Teeth grinding: tips for grinders and dentists

Tooth grinding is not helpful at all, as it causes your teeth to wear down faster than they should. The cause of teeth grinding is not yet entirely clear, but what is clear is that it can have emotional causes.

A dentist often helps mainly by surveying the damage and making a bit, but that does not solve the emotional source.

It does keep teeth from further wearing down.

Dangers of teeth grinding

If you suffer from teeth grinding, you may experience the following problems.

Wear down your enamel and shorter molars and teeth than makes sense for your age. Your teeth are often more sensitive to temperature differences, which is not helpful with soup or ice cream, and you can even lose teeth!

Temperature differences are not the only problems you can have with nutrition. Because you put a lot of strain on your jaw muscles, the part where your jaw muscle attaches to your skull becomes overloaded and can become inflamed. As a result, chewing can hurt.

You can even get headaches and hearing problems if you don't do anything about teeth grinding.

Tooth grinding can also disrupt sleep. Or, on the contrary, you may start grinding your teeth very hard during REM sleep. It can even cause sleep apnea, making you tired during the day[1].

Who is going to grit their teeth?

People who like to be in control , do things compulsively and who suffer from aggression are more likely to develop teeth grinding (source 1).

In addition, there is evidence that anxiety and depressive symptoms also contribute to the development of teeth grinding[2].

And there are also researchers who indicate that people who are competitively minded suffer more.

Nearly 13% of all adults suffer from teeth grinding. Children can also suffer from teeth grinding, but how many of them is still unclear. Some studies indicate that 3% of children suffer from it, but there are also studies that indicate that even 40% of children suffer from it.

Women suffer from it more often than men, but men can certainly suffer from it as well[3].

What can you do about teeth grinding?

Initially, you can request a bit from your dentist so that the harmful effects to your teeth themselves at least stop. Then the only problem you will have is that you tighten your muscles a lot and therefore have pain while chewing.

Throughout the day, you can apply mindfulness about your jaw tension. For example, by becoming aware of your tongue pressing against your palate and relaxing it, you can also relax your entire jaw, giving your muscles at least a little rest.

There are medications for teeth grinding, but these in turn can have a variety of side effects. For example, consider clonazepam, which is a benzodiazepine (source 3). Here you need more and more over time for the same effect.

In addition, cognitive behavioral therapy techniques are also recommended[4]. So you can do practical things, and mentally do something to suffer less from stress, anxiety, perfectionism, compulsive behavior and/or aggression.

Mindfulness against teeth grinding

Mindfulness is a way of meditating (and a bit of living) in which you are very aware of the here-and-now and of your body. This awareness helps you notice more quickly when you are grinding your teeth and allows you to consciously stop.

You also have better control over your thoughts, which means you are more likely to notice when you have stressful thoughts and then be able to release them better. That way, you can even avoid grinding your teeth.

Releasing thoughts that cause stress is often easier said than done. Therefore, therapy can also be helpful alongside learning mindfulness[5].

Therapy for teeth grinding

Therapy forms cited by scientists include biofeedback, cognitive behavioral therapy, stress and relaxation management and hypnotherapy (source 3).

A study on the effect of hypnotic suggestions on teeth grinding, in which eight teeth grinders participated, found that it helped to significantly reduce teeth grinding and lower facial muscle pain caused by teeth grinding. The participants' partners also reported much less teeth grinding at night.

These effects were noticeable for four to 36 months (three years)[6].

In a case study where someone received not just hypnotic suggestions, but actual hypnotherapy of seven sessions, it was found that this helped to completely eliminate symptoms and a year later this effect was still there.

The treatment focused on the client's difficult childhood and the hostility he had faced in his life. Another nice effect was that the client had become more assertive and explored more to do fun things in life[7].

In another case study where a woman was helped with hypnosis, on the contrary, there was a focus on reducing daytime anxiety , changing expectations about success and there were suggestions to reduce teeth grinding while sleeping. In controls that lasted up to five years after therapy (which was only two sessions), it was found that the teeth grinding remained gone all that time[8].

Hypnosis techniques against teeth grinding

In the above studies, a number of problems have been solved for people that helped them stop grinding their teeth and further improved their lives as well.

Relaxation with hypnosis is usually done at the beginning of hypnotherapy or self-hypnosis (with an audio recording). In this case, you may often imagine that you are in a safe place where you feel completely comfortable, so you can relax for a while.

After that, therapeutic work often begins to identify sources of stress.

With age regression, problems that currently cause trouble and stress can be traced to their source. In fact, many problems that adults have arise from figuring out in childhood how life works and how they are supposed to function. But if that no longer works for you as an adult, it is helpful to change that feeling and with regression you can do this[9].

You then go back in your mind to a moment in your life that created a particular belief . You then reinterpret this moment, but with the knowledge you have now, to give that belief an update of sorts. This alone can relieve a lot of stress.

In addition, you can also just have a kind of conversation while in hypnosis in which you can get an alternative view of your problems, so that you worry less, for example.

You can also get a post-hypnotic suggestion about your behavior after therapy. For example, being more observant about the tensions in your body and, as a result, being able to stop grinding your teeth even in your sleep.

These are just a few examples. There are an awful lot of hypnotherapy techniques that can be used to change stress, anxiety and other problems.

If you want help because of teeth grinding from a hypnotherapist, click here .

As a dentist, what can you do about teeth grinding?

The good news from the studies is that just giving hypnotic suggestions about reducing teeth grinding does something, at least temporarily. A full hypnotherapy session can solve the teeth grinding or at least make it really stay away for years.

As a dentist, with knowledge of hypnosis, you can already give your clients the suggestions about being able to control teeth grinding.

If you want to go all the way for your client, you can make an audio recording, as with an mp3 file. Your clients can listen to those before bed or during the day if they find they still have a lot of tension on their jaw.

In with that mp3, you can help your clients relax and give suggestions on how the teeth grinding will become less and less and even stay away.

You can also point out to your clients that emotional factors often underlie tooth grinding problems. Reducing stress is one of the many steps people can take, but in addition they may also process other problems, such as a difficult childhood, trauma or the like.

You can refer your clients to a hypnotherapist or you can be a dentist who offers special dental hypnotherapy specifically for problems related to teeth.

Such as to overcome fear of the dentist, stop teeth grinding, hypnotic anesthesia (for people who do not want an actual anesthetic) and other problems that are more of a mental nature associated with dental problems.

Want to learn more about hypnosis and how it can help people? Then come to the free online master class.

Or sign up directly for one of our seminars or trainings where you can learn the techniques to help your clients get rid of teeth grinding and other dental problems completely.

Sources: