Side Effects That Will Make You Think Twice About These 17 Nasty Habits

Fingernail biting is incredibly common among children and adults who deal with anxiety as it is their way to attempt to cope with challenging emotions. But as common as fingernail biting might be, it still isn't a habit that should be normalized or accepted due to its nasty side effects. 

Nail biters tend to have more oral cavities than those who don't bite their nails. Think about it, when it comes to normal everyday activities, you use your hands for so many things, leaving germs on your hands and under the edges of your fingernails. Every time you put your fingers in your mouth, you're consuming all of the germs that have been collected there since the last time you thoroughly washed your hands.

Nail biting can even lead to aesthetic damage around your nail beds. Weirdly enough, it also causes your nails to grow much more rapidly, according to a study published in the "Iranian Journal of Medical Sciences" (via The National Library of Medicine). The reason for this is that when you physically manipulate your nails through biting, it metabolically stimulates your growth plates to become way more active than they would've naturally been. 

Relaxing in bed or on the sofa with your favorite TV show playing out in front of you is considered one of the more common ways to wind down whenever you're spending time at home. Streaming platforms such as Hulu, Netflix, HBO Max, and Amazon Prime are filled with an abundance of options for your viewing pleasure that you can access whenever you choose. However, that endless stream of entertainment can quickly become problematic.

Verywell Health notes that people who spend way too much time binge-watching TV shows may deal with health issues such as blood clots, fatigue, insomnia, heart problems, and cognitive decline, which are all medical problems that can occur if you are too sedentary. To make matters worse, binge-watching TV is also linked to social isolation. If you feel like you're getting your social interactions from fictional characters or random reality TV personalities, it could make you feel less inclined to connect with people in the real world on a face-to-face basis. 

When binge-watching, you're also more likely to make poor diet choices. If you're distracted while eating sugary treats and other junk food items, you might not be aware of how many carbs and calories you're consuming in one sitting.

Enjoying an alcoholic beverage every once in a while isn't a huge deal. Drinking alcohol only becomes a serious health issue if you're consuming way too much of it on a consistent basis. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention classifies excessive drinking as eight drinks or more per week for women and 15 drinks or more per week for men. 

The risks related to the overconsumption of alcohol are serious. Binge-drinking alcohol leads to short-term health risks, including injuries from falling down, drowning, or getting into car accidents, and alcohol poisoning. It's also linked to violent acts including sexual assault, suicide, and homicide. Drinking too much alcohol can also cause miscarriages in women who are pregnant, and due to lowering your inhibitions, riskier sexual decisions that may lead to sexually transmitted diseases or unplanned pregnancies. 

When it comes to long-term side effects, drinking too much alcohol is linked to heart disease, liver disease, strokes, high blood pressure, and cancer. It can also destroy your mental health and has been known to cause anxiety, depression, and addiction.

Slouching is a habit that most commonly occurs in individuals who hunch over a desk at work all day., but staring down at a mobile device regularly can also negatively impact your posture. If you are someone who slouches when you sit or walk, you likely aren't fully aware of how bad your posture looks from an outsider's perspective. You aren't going to be conscious of the way your shoulders slump when you're completing normal day-to-day activities until someone points it out to you.

Acknowledging your slouching problem is vital because the side effects aren't pleasant to deal with. Better Health Channel notes that poor posture leads to a host of issues, including rounded shoulders, the illusion of a potbelly, a head that leans too far forward or backward, back pain, aches and pains all over your body, muscle fatigue, and headaches. If you let your slouching problem go unchecked for way too long, the unused muscles that are supposed to be strong enough to hold your posture straight will only get weaker and less effective over time.

There's nothing truly beneficial about staying up late when you're supposed to be getting a full night of refreshing sleep. There are several long-term effects that come into play when you force your body into sleep deprivation. Some of those side effects include hypertension, heart attacks, strokes, and obesity, according to Sleep Health Solutions. You're also at risk for diabetes, depression, anxiety, faulty brain function, memory loss, immune system deficiency, decreased fertility, and psychiatric disorders. 

Since there are so many things to be worried about when it comes to sleep deprivation and staying up way too late, it's best to stop binge-watching TV shows or scrolling through social media when it's time to go to bed.

For people struggling with insomnia, the ability to fall asleep and stay asleep isn't always a choice. The good news is that there are several helpful medications that can be prescribed by a doctor, as well as natural bedtime supplements that can help insomniacs successfully fall asleep and stay asleep through the night. For example, melatonin and ashwagandha are two natural supplements you can purchase over the counter to try to get some shut-eye. 

As stunning and as stylish as your favorite pair of high heels might be, the unfortunate truth about wearing high heels is that they aren't healthy for your feet at all. Tons of people rely on their favorite high heels for date nights, professional business meetings, and more. Those who are petite may even depend on high heels to add a few inches of height to their physique. Wearing high heels in moderation isn't the biggest deal in the world, but the side effects start to get pretty serious if you choose to wear high heels on a regular basis. 

Sutter Health reveals that wearing high heels frequently can lead to the shortening of your calf muscles, a stiffer Achilles tendon, ankle instability, and increased pressure on the balls of your feet. Since high heels are known to alter your center of gravity, it's also possible that you'll deal with back, hip, and knee pain that hurts you just as much as the pain you'd feel in your feet and ankles.

To make matters worse, wearing high heels too often can lead to deformities such as clawed toes, calluses, ingrown toenails, hammertoes, corns, and bunions.

Texting while driving is one of the most dangerous habits to have due to the fact that it can lead to serious and life-altering accidents. Ever since cell phones rose in popularity in the early 2000s, it's become beyond difficult for tons of people to put down their devices and focus during moments when they need to be giving their undivided attention. Laws have been put in place to prevent drivers from picking up their phones while behind the wheel, but that doesn't mean everyone is willing to listen. 

Some drivers get extremely bored and mindlessly grab their phones to text friends, scroll through social media, or play mobile games to pass the time. This bad habit is so alarmingly scary because all it takes is a couple of distracted seconds on the road for life to be forever changed. Distracted driving can lead to car crashes that end your life, the lives of people you love in the car with you, or the lives of perfect strangers who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is definitely one habit you want to stop immediately.

Most people are fully aware of the negative health effects smoking cigarettes has on the human body. The danger of cigarette smoke hasn't been a secret for a while now. Still, some folks are hooked on cigarettes and struggling to let go of the habit. The good news is that knowing exactly how cigarettes impact you from the inside out might help encourage you to break free of the habit if it's something you're currently grappling with. 

Smoking harms almost every single organ inside the body and causes several smoke-related illnesses. According to The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, smoking can cause cancer, heart disease, strokes, lung disease, chronic pulmonary disease, chronic bronchitis, emphysema, and diabetes. Additionally, smokers are more at risk for developing rheumatoid arthritis, immune system issues, tuberculosis, and certain eye diseases. One of the scariest facts about smoking is that it not only hurts the person who is smoking; secondhand smoke exposure can cause the same deadly diseases in the people who are closest to you if they're constantly inhaling the smoke you're blowing out.

Although you might not think of this habit as being the biggest deal ever, nose picking is actually a worse habit than you think. A large majority of people simply stopped picking their noses beyond early childhood after coming to the conclusion that it isn't exactly socially acceptable in public or in front of other people. It turns out that you might want to ditch this habit if you're still doing it when you're by yourself too.

When you use your fingernail to dig inside your nose, you can potentially scratch the inside of your nostrils. If your nostrils are scraped up from the inside, the skin there can take a very long time to properly heal. The risk of catching viral illnesses, such as the cold or flu, also increases when the skin inside your nostrils has been scraped up.

Nose picking becomes an even greater issue if you're picking your nose with fingernails that are filled with bad bacteria. No one wants to deal with infections in places that are as delicate as your nostrils. Unfortunately, picking your nose can create that exact issue.