Do you ever wake up in the morning and feel sore around your jaw? Or do you wake up with a headache that you can’t account for? Maybe you often get toothache. If so, it might be that you grind your teeth in your sleep. This is a habit that many people have, and a lot of the time, it relates to stress. The more stressed you are, the more tense your jaw is, and the more likely it is you’ll grind your teeth together.
Obviously, grinding your teeth is not ideal; it can damage the teeth, for one thing, and it causes pain and disrupted sleep for another. So what can be done about it? Read on for some useful tips to help you stop grinding your teeth.
Minimize Stress
Of course, the best thing you can do when it comes to your teeth grinding is to get to the root cause of the issue. This means understanding why you are grinding your teeth, and once you know that, you can take steps to solve the problem. Not only will this stop you from grinding your teeth, but it will also help you in many other aspects of your life; it might be that there are other problems you didn’t realize you were suffering from or didn’t know where linked to stress.
Seeing a therapist is the first step to getting this expert help. You should research online how to choose a therapist because there are many things to take into consideration. Once you have found the ideal one for you, allow yourself to talk through all your issues and listen to their advice.
You can also start to reduce stressors in your life by dealing with problems head-on. This won’t be easy, but it will help you have a calmer, more pleasant life with less stress and, hopefully, less teeth grinding too.
Mouth Guards
Mouth guards can be highly beneficial to anyone who grinds their teeth. Wearing a mouth guard at night means that your teeth won’t be damaged as the guard protects them. It sounds like this would be an ideal solution, and for many, it can work well, but there are a couple of problems with choosing this option.
The first issue is that mouth guards can be uncomfortable, so you’ll be going from one sleep problem to another, as if you can’t settle completely, you won’t sleep as deeply as you need to in order to rejuvenate the body. Plus, you’ll still be in pain, just from a different source. The second problem is that wearing a mouth guard will address the symptom but not the cause of your teeth grinding, so you’ll continue to do it. However, as an interim measure while you’re seeking extra help, a mouth guard can work well.
Facial Exercises
Facial exercises are those that make the tongue and jaw muscles work and relax them. They should, when done properly, realign your jaw, and this can reduce your teeth grinding and sometimes even stop it altogether.
There are a variety of different exercises you can do, so it’s best to try a few out and see which one works best for you. One example is saying the letter ‘N’ over and over. Don’t let your top and bottom teeth touch when you say the letter, and this will help to relax the jaw and prevent grinding in many cases.
