Tourette Syndrome

What I've seen for myself and from what I've heard of many other cases, there have been two main things, two main types of activities that seem to help most for people with Tourette's syndrome. They tend to be highly focused, like activities that require a lot of focus or a lot of strenuous activity. For me, especially in high school, I loved acting in musical theater, I loved orchestra performance type things, and so whenever I was focusing and really present in the performance, I wasn't doing any tics, especially since I didn't want to do any tics when I was acting a part, a person that didn't have Tourette's syndrome. I've heard of other people being a drummer to deal with all that excess energy, and also there's a book called The Strongest Librarian, where a librarian with a severe case of Tourette's syndrome does a lot of weight lifting to cope with it. And so think about some of those sorts of activities to help you kind of deal with what Tourette's syndrome does.

I found some helpful tips would be finding the right medication, being in a peaceful environment, calm, quiet, where you can relax, not being under stress, being around friends that are supportive and understanding and don't question you every time you tick or mention, oh gee you're bad today, just ignore it and know what's wrong, basically a peaceful calm environment.

Playing like a very calm song really helped me and drinking like hot water, hot chocolate, something not too hot but not too cold too, just like a warm water which will calm your mind and calm your body down. Like those are the very helpful tip that really helped me and actually going outside and running and it's like exercising daily really helped me to get my um TS to get better so try that.

One time I met with a psychologist about my tics because I wanted to try to manage them more, and this was while I was in high school. And probably the most helpful tip that he gave me was to, for maybe a week or several days or a week or something, keep track of how often and how frequent the tics happen throughout the whole day. I realized that when I made a log for at least a I realized that for me, the tics were more common in the early to mid-afternoon. So not so much in the morning, not so much at night, but they kind of got more frequent as the day kind of wore on. Maybe things might start to weigh in my mind during school and things like that. So if you notice patterns, then that will, I think, go a long way to help you to cope with the symptoms of Tourette's syndrome.

Build your own support network. Other folks who have Tourette's, providers and professionals have a background in Tourette's who can help you with your journey. Advocating for yourself to your employer or school, etc. Or getting advocated for on behalf of somebody else if you are not as comfortable advocating for yourself as ideal. And that can also involve education. When I was in elementary school, my psychologist back then who specialized in Tourette's came in and educated my class and that opened up the eyes of my teacher and made it much more inclusive and comfortable for me in elementary school and beyond.

Some helpful tips to manage ticks would be to make sure that your sleep is structured, that you're getting plenty of sleep, and supporting your system, your body with good nutrition, lots of good organic foods, good sleep, and to try and avoid stressful situations because I know that will increase the ticking.

This is more of advice when it comes to tick attacks specifically. If you're really struggling in terms of the tick attack side of things, I know not everyone gets them but if you do my heart goes out to you because they are difficult. But you need to find something that works for you whether it be putting music on, if you can still use your hands and things, maybe trying to find a game or something that you can play even if it's a mobile game, putting a movie on that you know calms you, finding an artist or something that is calming to you and trying maybe things like I find MMA gloves or really thick winter gloves work really well if you're doing things like that and you can get headgear and things that help. Just don't be afraid to use things like that if it helps.

My tics make it so that my entire left side of my body, especially my neck, tenses up when I tic. Oftentimes this can create a lot of tension, a lot of stress in those areas. I have found that getting massages or having a massage gun that I can use frequently helps to reduce the amount of tics that I have because of the lack of irritation in those areas, as well as being in calmer environments because I know that sometimes certain noises can be triggers. Make sure that you are communicating with your family as to things that are maybe difficult for you, things that trigger you, and ask for their love and support. If you are not in a situation where people are willing to support you, maybe don't point out the things that are triggers for you so that they don't actively try to make you tic.

Tips is to not get angry because like if you get angry your tickets are going to come out more and don't don't whatever you do don't suppress them because if you suppress them they're going to come out more because i've tried that i've tried to suppress them and when the moment i suppress them sorry the moment i suppress them they just come out so it's better just to let them fly let them just you know because if you hold them in i'm just gonna come out more never suppress your tics because they'll end up coming out more it's better just to let it out it's like when you gotta sneeze what are you gonna do hold it in or just let it out

If there's a certain tick that is hurting you, if you're popping your jaw or you're tweaking your neck some way, when you feel that urge to have to do that, do a different tick. One that's not going to be as painful or one that's not, somebody's not going to be able to see. It always helps to, at the end of the day, put some oils on you, rub them around, kind of breathe. It's hard, it is a hard thing to have to live with and if you can take some self-time to pamper yourself, read a book, watch a movie, or just go in your bedroom and let all your ticks come out.

My helpful tip for Tourette's Syndrome was exercising, like exercising every day like it has helped me strengthen like my body or like my mind to like just to like focus on one thing and working on that like other thing could be like reading book every day or like doing meditation really helped me like just something that I could focus and like do that I like every day

I've mentioned focus and strenuous activity or exercise before, but I also failed to mention relaxation. So meditation, mindfulness, just kind of inhaling and exhaling for like five seconds, inhaling for five seconds, exhaling for five seconds, that sort of thing. That also helps a lot, just kind of to keep me grounded, to kind of like, even if I feel feel the urge to do any of these tics, when I'm relaxing, I can just tell I'm, my mind is kind of empty and open enough to just say, no, I won't do that. Not right now. And it's, it's a really nice feeling just kind of to have that, that desire to like blink or wrinkle my nose several times to have to, to have that desire to do it, but then just to say, no, let it go.

First and foremost, I would say getting to the point, if you're not there already, where you're comfortable in your own skin with Tourette's would be my first tip. Once you are in that position, you will have an easier time advocating for yourself and educating people on Tourette's. For me, I'm quite comfortable in my skin with my Tourette's. I have done my headbanging tech out in public around others and don't even hold back on it. But if I'm going into a meeting or something or an interview, I will sometimes do my techs before I go into the building or get out of the vehicle to get it out.

Something that I also think is helpful and it's a lot easier said than done but don't be too hard on yourself if your tics are stopping you from doing things. If you have Tourette's Syndrome, you have a disability and there is going to be times where it stops you doing things and we can all say oh you know I'm gonna beat Tourette's, I'm gonna get through, I'm not gonna let it stop me doing anything and don't let it stop you doing anything but if there is times where you can't do something there and then don't beat yourself up for it because it's not your fault and whatever it's stopping you from doing can wait until your tics have subsided a little bit but if you're finding that your disability is disabling you don't get frustrated, don't get annoyed at yourself because it's not your fault and unfortunately it is just the nature of it but you will get through and you'll be able to do it eventually.

One helpful tip I can give you is simplify things in life as much as you can, like if something irritates you, try to change it so that it doesn't irritate you, so that next time you go past it, or it happens again, you come across it again, it's not going to irritate you as much. Try and simplify things so that you're not going to get anxious or whatever, you know, because with Tourette's you get behaviour problems like that, you get anger comes out because it's so hard to cope with, so yeah, just simplify things if you can.

Something that has really helped me with my Tourette's syndrome is taking each day one at a time. I used to really struggle with waking up really early before I had to leave the house and I would just think about all the times that my tics would be, you know, too overpowering for me to stay in sick form and things like that, but I actually started doing a lot better when I didn't think about when my tics were going to be bad because it was almost willing it to happen, but I actually stopped thinking about, you know, the future of the day and I just took it each hour by hour and then if things went wrong we could deal with it there and then instead of having to make a plan for everything because it was almost willing it to go wrong for me, but yeah, I would really advise not thinking about all the times where your tics could get too bad.