Have you ever wondered how to stop biting your nails? You’re certainly not alone. Millions of people bite their nails out of habit due to a multitude of reasons and trying to quit can seem downright impossible. Could you stop biting your nails by wearing a face mask?
Face masks can help break nail-biting habits by putting a barrier between your hands and your face. Touching the face is a subconscious trigger to bite your nails. By adding the barrier, this trigger is taken away, decreasing the urge to bite your nails. It won’t break the habit entirely but helps.
Let’s talk about this a bit more.
How do face masks help with nail-biting?
Have you ever tried to bite your nails when you’re wearing a mask? It’s hard to do for obvious reasons. So why not use that difficulty to your advantage? You can stop biting your nails by wearing a face mask! Wearing a face mask is the perfect way to trick yourself into quitting the nail-biting habit.
The face mask is an easy and inexpensive tool that will remind you not to put your fingers in your mouth. If you find yourself reaching for your nails, the mask will get in the way—and that’s what we want. When you have the urge to bite your nails, wear a face mask! It’s that simple.
Wearing a mask will help you stop biting your nails for one major reason:
- If you’re wearing a mask, you aren’t touching your face, which means you aren’t touching your lips and mouth. You’re far less likely to bite your nails if your hands aren’t near your mouth. Often, it’s us touching our face that acts as a cue to bite our nails. Face masks have encouraged us to leave our faces alone a lot more. So, then the cue won’t occur and the habit of biting your nails will slowly decrease.
The tricky part is that a face mask doesn’t get rid of the other cue that can trigger us to bite our nails: being hungry. This is why it’s important to make sure you are eating and drinking enough each day. Otherwise, you could turn to biting your nails as a subconscious trigger for hunger and thirst.
But at least face masks stop the trigger of touching your face! It’s just one of the many benefits to wearing masks.
Wearing a mask makes it harder for you to get to your nails.
We all adjust to face masks in our own way. For some, it’s a new normal that occurs seamlessly and without fuss. For others, it can be uncomfortable or hard to breathe in. But face masks can make us feel more attractive because we are partially hidden. This decreases our potential social nerves and makes us less likely to touch our faces!
Masks make it harder for you to put your fingers in front of your mouth or nose at all. This wasn’t the reason face masks were designed, but it is a bonus. Plus, when you think about it, it does make a lot of sense. Face masks have been designed previously for use in medical settings. This is to prevent contamination and germ spreading amongst vulnerable people. The last thing doctors need is to be putting their hands in their face, and then operating on someone. Now, it is easy to come by masks for all settings, medical or daily protective masks. Any can be purchased to protect you against germs and help stop biting your nails.
Wearing a mask puts a barrier between you and your nails. It seems crazy that one little barrier can help break a habit, but it’s true. Eventually, you will stop subconsciously seeking to bite your nails and the habit will disappear. A face mask can help children stop biting their nails too. Invest in some face masks for kids and talk to them about breaking the habit.
The hard part is making sure that you don’t chomp down on your fingers during times when you don’t need to have a mask on. This might be when you need to look to extra methods to stop biting your nails.
Why is it hard to stop biting your nails?
Nail-biting is a bad habit, and people do it for different reasons. Some people bite their nails out of stress or boredom, some forget that they’re doing it at all, and others just can’t help themselves.
Awareness is key when it comes to stopping nail-biting: if you don’t know that you’re doing it, then how will you know when to stop? If you find yourself constantly biting your nails because of stress or boredom, there are some alternatives to keep in mind. Instead of keeping your hands idle while watching TV or waiting in line at the coffee shop, consider knitting or crocheting as a new hobby. These activities are great because they require constant focus and concentration on what your hands are doing. Keeping your hands busy means less time thinking about nail-biting!
You can also try wearing gloves or a face mask when you find yourself around other people (or even just when sitting at home). This will give an extra layer between your mouth and fingers so that the temptation won’t be as great.
Any habit is hard to break and nail-biting is no exception. But you need to make the effort to stop yourself as soon as you realise that you are doing it.
Face masks and other methods to stop nail biting
There are many benefits of wearing a face mask, even if you do not have symptoms of COVID-19. For
Face masks have become a new method to help stop biting your nails. It’s something that people discovered as a benefit to wearing masks over the past couple of years. But nail-biting is a tricky habit to break. So, what are some other methods to help you out?
You can try keeping your nails short. This way there isn’t much to chew at and any attempt to bite your nails could sting. This mini pain will trigger a reaction in your brain, associating the habit with a negative response. The sting can be enough to put people off biting their nails.
Sometimes, all it can take is a good manicure to stop you from biting your nails. People don’t like to ruin art, which is what manicures can be considered. Getting a nice manicure can put you off biting your nails. You can add to this by getting nail covers that allow your nails to grow while they’re on.
A method that has been used for decades involves applying nail varnish to your nails that have a bad taste. There are varnishes specifically designed to deter you from biting your nail because of the taste.
Or, you can chuck on a face mask! All of these methods will help you break your nail-biting habit provided that you are determined to do so.
While it’s not likely that wearing a face mask can be the sole solution to stop biting your nails, the principle still holds true. By making your usual nail-biting routine difficult and less convenient, you’re giving yourself fewer opportunities to bite. That makes wearing a face mask another useful tool in your arsenal against nail-biting.
Wearing a face mask with glasses can be frustrating. But we can tell you how to stop glasses from falling off with a facemask on! We can also explain why you use facemask filters. For a range of quality facemasks, check out our Paragon Tools masks!
