As many as one in four children suffer from the embarrassing annoyance of facial tics. This condition can most accurately be explained as a repetitive, continual spasm that affects the muscles of both the eyes and the face. The exact cause is usually undefined, but research has demonstrated a strong link between stressful events and an increase in severity of symptoms.
Another possible cause of tics is deficiencies in essential vitamins or minerals, such as magnesium. In some cases, facial tics are symptomatic of disorders of the nervous system, including Tourette syndrome, a health condition arising from a malfunction of the nervous system. This health condition is hypothesized to contain a genetic component as well.
Some examples of a facial tic are rapid eye movements or eye blinking, squinting, mouth or nose wrinkeling, twitching, grunting, mouth twitches, facial grimacing, facial twitches, and throat clearing. The condition often starts at an early stage of physical development, and can last for merely weeks, months, or even years. At times, the disorder lasts even after a child reaches adulthood.
Facial tics can perpetuate and exacerbate anxious disorders in a child whose stress levels are already high as a result of the disorder itself. Other children are often incredibly cruel, making fun of the child’s problem. Worse, teachers who fail to understand and are unable to assist fellow classmates to empathize and assist the child in conquering his condition can have a devastating impact on a child’s self image.
The problem, however, is not limited to the affected child. Adults who must cope with a facial tic encounter significant challenges in managing this problem. These individuals often struggle with overwhelming social difficulties. In some instances, a person can develop the ability to recognize the onset and master the spasm that causes the facial tic. Even this, however, can become mentally and physically draining. Such individual often wrestle with self image problems as well.
Grownups who obtain relief from the humiliating effects of facial grimaces and other tics can experience social rebirth. Their perception of themselves changes, and they no longer fear to experience the fullness of life. Young people who overcome the effects of this problem experience freedom the agonizing stress that impairs their social lives, and live with joy rather than emotional pain.
At times, medications, such as mildly sedating drugs, are prescribed to this problem. While the medications may lessen the incidence of these symptoms, the medications themselves can often cause adverse effects. Therefore, persons sometimes rely on alternative methods to help them in treating their disorder.
Two alternatives that have demonstrated promising potential in helping individuals to overcome facial tics are hypnosis and NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming). Both of these therapies take advantages of the strength of the individual’s unconscious mind to help them redirect the repetitive behavior. Since these methods address the source of the problem by intervening in the unconscious where the problem originates, they offer significantly more hope for success than traditional therapy methods that merely attempt to control facial twitches, grunting, eye blinking, mouth twitches, squinting, facial grimacing, facial twitches, grunting, or other types of impulsive behavior.
Hypnotherapy permits the client to reach a peaceful dreamlike state and receive suggestions that assist them to release stress. Since tics are caused by suppressed stress within a person’s body, expelling this tension helps them to successfully manage the tic. After several sessions, the client ought to be capable of experience the ability to manage tension successfully.
Alternatively, therapists who use NLP assist the client to train his or her conscious will to utilize stressful stimuli as triggers for thoughts that will relax them. Additionally, the person is taught to use a non-related part of the body, like a toe, to redirect the emotional energy that would otherwise be expressed by the facial tic. This also allows individuals to overcome tension without resorting to the humiliating impulse.
Another advantage of both these is that the person being treated does not experience adverse effects from medication type therapies. Indeed, both hypnosis and NLP are usually considered to be the primary treatment for individuals who cope with tics, such as nose wrinkeling, or throat clearing, because these therapies do not have undesirable side effects. This avoids considerable pain and distress for the affected person.
Summary: Facial tics are often socially devastating and may yield extreme consequences. Male children are most likely to exhibit this problem, which can continue into adult life; however girls may also experience difficulties with tics. Although several treatment methods are available, hypnotherapy and NLP for facial tics appear to be the safest therapies, because they do not result in negative side effects and are very efficacious.
