Free Hair-Pulling Habit Tracker: A Trichotillomania Spreadsheet

If you pull your hair, you probably know the feeling of finding hairs in your lap with no memory of pulling them. A tracker helps with that. It’s a simple log of each time you pull or feel the urge, so you can see your own patterns instead of guessing at them.

This page gives you a free hair-pulling habit tracker. It’s a spreadsheet, not a printable sheet, so it lives on your phone or computer. The page explains why tracking helps, exactly what to record, and how to use your log with a therapist or other practitioner. It’s for adults and teenagers who pull, and for parents supporting a child who does.

What’s in the habit tracker spreadsheet?

The tracker is a spreadsheet you can use in Google Sheets or Excel. You make your own private copy, so nobody else sees what you write. It has two tabs:

• Your pulling tracker, a year of daily rows grouped into weeks. You add your name and a start date, and the dates fill themselves in. Most columns are dropdowns, so a day takes about a minute to log.
• An example, a week filled in by a made-up person, so you can see how it works before you start.

Each day asks whether you pulled and whether you had urges. On days you pulled, it asks about the pulling itself. It also asks about your sleep, food, exercise, stress, energy and mood. At the end of each week there’s a row for your reflections.

Enter your email below and the links will appear straight away. Choose “Make your own copy” to save it to your Google Drive, or download it to open in Excel.

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It’s a spreadsheet for Google Sheets or Excel, with a filled-in example to follow.

If you’d rather not sign up, that’s fine. The next sections list everything the tracker asks, so you can copy the columns into any notebook, trichotillomania journal or notes app.

Why use a trichotillomania tracker?

Because you can’t change a pattern you can’t see, and a lot of hair pulling happens without you noticing. A tracker turns a blur of “I pull all the time” into clear, specific moments: the sofa after work, the bathroom mirror before school, scrolling in bed.

Tracking your pulling is called self-monitoring, and it’s a standard part of treatment. It sits at the start of Habit Reversal Training (HRT), the talking therapy with the most research behind it for hair pulling, where you learn to notice when you’re about to pull and do something else with your hands instead. The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) lists keeping a diary of your hair pulling as part of habit reversal training. Therapists ask people to record their pulling at home because it builds awareness of the behaviour and of what’s going on around it.

Tracking helps in three ways:

• It shows your triggers. Most people pull in a few predictable places, at predictable times, when they feel a certain way. Once you know yours, you know where to put your effort.
• It builds noticing. Researchers describe two styles of pulling. Focused pulling happens with full awareness, often to ease an urge or a feeling. Automatic pulling happens without you noticing, often while you read, watch TV or scroll. Writing things down, even after the fact, trains you to catch automatic pulling sooner.
• It shows progress. On a hard day it can feel like nothing has changed. A log shows the urges you rode out and the evenings with fewer pulls.

Our guide to focused and automatic pulling explains the two styles in more detail.

What does the research say about tracking on its own? The evidence is limited but encouraging. A 2025 study looked at more than 2,000 people using StopPulling.com, a self-help website that guides people through logging their pulling and choosing strategies. People who logged more often tended to improve more. That’s a link, not proof: people who log more may also be more motivated in other ways. One early case report described a 9-year-old boy whose pulling stopped after he was taught to record it, and he was still doing well six months later. That’s a single child, so it shows what can happen rather than what to expect.

What should I log?

Log one row a day: whether you pulled, and if you did, the when, where, what and how. Most columns are dropdowns, so a day takes about a minute. Here’s what each column on the tracker asks and why:

If you pulled more than once in a day, choose the time you pulled most. On a day you didn’t pull, leave the pulling columns blank and fill in the rest.

A few things to keep in mind:

• Log the days you rode out an urge too. “Strong urges, didn’t pull” is useful information, and it’s progress.
• Note any rituals. If you do something with the hair after pulling, such as rolling it, looking at the root or biting it, jot that in the comments. It helps show what pulling gives you, and what a good swap might feel like.
• You don’t need every column every day. If you’re short of time, fill in whether you pulled, the time, the place and your feeling. Those show the most.

How do I fill in the log without it taking over my day?

Keep it quick and keep it close. The aim is a rough, regular note, not a perfect record.

• Pick a regular time to log, such as just before bed, and put a reminder on your phone if that helps. Filling in a day takes about a minute.
• Note it down as soon as you can. Details fade fast, especially feelings. If you can’t open the spreadsheet straight away, jot a word in your phone and fill in the row later.
• Track for one to two weeks before changing anything. You’ll get a clearer picture if you record what normally happens first.
• Don’t check your hair to measure the damage. Inspecting your scalp, brows or lashes in the mirror often turns into more pulling. A rough guess in the “How much?” column is enough.
• Keep it private if you want to. The log is for you. You choose who sees it.

How do I spot patterns in my log?

At the end of each week, look back over the seven rows and write a few lines in the reflections row. Which days did you pull, and which didn’t you? What times, places and feelings keep coming up? Did sleep, stress or energy seem to make a difference? The example tab shows how one person spotted that they pulled more on tired evenings in bed. Most people see a pattern within a week or two.

It can help to sort what you notice into five areas. The Comprehensive Behavioural Model, known as the ComB model, is an approach many therapists use. It looks at what sets off pulling, the pulling itself, and what follows, and it groups triggers into five areas, often remembered as SCAMP:

• Sensory: physical feelings, like a hair that feels coarse or an itchy scalp
• Cognitive: thoughts, like “just one more” or “I’ve ruined it anyway”
• Affective: emotions, like boredom, stress or feeling low
• Motor: movements, like resting your hand on your head while you read
• Place: where you are, like your bed, the car or a bright mirror

Our guide to the ComB model explains how therapists use these five areas to build a plan.

Then turn each pattern into one small change:

For more ideas matched to each kind of trigger, see our guide on how to stop pulling your hair.

Some people use an app or a wearable device that buzzes when their hand moves towards their head. Our guide to apps and wearables for hair pulling covers these.

How do I use the tracker with a therapist?

Take your tracker to your first appointment, on your phone or laptop, or printed out. It gives a practitioner real detail straight away, so you spend less time trying to remember and more time on what to do next.

In Habit Reversal Training, the first step is awareness training. You and your therapist describe your pulling in detail, and you learn to notice each time it happens and the warning signs that come before it. Your log gives you both a head start. Many practitioners will also ask you to keep tracking between sessions, so you can see together what’s changing.

To get the most from it:

1. Jot down a few notes before you go. Write what you’ve noticed, when it’s hardest, what you’ve tried, and what you’d most like help with.
2. Share your weekly reflections if you’d rather not show every row. They show the patterns without the detail.
3. Share what you’re comfortable with. You don’t have to show anything you’d rather keep private.
4. Ask how they’d like you to track from now on. Some practitioners use their own forms or ask for just one or two columns.

This works the same way whatever kind of practitioner you see. Our guide to Habit Reversal Training explains the steps that tracking feeds into. If you’re a practitioner, you’re welcome to share this page with the people you work with.

Can I use the tracker for my child?

Yes, with a few changes depending on their age. The aim is to understand your child’s pulling, never to catch them out.

• Younger children: you may be the one who notices, so you can note the plain facts (time, place, what they were doing) without questioning your child each time. Don’t comment on each pull, and never use the log to tell your child off or to punish them.
• Older children and teenagers: it usually works best if they keep their own copy of the tracker and choose what to share with you. Offer to help set it up, then leave it with them.
• At every age: talk about the log as a way to find out what helps, and notice the good days out loud.

For a calm, practical plan for supporting your child, see The Parent’s Guide to Trichotillomania: understanding what your child is going through.

What if tracking makes me feel worse?

Seeing your pulling in writing can bring up shame or frustration at first. That’s common, and it’s part of the condition, not a sign you’re doing it wrong. Many people hide their pulling for years, so writing it down can feel exposing.

A few things that help:

• Write what happened, not what you think of yourself. “Pulled at desk, stressed about email” is useful. “Failed again” isn’t.
• Make it smaller. Fill in only whether you pulled and how you felt, and leave the other columns blank.
• Take a break if you need one, and come back to it later.

If tracking brings up feelings that are hard to manage on your own, that’s a good reason to talk to someone.

When should I get help?

Get support if pulling is causing you distress, taking up a lot of your time, or affecting your work, school, relationships or how you feel about yourself, or if you’ve tracked and tried self-help for a few months without much change. You don’t need to wait until it feels “bad enough”.

Many doctors and therapists have never worked with someone who pulls. Everyone in our directory has told us they understand trichotillomania and already help people who pull, in person or online. You can search the directory and take your log with you. Our guide to finding someone who understands trich explains what to ask on a first call.

Our guide to eating hair explains the warning signs in more detail.

If you’re feeling very low or hopeless, please talk to someone today.

In an emergency, call 995 or go to your nearest emergency department.

• Samaritans of Singapore (SOS) — 1767 (24h)
• IMH Mental Health Helpline — 6389 2222

Questions people ask

Sources

1. NHS. Trichotillomania (hair pulling disorder).
2. Snorrason, Berlin & Lee (2015). Optimizing psychological interventions for trichotillomania (hair-pulling disorder): an update on current empirical status. Psychology Research and Behavior Management.
3. Cleveland Clinic (2024). Habit Reversal Training: What It Is & How It Works.
4. Barber, K.E., Woolley, M.G., Rogers, K., Hadlock, S., Woods, D.W. & Mouton-Odum, S. (2025). StopPulling.com: Real-world effectiveness of a self-guided online intervention for trichotillomania. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 49(4), 807–823.
5. Anthony, W.Z. (1978). Brief intervention in a case of childhood trichotillomania by self-monitoring. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 9(2), 173–175.
6. Flessner, C.A., Woods, D.W., Franklin, M.E., et al. (2008). The Milwaukee Inventory for Subtypes of Trichotillomania–Adult Version (MIST-A): Development of an instrument for the assessment of “focused” and “automatic” hair pulling. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 30(1), 20–30.
7. Mansueto, Stemberger, Thomas & Golomb (1997). Trichotillomania: A comprehensive behavioral model. Clinical Psychology Review, 17(5), 567–577.
8. Mansueto & Golomb. Comprehensive Behavioral (ComB) Treatment for Skin Picking and Hair Pulling Disorders. International OCD Foundation.