Facial Tics and Facial Twitches:
How To Eliminate Them

By Alan B. Densky, CH

Facial tics are brief, repetitive, sporadic spasms of facial muscles. Methods that use hypnosis and NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) have been designed particularly for the purpose of treating facial tics. They can help you reduce them over time.

Facial tics are brief, repetitive, sporadic spasms of facial muscles. They can be extremely diverse, but the most common ones are eye blinking, facial grimacing, mouth twitches, nose wrinkling, squinting as well as throat clearing and grunting. Such tics are often symptomatic of nervous disorders such as Tourette syndrome. They usually occur during childhood and can disappear within a few weeks, but some may last indefinitely.

The causes of facial tics are still poorly understood, but some things are thought to trigger or worsen the symptoms. Tics can be caused by some nutritional deficiencies such as a lack of magnesium, but they can also very often be symptoms of other conditions such as Tourette syndrome, whose causes are most likely neurological, and, to a certain extent, genetically inherited. Stress and anxiety have also been shown to provoke and significantly increase the frequency of facial tics.

acial tics can be hard to live with especially for children. Teachers, schoolmates and even sometimes parents, might not understand how difficult it is to hold back the tics, especially for a long period of time such as a class. People will most often just ask the child to "quit it", or might even mock him or her for having tics.

From eye blinking to facial grimaces, tics always feel inappropriate and embarrassing for both children and adults. It is also exhausting to have to try to control them all the time. This obsession can cause you to become overly self-critical or to lose self confidence and can lead to social anxiety.

It is however possible to get rid of this embarrassment and to avoid people's awkward stares. There are ways to considerably reduce, and sometimes totally cure, facial tics, in order to restore your peace of mind and enjoy a fully normal life. You would never have to worry again about facial grimaces or controlling any of those annoying twitches.

Facial tics are usually left untreated or, in some severe cases if the tics are proven to be caused by Tourette syndrome, patients may be given antipsychotics which are also used to treat conditions such as schizophrenia, attention deficit disorder or obsessive-compulsive disorders. These drugs were not designed to cure facial tics in particular and may not always be efficient.

Furthermore, they are well known for their numerous adverse effects both on the short and long term. Depression, insomnia, weight gain, sexual dysfunction, anxiety are only a few of the numerous undesirable side effects which can be caused by such drugs. Some of them can even worsen tics in the long run! But there are however other ways of dealing with facial tics that are entirely natural and free of negative side effects.

Methods that use hypnosis and NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) have been designed particularly for the purpose of treating facial tics. They can help you reduce them over time. In order to understand why these methods works it is important to remember that tics are not a purely physical disorder and are not entirely involuntary either. They are a response to an unconscious urge to perform the movement of the tic. This urge unpleasantly builds up as you try to hold back from performing the movement. Such urges also increase in both frequency and intensity when the patient feels stress or anxiety or when placed in certain situations.

Facial tics are a way to relieve pressure when you are feeling anxious or are placed in a stressful environment. This unconscious association can be cured with hypnosis and NLP because they are able to change the behavior your unconscious mind triggers when facing certain situations. In severe cases, the therapist will eliminate the facial tic by suggesting the unconscious make you twitch your toe instead. When the toe twitches it is not visible or apparent to the people around you. Hypnosis also allows you to become much more relaxed overall, so it is a stress relieving experience. It will help you get rid of both the stress and anxiety that worsen facial tics.

Facial tics come in many different forms: nose wrinkling, eye blinking, squinting, mouth twitches, facial grimacing, grunting or throat clearing. If tics have physiological causes, there is also as we have seen, very strong emotional factors. Stress and anxiety are doubtlessly the most important of these factors. Tics have their roots in the unconscious mind as a response to states of stress or anxiety; with self-hypnosis and NLP you will be able to alter this association. Stress and anxiety can also be effectively fought on the long term with the relaxing, stress relieving methods of hypnotherapy, which will considerably reduce the occurrence of facial tics.

Facial Tics and Facial Twitches: How To Eliminate Them

By Alan B. Densky, CH

Facial Tics and Facial Twitches:
How To Eliminate Them