Ways to Stop Your Nails from Breaking: Strong nails aren’t just beautiful to look at, they also represent good health.
Everyone desires to have strong healthy nails.
No one fancies looking at weak nails that break every time.
So what do you do when your nails never seem to stop breaking?
Having nails that regularly break are not a pretty sight, they are also very painful.
However, there are simple and effective solutions you could take.
These will strengthen your nails and prevent them from unnecessary breakage.
Nine of them will be explored below.
First, what exactly causes this phenomenon of nails that break?
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What Causes Fingernails to Keep Breaking?
If you ever have questions like “Why do my nails keep breaking from the sides?”
You might be wondering why your nails break in the middle.
There are reasons for this, some of which are highlighted below:
Diverse factors can cause your nails to break.
They include but are not limited to:
- Physical stress: Subjecting yourself to physical stress has a huge impact on every area of your body. This includes fingernails and can lead to breakage of fingernails.
- Little moisture: This is caused by constant washing and drying of nails without moisturizing using a lotion.
- Unbalanced diet: The popular saying goes, you are what you eat. Not eating properly can lead to a nutrient deficiency. This can affect your nails and cause breakage
- Overusing cleaners, detergents, and nail polish remover
- Age: With age, nails change and become thinner.
- Iron deficiency: This occurs when the body has low blood levels because it doesn’t get enough iron.
Having identified factors responsible for nails break, here are nine ways to stop your nails from breaking.
9 Best Ways to Stop Your Nails from Breaking and Splitting Fast
1. Watch what is on Your Plate
What is on your plate goes a very long way in not just crafting what your nails would look like.
It also defines how healthy it would be.
This is an answer to the question of how to reinforce natural nails.
From having healthy skin to lustrous hair, your diet plays a huge role in having healthy nails.
Well-balanced diets can help strengthen your nails and prevent them from breakage.
Nails breaking vitamin deficiency occurs when there isn’t enough biotin in the body.
Biotin is one of the B vitamins and it is also known as vitamin B₇.
Increasing your biotin intake is an efficient way to stop your nails from breaking.
Biotin can be found in foods like salmon, eggs, chicken, spinach, and sweet potatoes.
2. Minimize Exposing your Nails to Water
If you want to have strong and healthy nails, constantly exposing your nails to water is counterproductive.
It would only harm your nails in the long run.
Regularly soaking your nails in water would make them brittle and weak.
You can use gloves to protect and stop your nails from breaking.
3. Drink Enough Water
Drinking water is one of the easiest steps to stop your nails from breaking.
Proper hydration is integral to the proper functioning of the human body.
If you find it hard to drink water, try apps that monitor your water intake.
You can get water bottles with marks that identify how much water you’ve taken.
Getting an accountability partner is another option.
Hydration has a lot of benefits and is effective to stop your nails from breaking.
4. Keep Short and Rounded Nails
The longer your nails, the more likely they are to interfere with your everyday work.
They are also more likely to be caught on things.
Keeping shorter nails make tasks easier to deal with.
It also ensures that your nails are less likely to get unnecessarily caught in things.
This helps keep them strong as they are less likely to break or get chipped.
The next time you’re going for a manicure appointment, choose nails on the shorter side.
This would prevent nails from breaking in the middle.
It would stop your nails from breaking any further.
Your nails shouldn’t be cut so short that they begin to feel pain.
Ever complained along the lines of “my nails keep breaking from the sides”?
Ensure that your nails are well-rounded.
Square nails often experience broken corners or tears on the sides.
However, with rounded nails, the risk of breakage is drastically reduced.
5. More Plain Nails, More Strength
You’ve just found that new nail polish color that you cannot wait to try out.
Well, you might just want to take a break before you get them painted.
As beautiful as it makes your nails look, it weakens them when overused.
This includes non-toxic polish. Just like every part of your body, your nails deserve rest too.
This is not to say you can’t paint your nails, the keyword here is moderation.
After all, you would only have nails to paint if they don’t all break off.
Here’s what you can do; wear nail polish for a week.
Thereafter, using an acetone-free polish remover, remove the nail polish. Let your nails be polish-free for a week.
This gives your nails more space to breathe and this ensures that they are stronger and healthier.
This would put an end to their breakage.
6. Ditch the Acrylics
One constant question people who use acrylics ask is “how to prevent acrylic nails from breaking?”
The answer is simple, ditch them.
The entire process of getting acrylic nails is seriously damaging to your natural nails.
Having to file your nail’s surface until it is rough is only the beginning.
There are also harsh chemicals present in the products.
You have to expose them to curing light and soak them in acetone to remove them.
Acrylic nails are highly prone to breakage and can cause damaged nails.
You can try alternatives like non-damaging press-on nails which have non-damaging glue.
It is a better alternative to stop your nails from breaking.
7. Make nail Strengtheners your Friend
If your nails are naturally thin and brittle, try nail hardening products such as nail strengtheners.
Different formulas are available to specifically treat any problems.
For more impact and healthy nail growth, nail strengtheners should not be used in isolation.
Use nail strengtheners in addition to moisturizers for faster and more visible impact.
Choose strengtheners infused with biotin which is integral to having healthy nails.
Also, try those with pertactin which boosts hydration.
If you’re an “all-natural” person, coconut oil is a very good alternative.
You could buy coconut oil or you make it yourself.
Apply coconut oil on both your cuticles and nails.
Coconut oil helps treat and strengthen cracked and brittle nails.
Another additional benefit of coconut oil is that it is anti-inflammatory.
It can also help if you have irritated or inflamed cuticles.
Read Also – 17 Best Pretty Nails for Winter: Nail Ideas, Art and Design
8. Avoid Harsh Chemicals
Having a clean home is great, but the products might be harmful to your nails.
Regular contact with cleaning detergent and household cleaners can cause damaged nails.
It’s worse if they include chemicals such as bleach and acetone.
When choosing nail polishes, ensure that your polishes are “5-free”.
Polishes like this are free from formaldehyde, toluene, dibutyl phthalate, formaldehyde resin, and camphor.
Choosing a more natural route would stop your nails from breaking.
If you can’t help it, however, ensure that you use a glove.
This offers protection from the harsh effects of these chemicals.
It also ensures that your nails remain healthy and strong.
9. Visit your Doctor If Problems Persist
If after trying out different solutions it might just be time for you to visit a doctor.
Just like other parts of your body, your nails can get affected by diverse conditions.
If the nail breakage is consistent, a medical checkup might be necessary.
Your doctor would be able to proffer solutions that would stop your nails from breaking
