Why do I have superstitions about my nose itching? A therapist weighs in

Superstitions can be harmless—and are pretty common. You might know someone who has to wear the same shirt every time their favorite sports team plays because the first time they wore it their team won? Or maybe you knock on wood for good luck.

In some cases, though, superstitious beliefs and actions can be cause for concern. When thoughts like a superstition about your nose itching are detached from self-awareness, or when they feel like something you can’t control and bring a sense of fear, it can cross the line into something more serious, like obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), says Amalia Sirica, LCSW, a licensed therapist at NOCD, the premier telehealth provider for clients suffering from OCD. 

Here, she weighs in on what could be going on with your superstitions about your nose itching and how to get help, if needed.

Is a superstition about my nose itching something I should seek help for?

The key thing to ask yourself is: How much does this superstition bother you, or eat into your life? If the answer is “not so much” then it may just be a fun or quirky thing about you that likely doesn’t require therapy to fix. Hey, you do you!

If it does bug you, it’s not necessarily OCD, but it’s worth consulting a licensed mental health professional for guidance on what could be going on and how you can get help.

“But if it could be OCD, one of the key questions a therapist will ask when diagnosing it is about your level of distress and impairment,” says Sirica explains. “OCD will bring a lot of anxiety and fear and make it hard to concentrate on other things for large chunks of time.” 

In other words, it will get in the way of your daily functioning and bring very uncomfortable feelings. It can also affect your mood, and make you consistently feel like something bad will happen when your nose itches. And in that case, you could benefit from professional mental health support. 

What does OCD have to do with my superstitions?

On the surface, superstitiousness and OCD have a lot in common. For one, both commonly include the carrying out of rituals. They also are not often based on logical reasoning or fact. 

Importantly, both tend to contain an element of magical thinking. Magical thinking refers to a cognitive distortion—a fancy way to say “an error in thinking”—where you feel like your thoughts will cause an external outcome. “There’s a sense that your inner world creates your outer world,” Sirica explains.

A large body of research has corroborated the link between OCD and magical thinking. Because of their similarities, some research has even looked into superstitiousness and OCD as being part of a continuum, or two points on a spectrum. 

Despite similarities between OCD and superstitiousness, Sirica notes a major difference. When superstitiousness comes from a place of spirituality or communal ritual, “there’s usually some sense of enjoyment there,” she says. “With OCD, there’s no enjoyment—just a lot of distress.”

How does OCD work?

No matter the theme (also referred to as a subtype) of the debilitating disorder that is OCD, it has three primary components:

• Repetitive, unwanted intrusive thoughts, images, urges, sensations, or feelings. This phenomenon is typically shortened to just “intrusive thoughts,” and they make up the obsessions component of OCD
• Extreme distress over the “meaning” of those intrusions
• Mental or physical actions done in the hopes of relieving distress—called compulsions

Your “superstitions” about your nose itching could be an obsession—for example, you may think that every time your nose itches, it “means something.” This might take shape as a lot of “what if?” questions: What if something bad is about to happen because my nose is itching? The last time my nose itched, I got a stressful phone call from my boss—what if I’m going to be fired?

You may also engage in superstitious behaviors or rituals, which are compulsions in the context of OCD. Perhaps you scratch your nose in exactly the “right” way every time in order to prevent that “bad thing” from happening or you try to “neutralize” the superstitious thoughts or fears by replacing them with “good” thoughts.

Other common compulsions include:

• Rumination. This is the act of severe overthinking. You turn the same thought, worry, question, or image over and over in your head, hoping to “think your way out” of or “solve” a particular fear. You may, for example, ruminate on your superstition. 
• Reassurance-seeking. Those with OCD commonly seek reassurance from others, from themselves, and/or from the internet. This can look like asking a friend, “Do you think everything is going to be okay?” Or you may repeat to yourself Of course everything is going to be okay. It can also look like endlessly Googling information about your superstitions. 
• Avoidance. When done compulsively, this is the act of avoiding the triggers that set off your intrusive thoughts—such as places, situations, people, or topics of conversation. There’s a sense that as long as you avoid these triggers, you can ward off intrusive thoughts indefinitely. 
• Distraction. This is the act of distracting yourself from triggers and uncomfortable feelings. You may have the desire to “drown out your thoughts” by, say, watching television, going on social media, using substances, or constantly needing to be around others. 

The trick of compulsions is that they provide short-term relief while worsening OCD in the long-term. They reinforce your belief that intrusive thoughts are a threat that need to be given attention and “solved.” 

If any of the information here sounds familiar to you, don’t be discouraged—there’s good news. OCD is a highly treatable condition. 

How can I get help?

The most successful treatment for OCD is a form of behavioral therapy called exposure and response prevention (ERP). Unlike traditional talk therapy, which can actually make OCD worse, ERP—which was developed specifically to treat OCD—is clinically proven to be highly effective in the majority of people.

Here’s how it works: a trained therapist who specializes in OCD will take the time to understand your symptoms and create a custom ERP therapy plan specifically for you. You’ll then begin to actually confront the situations that trigger your worries and other symptoms, actively learning to resist the urge to engage in compulsions for a sense of relief.

For example, your therapist might simply show you a photo of something that symbolizes your superstitious fears. The fear thoughts—like the idea that something terrible will happen—will likely come up, but instead of responding with a compulsion, you’ll learn to tolerate the discomfort, allowing it to subside over time.

By making this conscious choice and seeing that nothing bad occurs, or realizing that you handled the discomfort better than you thought you could, your brain gets the message that there was nothing to fear in the first place.

As your therapy progresses, you’ll tackle triggers that elicit a bit more distress, to conquer bigger fears. With a specialty-trained therapist guiding you, you’ll practice confronting your fears in your everyday life, too, instead of just in the controlled setting of therapy—so you learn to handle them on your own, and ultimately become your own therapist. 

The result of this specialized form of treatment is that you won’t be riddled with distress from intrusive thoughts, images, sensations, feelings or urges. Your need to engage in compulsions goes away. And the things that matter the most to you won’t feel like they’re at risk of slipping away.  

Working with an OCD specialist to address the thoughts and situations that cause you distress is more accessible than ever thanks to virtual ERP therapy. In fact, peer reviewed research shows live teletherapy sessions of ERP can be more effective, delivering results in less time than traditional outpatient ERP therapy, often in as little as 12 weeks. In other words, freedom from your superstition can be closer than you might imagine.