Facial tics are repetitive, short, irregular twitches of facial muscles. They are very different, but the most commonly seen are eye blinking, facial grimacing, mouth twitches, nose wrinkling, squinting along with throat clearing and grunting. These tics are usually symptomatic of nervous disorders such as Tourette syndrome. They usually occur during childhood and often disappear within a few weeks, but some may last much longer.

The causing factors of facial tics still are not very well understood, but a few things are suspected of triggering or worsening the symptoms. Tics can result from some nutritional deficiencies such as a lack of magnesium, but they are also very often symptoms of other conditions such as Tourette syndrome, whose causes are most likely neurological, and, to a certain extent, genetically inherited. Anxiety and stress have also been shown to trigger and considerably aggravate the frequency of facial tics.

Facial tics are tough to deal with everyday especially for children. Schoolmates, teachers and even sometimes parents, may not understand how tough it is to hold back the tics, especially for a long time period such as for instance a class. People will very often tell the child to "quit it", or may even make fun of him or her because of the tics.

From eye blinking to facial grimaces, tics usually feel inappropriate and embarrassing for both adults and children. It is also tiring when one must try to control them perpetually. This obsession can make you too self-critical and you can thus start to lose confidence in yourself and to develop some sort of social anxiety.

It is however possible to eliminate this embarrassment and to avoid other people's uncomfortable looks. There are ways to greatly diminish, and even sometimes completely cure, facial ticks, in order to restore your peace of mind and enjoy a fully normal life. You might never have to be concerned anymore about facial grimaces or controlling any of those irritating twitches.

Facial tics are rarely treated or, in some severe cases or if the tics are proven to be caused by Tourette syndrome, patients might be prescribed antipsychotics which are also used to treat conditions such as schizophrenia, attention deficit disorder or obsessive-compulsive disorders. Such drugs were not designed to cure facial tics in particular and may not always work.

Furthermore, they are well known for their several undesirable side effects both in the short and long run. Insomnia, depression, sexual dysfunction, weight gain and anxiety are only a few of the several undesirable side effects which are associated with these drugs. Some of them can even aggravate tics over time! But there are however other ways of dealing with facial tics that are totally natural and void of undesirable side effects.

Methods that utilize 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 those methods work it is useful to remember that tics are not a totally physiological disorder and are not fully involuntary either. They are a response to an unconscious impulse to perform the movement of the tic. This urge disagreeably increases as you try to avoid performing the movement. These urges also grow in intensity and frequency alike when the patient feels stress or anxiety or when he is placed in a particular situation.

Facial tics are a way to diminish pressure when you are anxious or are dealing with stressful conditions. This unconscious association could be cured using hypnosis and NLP, as they are able to change the sort of behavior your unconscious provokes when facing certain situations. In severe cases, the therapist will get rid of the facial tic by suggesting the unconscious make you twitch your toe instead. When you twitch your toe it is not apparent or visible to other people. Hypnosis also allows you to become a lot more relaxed in general, so it is an appeasing experience. It will help you get rid of both the stress and anxiety that aggravate facial tics.

There are all sorts of facial tics: nose wrinkling, eye blinking, squinting, mouth twitches, facial grimacing, grunting or throat clearing. Even though tics have physical causes, there are very strong emotional factors too. Anxiety and stress are without a doubt the most important of those factors. Tics have their roots in the unconscious mind as a response to states of stress or anxiety; using NLP and self-hypnosis you can alter this association. Anxiety and stress might also be effectively fought on the long term with the relaxing, stress relieving methods of hypnotherapy, which will greatly decrease the occurrence of facial tics.