How to Show Emotion While Wearing a Mask

Cranford says he wore a mask to examine patients even before the pandemic. But now he's in full personal protective equipment — a gown, two masks, goggles and a face shield. So he tries to use body language to alleviate patient stress. “I sit below eye level and it makes the patient feel that they're in charge,” he says. “I'm not going to stand up and tower over them."

Cranford says his wife Martha, 64, takes things a step further, often putting a name to what she's feeling, with added hand gestures. She'll hug the air and say “Virtual hug,” indicating she'd want to embrace a friend or acquaintance, he says.

Articulating specific emotions allows people to know what you're thinking and feeling without the guidance of your face, says Paul Greene, a psychologist and director of the Manhattan Center for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. It's a helpful therapy technique independent of mask-wearing, he says. “Naming emotions can be part of improved communications for many people,” he says. “Identifying emotions in the first place is a psychologically healthy process."

Focus on conversation

Having mouths covered by masks means you can't read a person's lips as they talk. Even if you're not hard of hearing, lipreading plays a role in our understanding of conversation. “I didn't realize how much I relied on watching people's mouths,” Greene says.

Lisa Scott, a professor of psychology at the University of Florida who studies cognition and brain development, says humans depend in part on watching a person's mouth to process some language. Infants watch the mouth to learn about language and to distinguish sounds. She worries that babies being cared for by adults wearing masks could face language delays. “Covering up half the face is going to lead to communications difficulties across a variety of domains and ages,” she says.

To help, some mask-makers are producing face coverings with a clear plastic panel inserted over the mouth, especially for the deaf or those who need to read lips. In addition, some mask-makers will print smiles onto masks to convey happiness. You can even purchase a mask that has the bottom half of your own face printed on it.

Nurse Bernadine “Bernie” Gonzales, 50, who often works fully masked and gowned in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Children's National Hospital in Washington, D.C., says she puts more thought into her tone of voice and the way she interacts with her patients. Even though many patients can't answer, she talks to them and asks questions.

"The most important thing is how you convey your voice, the way you touch them and care for them and the time you spend at the bedside,” she says. “They can feel it when you're smiling."