Reduced Tic Symptomatology in Tourette Syndrome After an Acute Bout of Exercise: An Observational Study.
A single 20-minute cardio session can cut tics in half for kids with Tourette syndrome without any medication.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Nixon et al. (2014) watched kids with Tourette syndrome during a 20-minute aerobic workout.
They counted tics before, during, and after the session to see if exercise helped.
The study was small and observational—no control group, just real-time tracking.
What they found
Tic frequency dropped right after the workout and stayed lower for a while.
Most kids showed about half as many tics once they got moving.
The benefit did not require weeks of training; one session did the trick.
How this fits with other research
Ludyga et al. (2023) found the opposite in autistic kids: the same 20-minute bike ride hurt face-recognition skills.
The papers seem to clash, but they tested different kids and different skills—tics versus social cognition—so exercise can help one group while hindering another.
McGimsey et al. (1988) showed that two daily exercise periods cut severe disruptive behavior in youth with intellectual disability, extending the idea that short movement breaks calm challenging behaviors across diagnoses.
Buse et al. (2014) review explains that stress ramps up tics; exercise may work by lowering stress chemicals, linking the tic drop to a known stress-tic pathway.
Why it matters
If you serve a teen with Tourette syndrome, try a brisk 20-minute walk, jog, or bike ride before demanding tasks. It is free, fast, and side-effect free. Track tics for 30 minutes after and you may see a clear dip, giving you an on-the-spot tool for flare-ups or social events.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
In light of descriptive accounts of attenuating effects of physical activity on tics, we used an experimental design to assess the impact of an acute bout of aerobic exercise on tic expression in young people (N = 18) with Tourette Syndrome (TS). We compared video-based tic frequency estimates obtained during an exercise session with tic rates obtained during pre-exercise (baseline) and post-exercise interview-based sessions. Results showed significantly reduced tic rates during the exercise session compared with baseline, suggesting that acute exercise has an attenuating effect on tics. Tic rates also remained reduced relative to baseline during the post-exercise session, likely reflecting a sustained effect of exercise on tic reduction. Parallel to the observed tic attenuation, exercise also had a beneficial impact on self-reported anxiety and mood levels. The present findings provide novel empirical evidence for the beneficial effect of exercise on TS symptomatology bearing important research and clinical implications.
Behavior modification, 2014 · doi:10.1177/0145445514532127