A health risk of prayer

Praying-induced oromandibular dystonia:

This general kind of problem is called “focal dystonia”. It’s the involuntary fluttering of muscles that one ordinarily controls masterfully. It arises, somewhat mysteriously, in a few extraordinarily unlucky people who perform “a highly stereotyped and frequently repeated motor task”. It’s what happens in writer’s cramp, and in the eyelid twitching known as blepharospasm, and very occasionally in certain specialised professions. Doctors have seen it in pianists, tailors and assembly-line workers. But never before in someone whose repetitive action consisted only of saying prayers.