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 primarily by assessing the damage and making a mouthguard, but that does not address the emotional root cause.

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 develop headaches and hearing problems if you don’t do anything about teeth grinding.

Teeth grinding can also disrupt sleep. Or you might grind your teeth very loudly during REM sleep. It can even lead to sleep apnea, causing you to feel tired during the day[1].

Who is going to grit their teeth?

People who like to be in control , engage in compulsive behaviors, and 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 practice mindfulness regarding your jaw tension. For example, by becoming aware of your tongue pressing against the roof of your mouth 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’ll also be more aware of your thoughts, allowing you to recognize stressful thoughts sooner and let them go more easily. That way, you can even prevent yourself from 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 methods cited by scientists include: biofeedback, cognitive behavioral therapy, stress and relaxation management, and hypnotherapy (source 3).

In a study on the effect of hypnotic suggestions on teeth grinding, in which eight teeth grinders participated, it was found that this helped to significantly reduce teeth grinding and alleviate pain in the facial muscles caused by teeth grinding. The participants’ partners also reported that they ground their teeth much less 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 throughout his life. Another positive outcome was that the client had become more assertive and was more open to exploring fun things to do in life[7].

In another case study where a woman was helped with hypnosis, the focus was specifically on reducing daytime anxiety , changing expectations about success, and providing suggestions to reduce teeth grinding during sleep. Follow-up assessments lasting up to five years after therapy (which consisted of only two sessions) revealed that the teeth grinding had remained absent throughout that entire period[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 through hypnosis is usually practiced at the beginning of hypnotherapy or self-hypnosis (using an audio recording). In that case, you’re often encouraged to imagine yourself in a safe place where you feel completely at ease, so you can relax and unwind for a while.

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

Through age regression, issues that currently cause problems and stress can be traced back to their source. Many of the problems adults face stem from the ideas they formed in childhood about how life works and how they’re supposed to function. But if that no longer works for you as an adult, it’s helpful to change that mindset, and regression allows you to do just that[9].

You then mentally go back to a moment in your life that gave rise to a certain belief . Next, you reinterpret that moment—but this time with the knowledge you have now—to sort of “update” that belief. This alone can relieve a great deal 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 don't want an actual anesthetic) and other problems that are more of a mental nature associated with dental problems.

Would you like to learn more about hypnosis and how you can use it to help people? Then join us for the free online masterclass.

Or sign up right away for one of our seminars or training programs, where you’ll learn the techniques to completely help your clients overcome teeth grinding and other dental problems.

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