Brace yourself for my shocking personal revelation. Are you seated? Good. Here goes:
I pluck out my chin hairs with my fingernails.
Not only does this really odd-looking behavior keep my female chin well-groomed (albeit a bit sore), but it has kept me from killing anyone. Perhaps a similar substitution bahavior can help you through stressful situations.
How On Earth Did This Habit Get Started?
I used to work the graveyard shift stocking shelves at a (ahem) major department store. The shift was 10 hours long, and yet that was barely enough time to get the work done. So, one day, our manager came up with the brilliant plan of having an hour meeting every night. Now, we had only 9 hours to get the work done. There was no use explaining our predicament to our supervisor, because we didn’t speak Manager-ese. So, the only thing we could do is sit there and nod. I became so frustrated with the situation that I actually contemplated homicide. But instead of locking my hands around our supervisor’s throat, my hand discovered a few chin hairs that the razor had missed. I dug them out.
Now, whenever I’m really stressed, my left hand automatically goes to my chin and digs for hairs. This has been a source of amusement for anyone who knows me. Well, that’s another relaxation tip I will write about some other day — having a good laugh.
Substitution Behaviors
Plucking my chin is a substitution behavior — I’m doing something more socially acceptable in the place of throttling whoever is stressing me out. Substitution behavior is used in sucessful dog training. When the dog wants to misbehave — like chewing on your shoes — you encourage the dog to do something else — chew on doggy toys instead.
Perhaps the most famous substitution behavior has been that of Ned Flanders, the God-fearing squeaky clean next door neighbor to The Simpsons. Whenever he got really angry, instead of throwing a tantrum, he repeated nonsensical words, such as "Okily dokily".
Substitution behaviors are only meant for situations where you really have no control over, such as my sitting through endless meetings. Other events like this include waiting in a long line, being put on hold on the phone or getting over a loss of a small amount of money. This saves your energy for those times when you do need to literally or metaphorically fight for change.
Getting back to my example, we gave up arguing against the meetings because our supervisor believed so much in them. So we waited until results of our drop in productivity reached our supervisor’s supervisor. Then — surprise, surprise — the meetings suddenly stopped.
Meditation is also a substitution behavior of sorts and can be used to calm you down during stressful situations. Over the years, for some reason, I automatically calm down when plucking my chin hairs out, calming down as if I were meditating. So the chin hair plucking has become a meditation of sorts to me. And it keeps everyone from getting hurt.
Hope this helps.
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