Mask Wearing And Nail Biting (Quit The Habit)

Can wearing a mask prevent you from biting your nails? Logically it seems like something that could help you get nail biting under control if wearing a mask in public or at work is something you are required to do.

With the advent of COVID-related lockdowns and mask wearing, people have complained about a number of things related to wearing one, most notably their glasses fogging up and acne flareups. But wearing a mask – other than for the potential and expected safety benefits – might actually offer nail biters an opportunity to take advantage of to help them quit.

Wearing a mask can help you develop the habit of not biting your nails and getting used to no longer using it as your go-to strategy when dealing with stress, etc. If you are required to wear a mask or even just start wearing one with this in mind, you might be able to quit your nail biting just like I did.

Mask wearing and nail biting

First off, I didn’t quit nail biting because of wearing a mask. I actually quit nail biting during the first COVID lockdown but that was a coincidence and nothing more. For me while wearing a mask certainly did prevent me from biting nails in public while wearing one, it didn’t help when I was at home not wearing a mask around the house.

And given that I was always more of a nail picker than biter, covering my mouth with a mask certainly wouldn’t stop me from using my hands to get at my nails. But wearing a mask in public did prevent me from biting them at that moment in time and if you’re strictly a nail biter, it is something to think about.

If you pick at your nails like I generally did, it would seem that more of a concerted effort may be required to quit since covering your mouth with a mask won’t prevent you from using your hands. But just the thought of wearing something over your mouth that prohibits you from biting your nails repeatedly might mentally be enough to draw your attention to your nail biting in the first place.

How I quit nail biting

For me, quitting the biting and picking of my nails boiled down to the fact that at the age of 50 when I first started End Nail Biting, I finally started paying specific attention to my habits. I’d never really consciously thought about exactly when and where I bit my nails at any given time. I thought I knew in general terms but as it turns out I did not even know that.

I would look at my bitten nails at the end of the day and compared them to what they’d looked like in the morning. I couldn’t actually remember when I’d bitten them during that specific day.

I knew my nails were shorter than in the morning but when had I actually bitten and picked them? Sometimes – many times – I really didn’t know. I realized that my nail habit was so pervasive, it was to the point of being automatic and subconscious.

I then started thinking more consciously about this habit in terms of when I did it and what caused me to do it. For me, I realized that while in the past I certainly bit and picked nails out of stress, boredom and other various reasons or triggers, the reality right before I quit the habit was that I just bit my nails because I felt like it.

I just did it. Didn’t need a reason.

So once I realized I was biting and picking nails for the same reason that I often fidget or tap my leg or fingers to the chagrin of my wife (ie. because I felt like doing it), I could stop doing it. Since I wasn’t doing it for any tangible or necessary reason.

While quitting nail biting might not be that easy for you, it doesn’t have to necessarily be hard either. Mind you if it was easy for me to quit, I wouldn’t have waited until age 50 to do so.

And for you, if you’re wearing a mask due to a requirement or just because you want to wear one for safety, you can’t very well bite your nails unless you remove it. But every time you become aware of how often you wish to bite your nails might get you closer to no longer needing to do it just like I did.

Summary

I’m very much a creature of habit and my nail biting and picking habit was certainly one that came very naturally for me. I’d done it for so long that it no longer was something I thought about. I just did it.

But if all of us are creatures of habit to some degree, what we need to do is create a new habit where not biting and picking our nails becomes that norm.

As difficult as it may seem if you’ve been biting your nails for years – I bit them from around age 8 until age 50 so I know the feeling – you might be amazed to know how quickly it’s possible for you to give up the habit 100% in a short period of time.

I’m loathe to tell you how to quit biting your nails in a week or 14 days or one month because your personal situation is just that: Personal to you. And putting a specific date on quitting is just random and means nothing. It’ll mean less if you don’t achieve quitting by your chosen date and then feel like you’ve failed for no good reason.

But sometimes it’s a small catalyst that you need to start doing something differently. For me, starting this website and researching and thinking very specifically about my nails is what did it. Maybe for you it’s peer pressure from your significant other or the fact that you’re tired of having bitten, ugly looking nails with bleeding skin. Perhaps the small first step is thinking about how you can’t bite your nails every time you wear a mask and increasing the time you don’t use it as your go-to coping mechanism when triggered.

If you’re going to wear a mask because you’re required to, you might as well take every benefit that may come along with it, no? Mask wearing and nail biting might be something that goes hand in hand to help you quit.

I’ve written a more detailed case study on how I quit nail biting that might interest you.