182 pages paperback

Are your habits driving you crazy? Are you sabotaging yourself through your unconscious, seemingly uncontrollable actions? Do you constantly lose your keys, procrastinate, bite your nails, battle to be punctual, snore, play with your hair, drink too much coffee or smoke 20 cigarettes a day?

Most of us reading the above list would have identified with at least one of the examples, if not most of them! All these habits, together with many hundreds not listed, may be irritating or even detrimental to our health in the long term, but seem to ease our tension in the short term.

Why is habitual behaviour so intrinsic to our existence? Until now we have largely overlooked, denied or ignored our habits, yet as the mind-body connection becomes more understood, we have to acknowledge that there must be a connection between what we do physically and what we feel emotionally. The Girl Who Bites Her Nails And The Man Who Is Always Late offers unique insights into the reasons behind why we behave as we do. In looking at a whole range of quite common habits, involving the breathing system, the mouth, speech, sex, manipulative and harming habits, habits of children and of the elderly, etc., it becomes clear how our often-unconscious behaviour is a physical manifestation of an emotional state of mind.

Through their very repetition, learning how to understand and change or eliminate our habits is a great way of becoming happier, healthier human beings.