How many people scared about muscle twitching have noticed when they look at the area of twitching it stops?
But when they look away the twitching resumes?
So for instance you’re at your computer or watching TV and begin feeling a fasciculation in your leg, say, the top (quadriceps).
You then stare at the area, and like magic, the twitching ceases – as though it got caught red-handed, like a child sticking a hand in a cookie jar.
You then gaze back at the TV or computer screen, and very soon, the twitching is acting up again.
Perhaps you’ve noticed that this experience can be repeated numerous times.
Has this driven you batty? Or has this generated a good dose of reassurance that your body is actually quite okay?
Not everyone can just up and go to a neurologist for an exam.
Some don’t have the medical insurance to cover this.
Furthermore, their plan’s neurology department might be booked a few months out.
What should you do in the meantime? Well, it comes down to using a little bit of logic.
Your eyes cannot make a fasciculation cease if it’s being caused by a neurological disease.
No human has this kind of power. However, if the fasciculation is benign, then it’s very believable that simply looking at it or the general area can make it stop.
Otherwise, people with multiple sclerosis, for instance, would be able to stop the tremoring in their hands by just looking at them.
The phenomenon of looking at a harmless twitch in a healthy body and “making it stop” is akin to an experience that I myself have had for as long as I could remember: making hiccups stop by thinking about it.
Every time I’ve ever suddenly hiccupped, I would think about it.
I’d simply turn my mental attention to the fact that I’d just had a hiccup, and that I’ve decided that there won’t be another one. And voila, there isn’t another one! I have only single hiccups.
The human mind can be a powerful thing. Though it can’t move a car or swing open a door, it can stop certain benign physical occurrences.
There is no neurological malady that comes and goes by you just looking at it.
Lorra Garrick has been covering medical, fitness and cybersecurity topics for many years, having written thousands of articles for print magazines and websites, including as a ghostwriter. She’s also a former ACE-certified personal trainer.
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