I had a Habit Reversal Therapy (HRT) session this afternoon and my therapist introduced some major changes in my exercises. These are a big step forward in my course of treatment.

From now on, every time I tic and bang my chest I have to make myself do the same action back to front. This means putting my arm behind my back and feeling the stretch in the muscle. This is similar to the action I do for my biting tic, but my chest banging is much more frequent so I’ll need to be even more determined to meet this new challenge.

The second major change is that I have to put the slowing down exercise into practice in a real situation four times a day. For example: brushing my teeth or cutting bread. I had a go at this during the session and buttered a teacake. My therapist noticed that my instinct when I was ticcing was to rush through the job to get it done. Instead of this I need to learn to slow down and only attempt movements when I’m in control.

It’s exciting to begin putting exercises that are giving me moments of control during my HRT sessions into practical use on everyday tasks.