Posted on October 25th, 2008 by admin

Fingernails are more than a touch of biological elegance at the ends of our fingers. Think of them as little hard hats our fingertips take everywhere they go for protection.

Most of us are more concerned with the appearance of our fingernails than with their function, but you can’t have one without the other. Rough or jagged nails, spurlike hangnails, or split, excessively brittle or infected nails not only look terrible but greatly reduce our ability to perform a million little tasks involving the fingers.

One of the nicest things you can do for your nails is to exercise them—which is pretty strange, considering they’re made up of dead tissue. But new nail tissue is being formed all the time inside your fingers, near the first joints. Stimulation of the nails and fingertips, the kind you get by playing the piano, typing or doing craft work, speeds up the growth process. That growth, by the way, is no more than about four-thousandths of an inch a day, which is about one-third more slowly than hair grows.

Factors other than exercise that speed nail growth are nail biting and pregnancy, neither of which we recommend for that purpose. In any event, it will take about three months for the newly created nail tissue to reach the cuticle and about another four months or so for it to reach the end of your finger.

At that point, however, you may not be all that pleased with what you see. And no wonder. All sorts of things can rumple the sleek smoothness or pink complexion of a nail, including severe stress, serious illness, drug therapy and sharp blows. Of course, these events may have happened weeks before you see any evidence of the damage, so if you notice something peculiar about your nails, think back.

Once the nails have slipped out from under the cuticle, they are vulnerable to all those other hardships that attack the rest of the hands—hot water, harsh detergents—the whole business. The same good care that protects your hands—including creams to keep the area around your nails soft—will help here, too.

Tags: excessively brittle or infected nails, Fingernails, or split, Rough or jagged nails, spurlike hangnails