Adult thumb sucking can be a coping mechanism for stress or anxiety, but it may signal underlying mental health issues like BFRBs or OCD. These conditions can be addressed with therapies like habit reversal training (HRT) or exposure and response prevention (ERP).
People can develop unfavorable habits because they bring comfort and anxiety relief, which is why they continue to do them even though they’re problematic. These habits could be things like smoking cigarettes, pulling your hair, or even sucking your thumb.
Thumb sucking is typically associated with young children, but adults can have this habit, too. Adult thumb sucking can seem harmless, but in the long term, it could affect your oral health. If you find yourself relying on this behavior as a coping mechanism, it can be a sign of an underlying mental health condition, such as body-focused repetitive behavior (BFRB) and/or obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
Why do I suck my thumb?
Stress and anxiety relief
Babies have natural rooting (involuntary muscle response to stimulation of their mouth) and sucking reflexes, which causes them to put their thumbs or fingers into their mouths—even before they’re born. Because of these reflexes, babies may develop a thumb sucking habit because they know the behavior can soothe them and help them fall asleep.
Thumb sucking falls under non-nutritive sucking habits, which describes how children may use pacifiers and blankets or suck on other fingers for comfort and relief from distress. If you suck your thumb as an adult, you may engage in this behavior to relieve stress and anxiety.
Trauma
You might suck your thumb if you experienced trauma as a child and sucked your thumb to soothe yourself during that time. This behavior may have stuck with you into adulthood.
“In certain cases, adult thumb sucking may also be a symptom of underlying conditions, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), where it acts as a coping mechanism in response to trauma or emotional distress,” says Heather Brasseur, LMHC, LPC, a therapist at NOCD.
Body-focused repetitive disorders (BFRBs)
Body-focused repetitive disorders (BFRBs) are a group of disorders where people engage in repetitive behaviors that fixate on their bodies. Examples of other BFRBs include hair pulling (trichotillomania), skin picking, nail picking, and chewing. While experts are still divided on whether or not adult thumb sucking is considered a BFRB, it can still be treated with habit reversal training (HRT) which we’ll discuss in more detail later in this article.
Age regression
Age regression is a phenomenon where adults may return to an earlier stage of development, acting emotionally and physically like a child, such as having temper tantrums, doing baby talk, and thumb sucking. The potential cause for age regression is the desire for adults to revert to a point in their lives when they felt the most safe and secure—which could be their childhood.
The side effects of thumb sucking
Thumb sucking doesn’t pose many problems for babies and children, although pediatricians recommend parents should encourage their children to stop the behavior around age 2. If this behavior continues into adulthood, it could lead to several unwanted side effects. These can include the following:
- Oral health problems. In the long run, Brasseur says that sucking your thumb could lead to dental and oral problems, including “misalignment of teeth, changes in the roof of the mouth, and bite issues.”
- Low self-esteem. Brasseur also adds that this behavior could impact your self-esteem. “[Adult thumb sucking] may affect social functioning, as you might feel self-conscious or face judgment from others.”
- Skin and nail damage. Long-term thumb sucking could also cause physical damage to your thumb. “Prolonged thumb sucking can result in digital issues, such as skin irritation or nail damage,” says Brasseur.
- It is a hard-to-break behavior. According to Brasseur, prolonged thumb sucking “may reinforce the behavior as a coping mechanism.” This is because thumb sucking offers a temporary sense of security of comfort before you need to do it again for emotional relief.
Could adult thumb sucking be a mental health concern?
According to Brasseur, when thumb sucking progresses into adulthood, it could be a sign of maladaptive behavior, which is any behavior that isn’t beneficial for coping with stressors.
If sucking your thumb causes significant distress and/or affects your daily functioning, she says the behavior could be considered a BFRB.
“When the behavior persists beyond early childhood, it is often a coping mechanism for managing stress and anxiety,” she explains. “This ongoing habit may indicate the need for alternative strategies to deal with emotional challenges.”
When the behavior persists beyond early childhood, it is often a coping mechanism for managing stress and anxiety. This ongoing habit may indicate the need for alternative strategies to deal with emotional challenges.
Heather Brasseur, LMHC, LPC
Can adult thumb-sucking co-occur with OCD?
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a highly treatable mental disorder characterized by obsessions (intrusive thoughts, feelings, urges, images, and/or sensations that cause fear or anxiety) and compulsions (physical or mental actions performed to cope with distress from obsessions and/or to prevent something bad from happening). People with OCD often get stuck in a cycle that’s difficult to break without proper treatment.
If you have OCD, sucking your thumb could be a compulsion you do to relieve fear and/or anxiety from intrusive thoughts. But, as mentioned, doing this can lead to a cycle where you repeat this behavior every time these feelings re-emerge—which doesn’t help in the long run.
While OCD and BFRBs like adult thumb sucking can occur independently from one another, Brasseur says that it’s common for them to co-occur—and they can often worsen each other’s symptoms
How to stop adult thumb sucking
If you’re ready to break your thumb sucking habit, here are the best treatments to get rid of or reduce this behavior:
Habit reversal training (HRT)
Habit reversal training (HRT) is the preferred treatment for BFRBs. HRT is a behavioral therapy that helps you learn to stop or reduce repetitive and undesirable behaviors. “Habit reversal for thumb sucking helps individuals become more aware of when it happens and replaces it with a different, competing behavior,” explains Brasseur. “The process begins with tracking the behavior and identifying triggers, allowing the therapist to create a plan to change it.”
Some examples of competing behaviors you can do in place of sucking your thumb include:
- Using a fidget toy or stress ball
- Wearing band-aids or gloves
- Adopting healthier coping mechanisms, such as exercising, hobbies, or spending time with loved ones
Exposure and response prevention (ERP) therapy
If adult thumb sucking is co-occurring with OCD, the best treatment for addressing your obsessions and compulsive behaviors is exposure and response prevention (ERP) therapy. ERP is a specialized therapy that gradually exposes you to your triggers and teaches you strategies to resist responding to compulsions. ERP can be very effective, with 80% of people with OCD seeing significant improvement in their symptoms when they do this therapy.
For a thumb sucking compulsion, a therapist specializing in ERP would gradually expose you to your triggers and teach you response prevention techniques where you sit with the discomfort while resisting the urge to self-soothe by sucking your thumb—which, in the case of BFRBs, may involve competing behaviors like the ones previously mentioned.
Find the right OCD therapist for you
All our therapists are licensed and trained in exposure and response prevention therapy (ERP), the gold standard treatment for OCD.
Bottom line
Thumb sucking in adulthood may bring temporary comfort, but in the long run, it can be an unhealthy way to cope with negative emotions and trauma. To break your thumb sucking habit, consider working with a therapist with expertise in BFRBs. They can identify the underlying causes of this behavior and work with you to create a personalized treatment to help you adopt healthier coping mechanisms.
Key takeaways:
- Thumb sucking can be a coping mechanism for stress, anxiety, or trauma for adults.
- Adult thumb sucking is linked to age regression and mental health conditions like body-focused repetitive behaviors (BFRBs) and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
- Long-term thumb sucking can cause physical and emotional issues, such as dental problems, skin irritation, nail damage, and low self-esteem.
- To quit sucking your thumb, consider therapies like habit reversal training (HRT) and exposure and response prevention (ERP) therapy if OCD is also present.
