How to stop picking your skin

Updated October 2026

Trying harder not to pick rarely works for long. What therapists teach instead is habit reversal training: you learn when you pick, make it harder to start in those moments, and have something else to do with your hands when the urge comes. You can start on most of it yourself.

Find out when you pick

A lot of picking happens without noticing, so the first job is catching it. For a week or two, write down each time you pick: which spot, the time, what you were doing, and whether you meant to or found yourself already doing it. If you can, add how you felt just before.

Most people find that their picking clusters in two or three situations, such as the bathroom mirror at night, in bed, or at a desk. Start with those. Tracking skin picking has more on what to log.

Make it harder to start

Once you know your situations, change them. If it happens at the mirror, dim the light, put the magnifying mirror away, or set a timer before you go in. Short nails and gloves or finger cots make picking harder at home. A plaster over a spot you keep going back to helps too. Keep tweezers somewhere inconvenient.

If acne, dry skin or dandruff gives you things to pick at, treating them with a doctor's or pharmacist's help removes some of the triggers.

Give your hands something else to do

Habit reversal calls this a competing response. It's something you do with your hands that makes picking impossible while you do it. Make loose fists for a minute, press your palms together, or hold a stress ball or a fidget toy. Choose one and use it every time you notice an urge or catch yourself picking.

Wait out the urge

An urge feels like it will keep building until you give in, but it peaks and fades on its own, usually within minutes. If you watch it instead of fighting it, it passes sooner. This is called urge surfing.

Replace what picking does for you

For a lot of people picking calms them down or fills empty time. If you take it away and nothing replaces it, it tends to come back. A walk, a shower or a few slow breaths can do the same job. So can calling someone or going to bed earlier.

Slips

You'll have days where it comes back. Look at how the weeks are going, not one day. Count the urges you got through as well as the picks.

Getting help

If picking is causing wounds or scars, or taking up a lot of your time, look for a therapist who does CBT with habit reversal or the Comprehensive Behavioral (ComB) model. The TLC Foundation for BFRBs lists them at bfrb.org. See a doctor about any wound that looks infected.

Gentleskin is an iPhone app for logging picks and urges and seeing how they change. See it on the App Store.

General information, not medical advice.