How To Stop Itching & Scratching
It could drive you mad. This itching that just won’t go away. Even if you muster up all your willpower to NOT scratch – how long can you really do this?
The thing with itching is that it doesn’t just go away. It is easy to lift a heavy item once and put it down again. And if the itch would be just a short phenomenon, it would be a lot easier to not scratch. But how about lifting a heavy item and holding it for ten minutes? Or twenty? Or an hour? Or even more? The muscles just tire. And the same thing happens to our willpower. We simply can not force us not to scratch if we feel itchy.
You already know that scratching doesn’t really help. Yes, it feels good for a moment. It provides temporary relief from something that is annoying you. But in the long term, it isn’t making things better. Quite the opposite. It’s making things worse, because the more you scratch, the more you upset and irritate your skin. And the itchier it will be in the future.
Maybe other people have already noticed your scratching problem. If you have a partner, he or she surely has, because it might cause scratch scars on your skin. And these scars are very difficult to get rid of.
If other people who care about you noticed your scratch problem, they have problem told you to stop it. Maybe they were even upset at you when they told you again and again and then they still caught you scratching yourself.
But what can you do? They don’t know how to stop the itching either. Should you wear boxing gloves so you can’t scratch yourself? Tie your hands behind your back? How to stop yourself from scratching an itch?
One thing you can do is to try to put some essential oil or balm onto the areas that itch. Sandalwood paste is also very effective when it comes to stopping itchiness.
But if you’ve scratched yourself habitually, then you have turned it into a habit. And habits don’t die easily.
The fact is, you don’t really have conscious control over your scratching behavior. Yes, sometimes you might muster up all your willpower and force yourself not to scratch, but we already know that your ability to do that is limited.
So you need some help. And that help isn’t some new anti-itch cream. But how to stop an itch without scratching?
Did you ever cut yourself without noticing it? Maybe a paper cut? Almost everybody has. Only later when you saw the cut did you start to notice it. Our brains are able to “switch off” certain sensations. There are people who can perform amazing stunts, like piercing their bodies with sharp objects, without feeling pain. Some dentists use hypnosis on their clients instead of anesthesia, so that their clients don’t feel any pain.
And your brain is capable of doing the same thing with your itchiness. If you don’t feel that your skin is itchy, is it still a problem? No, it isn’t. In fact, if you don’t feel that your skin is itching, and as a result you don’t scratch, then it is good for you and your skin to not feel the itch. Hypnosis can switch off your itching feeling, so that you don’t have to try to give up scratching.
