out in the world around us with other people and things. I did not necessarily read anything that said this specifically, but it's just where I'm seeing the connection because there is a connection between our relationship with our parents and with our need to engage in addictive behaviors and our need to escape or regulate our emotions through other ways. And so I wanted to add that in there for a bit more perspective to understand, okay, so I learned that connection was unpredictable. And so therefore I'm probably predisturbed, predisposed. Maybe some of us are also predisturbed, but that can make us predisposed to then also seek out that unpredictable connection in other areas of our life because that's what's familiar, that's what we know, and we are going to seek out what's familiar, even if it's not good for us. And that is not just my idea, that is actually a very well-understood phenomenon, behavior result in behavioral psychology. Now, coming back to what I said before, it's the anticipation of what you might get out of that behavior that gets us hooked. And so, what are we getting out of chronic skin picking and hair pulling or nail biting that outweighs the negative impact? Because it can be hard to wrap our heads around. So let's look at some things that we might get out of it. And I'm curious what stands out to you. Engaging in chronic skin picking, hair pulling, and nail biting can give us a sense of relief, can help us to escape, can feel comforting, can actually be a way to stimulate our minds. It can give a sense of control or certainty. It can be numbing, it can make us feel like we are achieving something or doing something, or make us feel connected in some way. Now we might be thinking, yeah, but I could find that in other areas of my life. You are absolutely right. But have you learned how to find those in other areas of your life in a consistent and healthy way that is meaningful to you? Because if you are chronically engaging in picking, pulling and biting in your body in a destructive way, you clearly need relief, escape, comfort, stimulation, control to just not feel for a little bit. And I wonder if that is ringing true. Just a little bit or maybe a lot. Now, how can we start to rewire our brain towards a healthier response to the urge? And this is not only coming from my own work and what I found works for myself and my clients, but also what I found showed up in some of my research for this episode. And that is that we first want to understand the need beneath the behavior. And how we can figure that out is through understanding what are we getting out of this behavior? What am I anticipating I might get from engaging in this behavior? Then when we identify that, we want to understand why is that so important to me? We want to attach deep, powerful meaning to that, personal meaning. You want to feel a connection to that thing. And that is a key component of motivation and moving forward. It's what helps us to stay on track, even if other things get in the way. If we don't feel connected to it, if it doesn't feel meaning to meaningful to us, we are going to either begrudgingly do that thing and then eventually stop, or we'll be resentful doing that thing, or we'll be dragging our feet, or we'll go all in and then we'll fall off the wagon. It's really hard to keep up consistency or to keep coming back to something when you aren't connected to the reason why you want to do it. So let's figure that out now together. What is a need that chronic skin peeking, hair pulling, or nail biting is fulfilling for you? What is the anticipation? What is it that you're hoping to get that your mind knows that it might get from engaging in that behavior? Now, don't worry, I'm not expecting you to just come up with that on the spot. I want you to listen to what I'm going to share. I'm going to share with you the same list that I shared before, but with a bit more explanation behind it. And just listen and notice what calls to you the most, what stands out to you the most, maybe what pokes at something in your chest or your stomach. And whatever that thing is, just hold on to it and keep it in your mind. Because then we're going to take this a little, we're going to take this a few steps further. And I put the list that I shared with you before into four different categories. Which one stands out to you the most? Category number one, relief, escape, and numbing. Do you need a break to rest, to just breathe? Do you feel like there's too much pressure and you wish you could just put it down for a moment and stop? Category number two, connection and comfort. When was the last time that you felt soothed, that you took a breath out and felt like everything was okay? When was the last time that you felt cared for, that you were important, that you belonged? When was the last time you felt the warmth of a warm hug or let yourself feel that warmth? Category number three, stimulation and achievement. Do you miss feeling alive? Learning, growing, becoming more competent in something. Category number four, control. And for this one, I'm gonna ask you to look inwards rather than outwards because there is very, very little we're in control of. But true ground control comes from a sense of self, a sense of certainty in self, trust in self, knowing where your boundaries are and being able to stand by them, feeling capable and competent. Which category stands out to you the most? Which one spoke to you the most? Even if there was a bit of everything from all of them, which one hit the deepest? I want you to hold that in your mind because things like chronic skin picking, hair pulling and nail biting, scrolling on our phones and all these kinds of behaviors that can become addictive, they give us a pseudo-sense of relief, escape, stimulation, achievement, connection. They give us a pseudo-sense of these experiences because of intermittent reinforcement. It triggers serotonin and dopamine. But real rest, real achievement, real connection, real stimulation and comfort also trigger serotonin and dopamine in a different way, in a way that has more depth. So now the next step is to understand whatever stood out to you. Why might that thing be so important if rest stood out to you? Why might that be so important? If you were to allow yourself to have more rest, how might that impact you personally, your life, how you show up in your life? Then also ask yourself how it will impact those around you. If you got more rest, how might that impact the relationship you have with others or how you show up at work and lead people or work with people? How might that impact your romantic real your romantic relationships? How might that support and uplift those around you? I know that when I feel rested, that firstly, it is incredibly healthy. It's good for my brain, it's good for my body, it's good for my overall, overall well-being. And my health is incredibly important to me. It's one of my top values. I also can see, though, that I have more capacity for others. When I'm in a leadership space, I'm able to leave a more grounded place. I'm able to be more present and grounded with my clients. I'm also able to be more present with my husband and be more engaged. And so when I am well rested, I thrive. And I'm able to transfer that to the people around me. And so for me, that is why rest is so important. And you can take this deeper, even write down all the ways that rest is so important to you. And now the next question comes in. This is a great question to ask as well. What is the cost of not having enough rest, of not prioritizing rest? What is the cost today? What is the cost in six months? What is the cost in five years if you do not prioritize allowing yourself to get the rest that you need? In whatever capacity you have right now? I know life can be insane for some people. And so our ability to ensure we get enough rest may vary depending on the phase of life we're in. But it is, are you creating the space to allow yourself to rest or are you putting that, brushing that off to the side? So the first question is why is that so important to you? What are you going to gain by making more time, making more space for rest, or whatever things stood out to you the most? And then as well, what's the cost of not doing that? And this helps us to see the contrast, to connect with the point of why we want to prioritize this thing, which helps us to feel more connected to it, which will help us to move forward and actually make time and space for that thing. So now we've built some connection, built, built some meaning. And I really do encourage you to journal about that and really get connected to it, especially if you can see I really do need to make a change in this area of my life. Then we want to ask ourselves, well, how can I actually do that? What's something tangible that I can do to help myself to get more rest? To help myself to learn something new, to feel stimulated in a way that is fulfilling. What's a way that I can create more release or escape in my life to just set things down? What's a way that I can just give myself a break more often? And this might be going to bed 15 minutes earlier, or even 10 minutes earlier, five minutes earlier, make it really easy to do. Maybe it's setting a time that you finish your work every day. For me, my deadline to finish my day is 6.30. I do try to finish earlier at times, but I have noticed that if I work later than 6.30 on a regular basis, it makes me feel unimportant, not cared for, which then leads to more of these numbing out, distracting behaviors because I'm not giving myself the real care that I need. So my mind is going to look for the pseudo, sudo, pseudo sense of that experience, of that feeling. So what's something tangible? We want to actually give ourselves some ideas, something really tangible, that when we can identify what it is that we need, that we actually have some options there that we feel connected to, that we see the point in. Because here's what you're going to do now. When you feel the urge to pick at your skin, pull or bite at your body, or when you're in the middle of a session, or even afterwards, you're going to pause for a moment and ask yourself, what is it that I really need? And you can come to the list that I've written out here and in fact, or leave it in the show notes if you want to copy and paste it. If you can't figure out what that is in the moment, you can come and have a look at that list and see what calls to me? What is it that I need right now? I asked myself this question earlier today when I was prepping this podcast episode and I was feeling a bit overwhelmed. And I just pause and ask myself, what do I need right now? And I just thought, I need a break. I want to just close my laptop, switch off, and do nothing for the rest of the day. Now, that's actually something I couldn't follow through on today because I'm going to be away for the next three days going hiking. And so I do need to get this done. I don't have the flexibility that I might have on another day or another week. And so at least what I was able to give myself was some reassurance of, okay, maybe we've just got to push through and do this now. But then we get to really enjoy the next three days. And so while I still felt like, I just want to break, I also felt uplifted and like, oh, I can accept that this is how things are in this moment. And it was calming. This is how we can begin to rewire our brain is that when you feel the urge you're in a picking session or after a session, you Ask yourself, what is it that I actually need? Identify what is it that my mind is searching for? What is the anticipation? What am I anticipating getting from this behavior? And when we identify that, we identify the need that is going unmet in our life or within ourselves. When we can identify that, we can start to use that to look at our life and see, well, what where am I not really showing up for myself? Where am I not really caring for myself? And when we can identify that, then we can find something tangible that we can do to make a change. This is how you can use chronic skin peaking or hair pulling or nail biting as a tool to help yourself heal, not just the behavior, but your life as a whole, to make your life more fulfilling and grounded and calm and just abundant. These chronic behaviors are not the real problem. They're a symptom and they're an indication. They're like a little trailhead that will lead us to the solution, the core, the roots of how to heal the root cause of these behaviors. We know by now that just stopping is illogical. The real path is to start to rewire our brain. And this is one of the very effective ways that we can do that. I had a moment like this, I've told this story many times in this podcast, so I'll just say it briefly. Is one of my worst relapses, I had the realization that it was anxiety that was fueling the need for me to pick and my skin. And so that was a moment where I realized, okay, what's something tangible I can do? I can't just stop, but I can find ways to help myself better handle anxiety. That was a path forward. And it's lots of little moments like that that have brought me to where I am today. And it's also how I help my clients as well. But the thing is, if we have nothing tangible and we think, okay, so I need a break, but we haven't thought of any way that we can actually give ourselves a break. We haven't set ourselves up to know what to do when we have that information. It's going to be harder to follow through on that if you don't have anything in mind of how to do that. If you're not very good at giving yourself a break, sit down and journal on these things that I've just asked. And I will leave the questions and everything in the show notes for you so you can copy and paste them. And then write down some things that you can do, some really tangible things that you can do, simple, easy things that you can do, and experiment because you're probably not going to get it right the first time. You're going to give it a go. It might work well for a little while, and then it might not. And maybe all you need to do is return to it, but maybe that thing just isn't a thing for you. It's an experiment of getting to know ourselves, getting to know what works, what doesn't, how we can tweak things. It's almost like you're sewing the most comfortable item of clothing, the most comfortable outfit you have ever created that has ever been created, and it has been created solely for you, but it requires us to adjust it on a regular basis, especially when we're in different phases of life. You see, your brain is functioning exactly as it should. There is nothing inherently wrong with you. And in this over stimulated, dysregulated, dopamine-driven world, it is so understandable that this part of your brain has been somewhat hijacked, has become overused, overstimulated. And now you have a way to work with that that does not require force. Work with your mind, work with your brain. There is so much more that you can do and you're capable of. There's so much more of you to be expressed and brought into this world. Allow yourself to explore and get curious. No, you are not broken. You are a wonderfully complex human being. And it's such a privilege to get to know you. And it's through this kind of exploration and experimentation and getting curious about our own mind and approaching with an open mind and curiosity rather than judgment that allows us to bring more of who we are into this world, which subsequently also helps us to reduce engaging in self-destructive behaviors. It is a nice little bonus. And if you feel like you need more support in going deeper into this work and finding your path forward, please do reach out to me. I am a coach. I help people heal from chronic skin picking, hair-pulling, and nail biting. And I absolutely love the work that I do. So if you want to explore what that might look like, you can go ahead and click on the show notes, send me a message. Otherwise, don't forget to hit like and subscribe. Leave your thoughts in the comments below. I'd love to hear from you. Thank you so much for hanging out. Have a lovely rest of your week. I'll see you next week for the next episode of Beyond Skin Picking and Hair Polly.