Facial tics are repetitive, brief, sporadic spasms of the facial muscles. They can be very varied, but the most usual ones are facial grimacing, eye blinking, nose wrinkling, mouth twitches, squinting along with grunting and throat clearing. Such tics are often symptomatic of nervous conditions like Tourette syndrome. They usually occur during childhood and often fade away within some weeks, but some may last much longer.
The causes of facial tics are still poorly understood, but some things are thought to trigger or worsen the symptoms. Tics may result from some nutritional deficiencies like a magnesium insufficiency, but they are also very often symptoms of other diseases such as Tourette syndrome, whose causes are most likely neurological, and, to a certain extent, genetically inherited. Stress and anxiety have also been proven to provoke and greatly increase the tics’ frequency.
Facial tics are hard to live with especially for children. Schoolmates, teachers and sometimes even parents, might not be able to understand how difficult it is to try to hold back tics, especially for a long time period such as for example a class. People will very often tell the child to “quit it”, or might even mock him or her because of the tics.
From eye blinking to facial grimaces, tics almost always feel embarrassing and inappropriate for children and adults alike. It is also exhausting when one must try to control them constantly. This obsession may make you excessively self-critical and you may in turn start to lose confidence in yourself and to develop some type of social anxiety.
It is nonetheless possible to get rid of this embarrassment and to avoid other people’s uncomfortable looks. There are ways to considerably diminish, and even sometimes totally cure, facial tics, in order to restore your peace of mind and have a completely normal life. You would never have to worry again about facial grimaces or handling any of these irritating twitches.
Facial tics are usually left untreated or, in some acute cases or if the tics are shown to be caused by Tourette syndrome, patients might be given antipsychotics which are also used to treat diseases like schizophrenia, attention deficit disorder or obsessive-compulsive disorders. Such drugs were not designed to cure facial tics in particular and may not work all the time.
Furthermore, they are known to have several adverse effects both on the short and long term. Depression, insomnia, weight gain, sexual dysfunction and anxiety are only some of the many adverse effects which are associated with those drugs. Some of them can even worsen tics over time! But there are however other ways of dealing with facial tics that are completely natural and void of adverse effects.
Methods that utilize (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) and hypnosis have been designed particularly for the purpose of treating facial tics. They can help you reduce them over time. To understand how such methods work it is useful to know that tics are not an entirely physical condition and are not entirely involuntary either. They are an answer to an unconscious urge to perform the movement of the tic. This impulse disagreeably increases as you try to avoid performing the movement. Those impulses also increase in both frequency and intensity when the patient feels stress or anxiety or when placed in a particular situation.
Facial tics are a way to relieve pressure when you are feeling anxious or are facing stressful conditions. This unconscious association can be cured using NLP and hypnosis because they make it possible to alter the kind of behavior your unconscious triggers when you are placed in certain situations. If acute, the therapist will eliminate the facial tic by suggesting the unconscious have you twitch your toe instead. When the toe twitches it is not visible or apparent to other people. Hypnosis also makes you become much more relaxed in general, so it is a soothing experience. It will help you eliminate both the stress and anxiety that make facial tics worse.
There are all kinds of facial tics: eye blinking, nose wrinkling, mouth twitches, squinting, grunting, facial grimacing or throat clearing. Even though tics have physiological causes, there are very strong psychological factors too. Stress and anxiety are without a doubt the most considerable of those factors. Tics have their roots in the unconscious mind as an answer to states of anxiety and stress; using NLP and self-hypnosis you will be able to change this association. Stress and anxiety might also be efficaciously fought on the long term with the stress relieving and soothing techniques of hypnotherapy, which will greatly reduce the occurrence of facial tics.
Alan B. Densky, CH offers facial twitch hypnosis programs as well as a large series of popular titles for all stress related symptoms. For enjoyment and learning visit his Free hypnosis video library at his Neuro-VISION self-hypnosis website.
Click here to watch Self-Confidence Hypnosis Video Chaper 2.
