In today’s world, most of us experience a lot of stress and tension. The stress and tension that you carry through your day can be so intense that signs of stress may even show up during your sleeping hours. One of the most common ways that stress can show up during your sleep can be through tooth grinding, aka Bruxism. Here you’ll find some information that you might find helpful in regard to tooth grinding.
The Immediate Dangers
Tooth grinding can cause damage not only your teeth themselves, but will also exert a large amount of stress on your jaws and their muscle structures. This can result in waking up to painful sensations that radiate from your jaw area, particularly where it connects to your skull. This can throw off the alignment of your teeth which can compound the issues, so it’s important to take note of the things that could be triggering this reaction and stop them as soon as possible. At this point you might be asking yourself what you can do about it directly, but there are some short-term solutions that you can try.
Some Things You Can Try
For a lot of people, the first thing they want to do is find out how they can keep these teeth away from each other when they sleep. This can be done using different types of mouth guards until you can find some more long-term solutions to the problem. You can also try limiting the amount of caffeine and other stimulants that you intake in a day. Stimulants are known for causing a buildup of stress when they are used too often or taken right before bed, but it’s also possible that these manifestations could be signs of other issues that your body has been experiencing.
Deeper Causes
If you haven’t been able to reduce the amount of tooth grinding that you find yourself doing during your journey, then it’s entirely possible that you might have to have some kind of sleep study done. This is important because it’s entirely possible that the teeth grinding is a sign of a more serious disorder like sleep apnea, which could easily develop into something life threatening. Sleep Apnea occurs when your breathing becomes obstructed, so this can lead to interrupted sleep, daytime drowsiness, and in some extreme cases, even death, so you should try to find out the source of this discomfort with an urgent effort.
Damage from tooth grinding. Get help before it reaches this extreme.
The good news about tooth grinding is that it is relatively easy to treat. You can visit your dentist to get a mouth guard, which will be placed over your top and bottom teeth, providing a barrier between the top and bottom rows of teeth. That way, even if you try to clench or grind your teeth, they won’t make contact, therefore protecting the enamel. Over time, many people will start reducing the habit, thanks to the mouth guard, so you might not have to wear it for the rest of your life.
