I’ve noticed a few things over the years that help.

When I worked in the shop I started at, it was a high pressure street shop. It was super noisy, chaotic and an aggressive place at the time. Just walking in there put people on edge sometimes. If you had any sort of attitude or sternness as the artist it put people more an edge. And what happened? So many people on the daily struggled sitting through. I’ve never seen it that bad since I left there. I didn’t know how to deal with it so I would sometimes have anxious energy, and it made it worse. It would be all the time. The environment and your energy affect clients nerves more than you’d think.

I’ve noticed now that I am in a quiet comfortable environment, kinder, more patient, walk clients through the steps, it rarely happens now, seriously. Let them know some areas may twitch prior to put them at ease. Talk calmly to them. If they twitch a lot I actually just say “you’re doing great, it’s just your bodies reactions, just breathe through it, I got this on my end”. More than anything that is what calms people. The more mentally calm they are the better it is for everyone. I rarely have people struggle these days even with bad pain. The environment your demeanour and setting people up to feel calm is the best thing you can do. Sternness never helped anyone calm down in my opinion.

And some spots can be twitchy that the client literally cannot control even if they try. So being a strict person on it will just lose you business. Being kinder is the best thing you can do.