What Keeps Dystonia in Place: Breaking the Predictive Algorithm That Runs Your Nervous System

This article is based on a video originally published on the Hope for Dystonia YouTube channel.

Today we're talking about something really crucial: What keeps dystonia in place?

First of all, you're not doing it wrong. It's not that you are consciously choosing to be stuck in dystonia. It's not a personal failure. It's not your fault.

What I'm about to tell you is so that you can find your power—so that you can begin to understand that you actually have agency here and you can change things.

It's not about blame. It's about responsibility.

I can respond to what's happening in my body and in my inner landscape. I can choose something new—with the right care, the right self-compassion, and the right practices.

Watch the Full Video

https://youtu.be/txF_eLu1Qmk?si=kFxCxpgARNz5mwWn 

The Brain as a Predictive Algorithm

I want you to think of the brain as a predictive algorithm.

What is an algorithm? It's basically just a series of steps. It says: If A, then B. If B, then C. And so on.

How the Algorithm Learned Dystonia

This predictive algorithm, in the case of dystonia, has learned to predict:

• Muscle tension
• Involuntary movements
• Everything else that comes with dystonia

These are baked into the current algorithm.

Again, it's not your fault. It's just how the brain has learned to function in order to protect itself—in order to protect you.

It is the best predictive algorithm the brain could come up with, based on the inputs it was exposed to:

• The reasons why you learned to stay tense
• Inputs related to your anatomy (maybe your temporomandibular joint)
• Repetitive action (like playing an instrument while really stressed)

Based on the inputs the brain received, it has learned to predict a certain state in the nervous system and certain patterns of muscle tension and movement.

Why "Predictive"?

I call it a predictive algorithm because it fills in the blanks.

It says: "Okay, I'm beginning to see the beginning of a pattern. Based on previous experiences, I'm going to infer what comes next. Based on the priors, I'm going to determine what happens in the body, what happens in my inner landscape. I'm going to organize the nervous system based on priors."

Our Job: Break the Algorithm

Our job, if we're on a healing journey from dystonia, is to break this algorithm.

We need to prove to the brain that it is wrong—that this doesn't work, that this is not an accurate prediction of how the world works, that this is not helpful.

To understand how to do this, we need to look at what elements lead the brain to predict a certain thing. What engages this predictive algorithm? What turns it on? What pushes the buttons that say: "I'm going to organize myself with tension and involuntary movements"?

External Factors: The Triggers Outside You

Let me simplify this in an extreme way and talk about external factors and internal factors.

External Factors That Push the Buttons

There are external factors that lead the brain to think: "I'm in that kind of situation—the kind that leads me to need to protect myself, to organize my jaw a certain way."

The most obvious cases:

Musician's Dystonia: There's an instrument you approach, and all of a sudden your hand can't function properly.

Golfer's Yips: The same thing—certain external factors lead you to think: "This is a high-stress situation. I need to put all this attention and stress onto my wrists and hands."

More Subtle External Factors

These external factors can be more subtle. They can have to do with social interactions.

For example, with blepharospasm: Many people have contractions in their eyelids when they're around other people. Maybe they're aware—maybe they aren't—of a certain social anxiety and a certain story that says:

"I need to perform. I need to look good. I need to impress people. I need to not let them see that actually I think I'm an idiot."

That kind of stress triggers the particular pattern.

The Most Primordial External Factor

Sometimes the external factor is even more primordial. It simply has to do with waking up in the morning and getting that feeling of: "I have to get going. I have to get up and brush my teeth and start my day."

That very action, that very state that asks us to engage our sympathetic nervous system—triggers a certain pattern of tension.

The minute you have to get up and get going, the nervous system starts tightening.

These Are Your Opportunities

You understand how this works, right? These are the triggers. And those are the exact moments when we have an opportunity to choose differently.

This is exactly what we do in the Hope for Dystonia Self-Healers Academy. We teach you to map out your patterns so that you have the agency when the time comes to say:

"I know I'm tempted to utilize these pathways and not those pathways. But I'm going to actually choose something different this time."

"I'm going to attempt at first—and make a habit of later—choosing a pattern in my body that engages more of me, more symmetrically, with more homeostasis and less tension."

Internal Factors: How You Learned to Be You

The internal factors have to do with:

• How we have learned to be ourselves
• How we have learned to live life
• How we learned to understand our environment and interact with it

These are the things we learned when we were little.

Common Internal Patterns

High Alert: We learned to stay on high alert because you never know when there will be a reason to get upset—or someone in our environment might explode, and we may have to manage their feelings.

Taking Care of Everyone: We learned we have to take care of everybody, so we cannot rest until everybody's happy. We end up always being in this loop of constant action, never being able to rest.

Fight or Flight: Sometimes it's excessive sympathetic activation—we're always in this fight-or-flight state.

Freeze: Sometimes we learned to hide, to disconnect. That's just how we learned to stay safe.

What Happens When Life Makes Demands

The minute we have:

• A certain demand at work
• A to-do list to get through
• A discussion with someone

Something within us tenses up.

The Most Primordial Internal Factor

Sometimes things are much more primordial. We have just learned that we are not good enough until proven otherwise.

So we get up in the morning and subconsciously we're starting a certain war—a war that says: "I need to prove that I deserve to be here."

And so we kill ourselves trying to prove that.

That looks like:

• A lot of tension
• A lot of dystonia
• Involuntary movements

Because there is that much stress within us.

Sometimes we don't need a specific event. This is just how we are organized.

Internal Factors Can Change Too

There too, that's not the end of the story.

We can learn to bring love to the parts of us that have learned to organize themselves this way—that do so by default.

We can learn to begin to view ourselves differently. We can learn to develop:

• Self-esteem
• A sense of safety
• A sense of self-worth

All kinds of crucial infrastructure within us that allows us to get up in the morning and not go about that war—and actually live from a sense of fundamental okayness, of fundamental safety.

There too we have this choice.

It is never something that is stuck forever. It is always something open and flexible and malleable and workable.

You can do this too. No matter how far gone you think you are, you can do this too.

The Anatomical Factors: On the Border

I want to tell you about another kind of internal factor—even though perhaps it's a little bit on the border between internal and external.

This has to do with the inputs we receive from our occlusion or our anatomy.

How Anatomy Creates Predictions

When we have condyles (the ends of the jawbones) that press our cranial nerves more on one side than the other...

When our vertebrae are misaligned...

We learn to predict that there needs to be more tension on one side than the other.

We learn to:

• Overuse one side of the mouth
• Use one side of the tongue more
• Chew more on one side
• Speak more using one side

There too, there's a predictive algorithm element that says: "The food comes in the mouth. I know how this works. I need to bring it to this specific side and chew it there. The tongue needs to do all this extra work. And as a consequence, the other cranial nerves connected to these need to tense up as well."

Breaking the Anatomical Algorithm

There too, what do we have to do? We need to break the predictive algorithm.

We need to:

• Reconnect with the hypotonic, forgotten pathways
• Begin to create new patterns there

How This Works in Practice: The Self-Healers Academy

So how does this actually look in practice? What is this process like?

In the Self-Healers Academy, the internal and the external are always woven together.

In the coaching sessions, the two sides are always in alternation—so that one can support the other.

Why Both Must Be Addressed Together

There is no way we can learn to chew differently, to speak differently, if we can't first find regulation in the nervous system—if we can't relax and let go of the guarding pattern that says we need to tense up in the first place.

There is no way we can learn to relate to the musical instrument differently if we first don't learn that our self-esteem, our self-worth, our okayness, our worthiness as human beings isn't tied to whether we succeed or not.

That's the real lesson.

It's not about learning how to do something new with our hands. It's really not about that. That is secondary.

Creating New Software

I hope you can see how—no matter what maladaptive predictive algorithm you are stuck in—you can begin to provide your nervous system with new inputs.

Those new inputs will lead it to:

• Predict something new
• Create a new software

Little by little, you will learn how to:

• Push the buttons of the new software
• Engage the new algorithm

That's how neuroplasticity works. That's how healing from dystonia works.

Learning a new way of being you. Learning a new way of functioning. Learning to create a new algorithm—and learning to activate it every time it matters.

The Framework: External and Internal Factors

External Factors (Triggers)

Internal Factors (Learned Patterns)

Anatomical Factors (Body-Based Inputs)

The Path Forward: Breaking the Algorithm

Step 1: Recognize the Factors

Map out both your external triggers and internal patterns. What pushes the buttons of your predictive algorithm?

Step 2: Address Internal Factors First

You can't change the external patterns if the internal guarding is still in place. Work on:

• Finding regulation
• Letting go of the guarding pattern
• Developing self-esteem not tied to performance
• Building a sense of fundamental okayness

Step 3: Choose Differently at Trigger Moments

Once you have the internal support, you can choose differently when triggers arise:

• Utilize different pathways
• Engage more of you symmetrically
• Create more homeostasis, less tension

Step 4: Reinforce the New Algorithm

Little by little, the new patterns become the new algorithm. You learn to push the buttons of the new software.

Your Next Step: The Recovery Roadmap

If this understanding of the predictive algorithm resonates—if you're ready to break the patterns that keep dystonia in place—we invite you to download the Hope for Dystonia Recovery Roadmap.

This free resource provides:

• The complete framework for understanding how dystonia gets "baked in"
• How to identify your external triggers and internal patterns
• The process of breaking the predictive algorithm
• Introduction to the Self-Healers Academy approach
• Tools for creating new software in your nervous system

Download Your Free Recovery Roadmap →

This is life-changing information that will empower you to take healing into your own hands.

Final Thoughts: Not Your Fault, But Your Opportunity

What keeps dystonia in place is a predictive algorithm—one the brain developed to protect you, based on the inputs it received.

It's not your fault. It's not a personal failure.

But you do have agency. You can respond. You can choose something new.

By understanding both the external factors (the triggers) and the internal factors (the learned patterns), you can begin to break the algorithm.

By bringing love to the parts that learned to organize this way, you can develop the internal infrastructure of safety, self-worth, and okayness that allows you to live without constant tension.

By addressing the anatomical factors—reconnecting with forgotten pathways, creating new patterns—you can change how your body predicts and responds.

This is never stuck forever. It is always open, flexible, malleable, workable.

No matter how far gone you think you are, you can do this too.

Ready to break the predictive algorithm that keeps dystonia in place? Download the free Hope for Dystonia Recovery Roadmap and discover the framework that makes lasting change possible.

Download the Free Recovery Roadmap →