Blinking is a bodily function we perform without even thinking about it. Rapidly opening and closing our eyelids is a reflex that keeps our eyes lubricated, protects them from debris, and helps us process visual information. On average, adults blink about 14 to 17 times a minute, but what’s considered normal varies from person to person.
If you feel that you are blinking more often than you normally do, or you have become hyper aware of the sensation of opening and closing your eyelids, you may be blinking excessively. Excessive blinking has a number of causes, including eye infections, neurological conditions, and other health-related reasons.
Here’s what you need to know about the possible causes of excessive blinking and what to do if it’s creating discomfort.
What is considered excessive blinking?
Since the number of times you blink within a minute varies from person to person, there is no specific number that defines excessive blinking. However, if the amount that you blink affects your daily activities or quality of life, or if you’re struggling to stop paying attention to your blinking, you may consider getting professional help.
What causes excessive blinking?
You may blink excessively for several reasons. Movement disorders, eye injuries and inflammation, certain medications, and mental health conditions can be tied to excessive blinking. Here are some potential causes of this behavior:
Most common
- Dry eye: This occurs when your tears don’t produce enough lubrication to coat your eyes.
- Allergies: Things like dust, pollen, and pet dander may cause eye irritation.
- Eye conditions: Infections like conjunctivitis (pink eye), blepharitis, or conjunctivochalasis may cause itching, irritation, and burning in your eye or eyelids.
- Corneal abrasion: A scratch or scrape on the surface of your cornea caused by objects (e.g., fingernails, tree branches, makeup brushes) or from dry eyes.
- Eye strain: Using your computer, phone, tablet, e-reader, or other digital devices for extended periods may cause irritation, itching, dry eyes, blurred vision, and light sensitivity.
- Trichiasis (misdirected eyelashes): This eye condition develops when your eyelashes grow in the wrong direction, potentially leading to eye irritation.
Less common
- Neurological/mental health conditions: Tourette’s syndrome, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), Parkinson’s disease, blepharospasm (involuntary eyelid movement), Wilson’s disease, and multiple sclerosis may involve tics or similar physical symptoms. Tics are physical movements that are uncontrolled, sudden, and repetitive.
- Certain medications: Neuroleptics, dopaminergic agents, antihistamines, calcium channel blockers, noradrenaline and serotonin reuptake inhibitors, benzodiazepines, and thienodiazepines may cause side effects like blepharospasm.
Although there are some serious medical conditions associated with excessive blinking, it is typically not a cause for concern. In most cases, rapid eye blinking is just a part of normal eye irritation.
How can mental health issues cause excessive blinking?
Stress and anxiety may increase your risk of excessive blinking. “I have this horrible urge to blink my eyes like crazy,” says NOCD Community Member Cianna22. “It makes me really anxious and is triggered more when I’m anxious. It’s really tough for me to navigate.”
Feeling stressed or anxious can stimulate activity in your nervous system. Nerve fibers can send electrical impulses to your muscles to tell them to contract or twitch in response to your emotions. These movements, known as nervous tics, can affect your thumbs, calf muscles, and eyelids.
In addition to stress and anxiety, other mental health conditions like depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) may cause you to blink more often than normal. OCD is a highly treatable mental condition where people experience obsessions—repetitive and intrusive thoughts, images, urges, and feelings. These obsessions can lead to compulsions, which are mental or physical actions that a person feels compelled to do to relieve the distress caused by obsessions.
People with OCD may experience excessive blinking if they have somatic or sensorimotor OCD, an OCD subtype. “Somatic OCD is when someone focuses on physical sensations they can’t control, like blinking, breathing, and swallowing,” says Tracie Zinman-Ibrahim, LMFT, CST, a therapist at NOCD.
“I have a blinking and eyebrow-raising tic,” says NOCD Community Member JesseeJaymes. “So many people have said, ‘Why do you blink so violently?’ I get so embarrassed when I tic around people.”
“Paying attention to how many times you blink is an example of what is known as a somatic obsession,” Zinman-Ibrahim explains. “Somatic obsession is fairly common among people with OCD.”
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How can a doctor diagnose a blinking problem?
If excessive blinking is causing eye pain or you are experiencing vision problems, it’s a good idea to visit an eye doctor. An ophthalmologist or optometrist may do the following to diagnose excessive blinking:
- Check your eye alignment to examine the movement of your eyes and how they work together.
- Use a bright light (known as a slit lamp) to look at the surface of your eye.
- Ask you to read an eye chart to check the sharpness of your vision.
If your doctor determines that an eye-related problem is not the source of excessive blinking, they can refer you to a specialist for further examination.
Can excessive blinking go away on its own?
According to Zinman-Ibrahim, excessive blinking can go away on its own without the need for treatment, but it ultimately depends on what’s causing it. For those with OCD, it could return or never disappear entirely. “OCD is like a shapeshifter,” she says. “It tends to show up one way, come back another way, and may stick around for years and years before it’s diagnosed.”
OCD is like a shapeshifter. It tends to show up one way, come back another way, and may stick around for years and years before it’s diagnosed.
The bottom line: if excessive blinking or a fixation on your blinking is interfering with your life in any way, it’s a good idea to seek help from a qualified professional. But the type of treatment you should look for will depend on what’s causing the problem.
How do you treat excessive blinking?
Depending on the underlying cause of excessive blinking, you may or may not require treatment. However, it’s best not to jump to conclusions. As Zinman-Ibrahim notes, “Always get a professional assessment before assuming you have a diagnosis.”
- If excessive blinking is related to an eye infection, injury, allergies, or inflammation, treatment often includes:
- Artificial tears, decongestant eye drops, and oral antihistamines for eye allergies.
- Antibiotics, eye drops, compresses, or creams to manage fungal infections like conjunctivitis.
- If you’ve experienced an eye injury, such as a corneal abrasion, your doctor may remove any foreign objects and apply a topical non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug or oral analgesic (pain relief).
- Conditions causing eye inflammation—such as blepharitis and trichiasis—can require oral tetracyclines and antibiotics, removing eyelashes, or redirecting eyelash growth.
- If excessive blinking is related to dry eyes, treatment often includes:
- Over-the-counter eye drops such as artificial tears, or prescription medications like cyclosporine (Retasis) or lifitegrast (Xiidra).
- Your doctor may also recommend certain lifestyle changes to help your eyes produce more tears, like limiting screen time, staying hydrated, and using humidifiers in your home.
- If excessive blinking is related to eye strain, treatment often includes:
- Artificial tears and at-home remedies, such as taking breaks to rest your eyes, using glare-reducing screen protectors and anti-reflective glasses, and positioning your computer screen at or below eye level. If these remedies are ineffective, consider visiting an eye doctor, as you may need to wear corrective lenses while using electronic devices.
- If excessive blinking is related to neurological conditions, treatment often includes:
- Psychological interventions such as therapy to manage tics. If the tics are severe, a healthcare professional may prescribe suppressant medications, such as alpha agonists (e.g., clonidine and guanfacine) and antipsychotics (e.g., risperidone, aripiprazole, haloperidol).
- If excessive blinking is related to OCD, treatment usually includes:
- Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) is an evidence-based therapy that can help you face your intrusive thoughts, urges, or images (known as obsessions) head-on. You’ll also learn how to resist doing compulsive behaviors to relieve distress from obsessions, such as blinking a certain number of times or trying to resist blinking. A therapist will guide you through this specific treatment to help you accept uncertainty and doubt, and learn to be okay with the distress it could bring.
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OCD treatment for excessive blinking
According to Zinman-Ibrahim, ERP is used to treat rapid eye blinking just like any other OCD symptoms. But instead of addressing excessive blinking itself at first, she says sessions may initially focus on stopping or managing the compulsive behaviors, such as counting your blinks or trying to blink a specific way.
“The first step in ERP therapy is to contain and reduce compulsions before you learn how to stop the excessive blinking habit,” says Zinman-Ibrahim. “We want to make sure you’re not compulsively Google searching ‘What does it mean if I blink?’ or ‘How do you know if you blink naturally?’ Accepting uncertainty will set you up to manage your blinking itself.” She also notes that an ERP therapist may work through other compulsive behaviors tied to excessive blinking, such as visiting the eye doctor multiple times only to be told there’s nothing wrong, or seeking assurance from others that you’re blinking more than normal.
From there, she explains that the therapist would guide you through exercises that encourage you not to excessively blink. “What we do is have you sit for however long in our sessions and practice not excessively blinking,” she says. “We might lean into the fear of excessive blinking, like opening your eyes wide and not blinking for an amount of time.”
Bottom line
Blinking is a normal bodily function, but when it happens often enough to make you uncomfortable, it can be a cause for concern. If you are worried about excessive blinking, you should contact a healthcare provider. They can help identify the underlying cause of your blinking and, if necessary, provide recommendations for treatment.