Would You Wear Nail Biting Finger Covers?

Nail biters have a number of options at our disposal to potentially try to quit the nail biting habit. The question of course is whether or not they work.

Take a look at the photo above of the nail biter writing a letter and ask yourself if you could see yourself writing with a pen or typing on your computer and then imagine yourself doing it while wearing little gloves on each of your fingers and thumbs. Or full gloves on your hands for that matter. Finger covers for nail biters are a product available to dissuade and prevent nail biting. The theory seems to be that if you sheath your nails with a removable cover you will either be stopped or dissuaded from biting your nails as a result. As with many anti-nail biting products, this one literally covers the problem up rather than trying to directly solve it.

Certainly you could easily take the covers off to bite your nails and who knows what would happen if you lost one of more covers but at a minimum, the finger covers could at least remind you not to bite your nails every time you attempt to.

Gloves To Stop Nail Biting

A quick search online and in various forums like Reddit shows that people do talk about using gloves or otherwise covering their nails to prevent nail biting. In some cases, people wear gloves as part of their job for protective purposes (construction, landscaping), warmth (cold storage workers) or for cleanliness (latex gloves in medical professions). A positive side effect of wearing these gloves is that for a certain period of time each day, employees may not have the opportunity to bite their nails given that their job involves covering their hands.

In fact, some in the medical profession do in fact recommend wearing gloves to stop nail biting and also promote a number of the other strategies that we’ve discussed on this website including manicures, learning about your triggers and using bitter nail polish among others.

Your Best Bet

The best way to quit nail biting as with many things in life is to to go directly to the source: Find out what is causing the nail biting and attempt to deal with it directly. As mentioned above, what triggers you to bite your nails? Also, try to incorporate several anti-nail biting strategies in conjunction with one another to give yourself the best chance of success.

I’m a bit dubious of bitter nail polishes personally because I tend to pick my nails more often than biting them and therefore I’m mostly avoiding actually making contact with my mouth. But if you’re a nail biter and hate bitter tastes, it might help you. It’s worth a try if you’re planning on putting forth a solid effort to quit nail biting.

Another thing to consider: It might be easier to gradually quit nail biting rather than going cold turkey and quitting all at once. While some cigarette smoker quit at once and never smoke again, many wean themselves off tobacco by slowing cutting down the number of cigarettes they smoke each day until they get to zero. Or they use a smoking patch or other product to slow down the quitting process even more. With nail biting you might consider stopping biting one or more nails and eventually stop one hand completely and keep going until you eventually stop completely.

Conclusion

• Nail biting gloves that are specifically covering the nails may or may not help a nail biter quit the habit. If it interferes with your job or day to day routine, you may not wear them.
• Quitting nail biting may be more successful by incorporating several or more anti-nail biting strategies simultaneously.
• As well, you might wean yourself off nail biting as mentioned above rather than trying the cold turkey method and quitting at one time.