Learn the complications that can arise from jaw clenching and how to stop clenching your jaw from stress with 8 stress reducing techniques.
Stress is part of daily life for most people. Many times stress is felt in a specific part of the body during stressful situations. A lot of people feel that stress in their jaw and clench their jaw while under stress. Jaw clenching is often referred to as teeth grinding or bruxism.
Jaw clenching can lead to complications, which leads many to wonder how to stop clenching your jaw from stress.
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What is Jaw Clenching?
Jaw muscles are connected to the head, which is connected to the spine. When a person clenches their jaw, the muscles and ligaments connected to the jawbone are put under strain. This can cause headaches, neck pain, and shoulder pain.
There are numerous muscles in the face that aid in communication and emotional expression. When a person clenches their jaw, the muscles in their face become tight and painful, making it difficult to eat, speak, or smile.
Jaw discomfort can be caused by a variety of circumstances. Untreated clenching or grinding of the teeth or jaw can result in severe cases like tooth crown grinding. The crown of a tooth grinds against the inside of the jawbone as a result of this disease. It can also cause bone bruising that lingers for several weeks or months. The consequence? A bruised, painful, and occasionally fractured or broken bone.
What Complications Can Occur from Frequent Jaw Clenching?
Breathing difficulty/respiratory issues
When you clench your jaw, you also put pressure on your temporomandibular joint (TMJ), which can lead to the joint being pushed out of place and can put pressure on the nerves in the jaw, as well as the surrounding muscles and ligaments. This can lead to sleep disorders, as well as many other respiratory issues, including snoring, sleep disruption, and difficulty breathing with exercise.
Neck Pain
One of the most common complications from jaw clenching is neck pain, like TMJD (temporomandibular joint disorders), headaches, and shoulder pain. When you clench your jaw often, you put pressure on your jaw joint and neck muscles, which can cause muscle tension and jaw tightness, as well as headaches and shoulder pain.
If jaw clenching is causing you neck pain, while working to get to the root of the problem, seeing a physical therapist or receiving regular neck massages may be option to help cope with the discomfort.
Dental health deterioration
When you clench your teeth, you’re placing additional pressure on the gums and teeth, which can cause gum inflammation, gum disease, loss of teeth and general tooth damage. Teeth clenching can cause your jaw muscles to expand, which pushes your teeth against your gums.
What Causes Jaw Clenching?
Anxiety and stress – When people experience anxiety and stress. They may clench their jaw; this is because stress can cause the body to release hormones that cause muscles to stiffen.
Bruxism – The condition of grinding or clenching your teeth is referred to as bruxism. One of the most prevalent signs of bruxism is tooth grinding or clenching. This can result in a variety of problems, such as tooth loss, dental sensitivity, and jaw pain. Other symptoms include jaw pain, stiffness, and muscular spasms in the jaw.
TMJ Disorders – Temporomandibular joints (TMJs) allow you to open and close your mouth and connects your jawbone to your skull. TMJ disorders can cause some patients to clench their jaws, grind their teeth and limit their range of motion. Medications such as muscle relaxants can be prescribed by a doctor if over the counter pain medications or natural remedies don’t help.
What is bruxism?
If you grind your teeth on a daily basis, you may develop bruxism. It can harm your jaw muscles, teeth, and temporomandibular joints (TMJs), which allow you to open and close your mouth and connect your jawbone to your skull.
Symptoms of bruxism include excessive jaw clenching, teeth grinding under stress or when sleeping, and even automatic biting while sleeping. Commonly referred to awake bruxism (or daytime bruxism) while clenching during the day and sleep bruxism if you regularly clench/grind your teeth while sleeping.
If you frequently wake up with a sore or tight jaw caused by grinding teeth, see a doctor or healthcare provider to ensure that nothing is wrong. If sleep bruxism is an issue, a custom mouth guard may be given and can be used to position your lower jaw forward while you sleep to help limit the teeth grinding.
Why Does Stress Cause Jaw Clenching?
Studies show that stress is the most commonly cited trigger of clenching habits among people with jaw pain or temporomandibular disorder (TMD).
Stress is a normal response to everyday demands and pressures. It can help us meet challenging situations, focus our attention, and remember important things. But when stress continues for too long or is unrelenting, the human body cannot cope.
A stressful situation activates a fight-or-flight response in our bodies: the nervous system releases stress hormones, which signal the brain to release more adrenaline into the bloodstream. These stress responses make us ready to react quickly if we see a potential threat in front of us (fight) or need to escape from it (flight).
Stress can lead to serious health problems, including chronic conditions like heart disease, hypertension and arthritis as well as anxiety and depression.
How To Stop Jaw Clenching from Stress
Assuming you don’t have an underlying condition, like obstructive sleep apnea, causing bruxism, reducing stress is the best treatment to stop clenching your jaw and a great place to start. Here are eight techniques to teach you how to stop clenching your jaw from stress by reducing stress.
- Identify the thing causing you stress – To deal with stress effectively and to avoid jaw clenching, you must first understand what is causing you stress and which strategy works best for you. Practicing relaxation techniques as part of stress management is a natural way to provide relief.
- Remove yourself from the stressful situation – This may not always be possible, but if you can, it will help reduce your stress levels and help prevent you from clenching your jaw.
- Get out in nature – One of the best ways to reduce stress (and therefore stop jaw clenching) is to get out in nature. Spend some time walking in the park, sitting by a lake, or just enjoying the fresh air. Regularly being in nature, even your back yard, can reduce the stress and tension that leads to jaw clenching. Add a walk outside to your daily routine to reduce stress levels.
- Practice breathing deep and slow breaths – Slow, deep breathing is one technique for reducing jaw clenching. This could include yoga, meditation, or deep breathing exercises. That will help you to relax the muscles in your face and jaw, and can also help to reduce stress.
- Focus on one thing happening with each of your five senses – Stop for one minute to feel the warmth of the sun on your skin, smell the fragrance of the flowers, hear the birds singing, see the blue of the sky, and taste the sweetness of your morning tea. This will bring you into the present moment and help you relax and stop clenching your jaw.
- Regularly move your body – Getting regular exercise, or even a ten minute walk every day can help improve the way your body responds to stress. Even a time out from a stressful situation to take a short walk can be helpful.
- Take time for self-care – We hear a lot about self-care and while many times it’s exaggerated, self-care is crucial and important in relieving stress. Take time for a warm bath, sitting quiet, reading a book or doing activities that make you feel good. Regular self-care will reduce stress.
- Set boundaries – You may not realize how much you are suffering from chronic stress as a result of allowing others to steamroll over you. Often times our most stressful situations are a result of our boundaries being crossed. And it’s our most stressful situations which cause the most jaw clenching. While setting boundaries can be one of the most challenging things to do, it’s one of the most impactful in reducing stress.
Bottom Line
Reducing stress is an important factor when trying to stop clenching your jaw from stress. In order to avoid long-term damage from jaw clenching, it’s best to focus in on your biggest stressors in order to reduce the clenching caused by stress. The more you clench your jaw from stress, the more damage is done to your teeth and gums.
Take Action
If your jaw clenching is a problem causing you regular pain and/or a sore jaw, it’s best to see a doctor. If you are regularly clenching your jaw from stress and trying to break the habit, a great place to start is by reducing your stress. See the eight ideas listed above for reducing stress and check out How to Reduce Stress with Mindfulness and Meditation.
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